How’s this for a dramatic first paragraph? The Washington Post describe a Conga line of mayors, legislators, assorted bureaucrats and men of the cloth from the New Jersey area all heading for the courthouse.
NEW YORK, July 23 — A two-year federal probe into a money laundering operation taking place between the New York area and Israel ballooned into one of the biggest bribery and corruption sweeps in New Jersey history, netting three northern New Jersey mayors, two members of the New Jersey Legislature, a raft of local officials, five rabbis, and a Brooklyn man accused of trafficking in human kidneys, U.S. prosecutors said today. …
A Brooklyn man, Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, known in his circles as “the kidney salesman,” was also arrested as part of the sweep and charged with enticing vulnerable people in Israel to sell one of their kidneys for $10,000, and then charging waiting transplant patients in this country up to $160,000. He admitted brokering kidney sales for a decade, federal prosecutors said in the complaint.
One of the attractions of being in the underworld is that you get to choose a cool moniker, like Mumbles, Two-Shoes and the “Kidney Salesman”. It beats being plain old Hank. And a lot of interesting guys were on display. The Washington Post describes what the FBI found under one rock.
According to a release describing the operation, an FBI informant in 2007 began helping agents uncover a money laundering operation between New Jersey, New York and Israel. According to the complaint, the rabbis used registered charities linked to their synagogues to launder money from illegal goods, such as counterfeit handbags. The person wishing to “wash” illicit proceeds would write a check to the charity, then receive cash — minus a handling fee of 5 to 10 percent kept by the rabbis. … The informant pretended to be a developer interested in building high-rises, but who needed expedited permits and approvals. The complaint says Khalil made the introductions to people he called “players” in restaurants around New Jersey, and the informant would then pass envelopes stuffed with cash in the parking lots afterward. The amounts were usually in the range of $10,000 to $15,000, going to housing inspectors, planning officials, health department workers and politicians.
Prosecutors said much of the money was being solicited for the closely contested election campaigns for city council and mayor earlier this year in Hoboken and Jersey City.
So is corruption of this magnitude an isolated incident? Or is it part of a phenomenon people need to be concerned about? Fred Siegel, writing in the City Journal, argues that these kinds of shenanigans were precisely the things the architects of the Constitution worried would undo the Republic. In an article titled Madison’s Nightmare, he noted Madison warned against the emergence of a permanent political class who in time would become robber barons in their own, with their own retinue of crooks, armies of enforcers, and legions of publicists and pitch-men. That would inevitably occur, Madison believed, when there was only one boss left on the block.
James Madison’s Federalist No. 10, the template of the American political system, warned the “People of the State of New York” about the “violence of faction”—the seizing of government control by powerful special interests hostile to the “permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Madison understood that “liberty is to faction as air is to fire,” so interest groups could never be eliminated without stamping out freedom itself. But if factions were sufficiently numerous and diverse, he argued, narrow interest would clash with narrow interest, with none gaining the upper hand, and the broader public interest—and republican government—would be protected from oppression.
Siegel believes that New York — admittedly a different state from New Jersey — was more dynamic when the political ecosystem was more diverse. Now it is completely overrun by a single noxious growth which stands unchallenged and unremovable from public office. And in that kind of atmosphere there is the tendency to conclude that You Can’t Fight City Hall.
It wasn’t always like this. Fifty years ago, New York’s economic interests were far more varied, producing a more diversified, Madisonian politics. True, Gotham was the New Deal city, confident that government had an answer to every social problem. Democrats long ruled its politics. But the Democrats of Tammany Hall still represented a variety of interests and could sometimes lose elections, as when they were defeated by Fiorello La Guardia in 1933. This state of affairs lasted until the sixties, when the public-employee unions replaced Tammany as the basis of the Democratic Party, withering the city’s political culture. …
Political parties have also become increasingly irrelevant in post-Madisonian New York. The Democratic Party today is less influential than the public-sector unions. … As for the Republicans, corruption scandals in their former stronghold of Nassau County, the declining upstate population, and a statewide outmigration of the middle class have left the GOP a shell of a party, as beholden to the special interests as the Democrats.
The problem in such cases is to find a way out. Back in school many of us may have come across the idea of an absorbing Markov state. “An absorbing state of a Markov chain is a state such that once entered, the process never leaves. A state i is an absorbing state if and only if Pii = 1 (and thus all of the the other Pij = 0).” It is the Hotel California of mathematical objects. You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave. And while the FBI is to be commended for arresting these suspected crooks in New Jersey, it is like shoveling s**t against the tide. The only lasting way to prevent corruption from becoming runaway and chronic is to revisit James Madison’s original concern: how to re-architecture politics in order to prevent the emergence of an absorbing Markov state. There might be a debate about the best answer, but I think there can be little doubt about the validity of the question.
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So, this mayor, organ trafficker, and rabbi walk into a bar…
At a recent picnic, I heard the phrase “time for another Revolution” spoken several times, and from normally amiable, non-political mouths. This anger brewing may be the big shovel that throws back that tide of sh*t, at least temporarily.
As for “re-architectur[ing] politics,” that’s above my pay grade, but I do feel the movement gathering around Sarah Palin, whether she’s “fit” or not, whether she’s the ultimate beneficiary of the movement or not, may be the best hope of returning accountability to government.
That old tree of liberty is looking mighty parched.
For 200 years it has been a given that we should expand the electoral franchise. As New York Governor Al Smith said “The cure for the evils of Democracy is more Democracy.” We now need to ask if we have passed the reductio ad absurdum of that principal. Personally I could support an Amendment that stated that no person may vote in any election either state or federal if the majority of their income is derived from that level of government. This determination of this disability however shall not consider income obtained from any service as an enlisted member of the Armed Forces or from service as an officer in the Armed forces called to active duty for training or during hostilities.
How many people are willing to stand up and be counted? Consider that it is thought to be a HIGH turnout in a US election if only 60% of eligible voters actually cast a ballot.
How can we, or even the FBI, investigate the corruption that will probably present itself in the 2010 census (ACORN as head-counters?), the basis for not only representation in the US Congress, but also for parcelling out all federal outlays to the states and local govenments.
I guess the biggest question on my mind is, when will the tipping point be reached? And what event will so outrage the majority of the US population that it will scream, “Enough!”
In four decades of adulthood, the least corrupt place I have resided was a small town in the mountains of Southeastern Brazil. It was settled by Italians from Lombardy in the 1870’s. Most men had a handgun either under their shirt or in the car glove compartment. Cut timber on someone else’s land or seduce their daughter and lex talionis would be applied swiftly. It was a very polite and tranquil place, except occasionally.
When the state arrogates all enforcement of justice to itself, it is simply too inefficient to handle the volume of wrongdoing. Couple this with the fact that the average American, supported over the past sixty years by the fossil fuel energy subsidy, believes that easy living is guaranteed and therefore she has little at stake in maintaining honest government. So she will not put any effort in the trenches of supervising local government. I have experienced this aspect first hand in an unsuccessful attempt to get a local neighborhood association to use available local codes to control abusive landlords. Basically the NA would not put forward sufficient effort in to deal with the problem although they formed their group to combat just this neighborhood bane. I don’t believe the typical flaccid American will be concerned about society having entered a Markovian absorber until a reduction of their energy subsidy makes many of the anti-social acts of others seem much more crucial to their well-being.
Which will be a worse society to live in: One where “unlimited” renewable energy eliminates virtually all incentive for public control of the government, or one functioning under lex talionis because without a huge energy subsidy every little detail of life matters a lot?
Disenfranchisement by income level would be too weak for the effort involved in passing a constitutional ammendment. I would like to see all unionized government employees disenfranchised.
No wonder they have so many of those great roadside diners in New Jersey. I have often wondered about that. It is just about the nicest thing about a place where nice things make a very short list indeed. They need those diners as meeting places for all the illegal deals to get done.
Hillary Clinton got involved in something similar to this in New York. A group of Hassdic Jews were involved in defrauding the government and she arranged for pardons from Bill in return for their delivering the votes.
Anyone ever read of an incident that happened in a small town in Tennessee in the late 1940’s? The good ole boy network ran the place, with the sheriff as the ringleader. Then the troops came home from the war. They were combat vets who were not afraid of anyone any more. They broke into the local armory, armed themselves with the same kind of weapons they had just used to save western civilization, and tossed the sheriff and his cronies in jail.
RWE
The town you refer to is Athens, TN. The name seems appropriate, especially given that the firefight started over a stolen county election. See “Battle of Athens (1946)” at Wikipedia.
Very thought provoking. Need more coffee. Thanks Wretch.
All government is corrupt, from top to bottom. In the U.S., local government everywhere is brazenly, unabashedly corrupt. This condition cannot be changed, so get used to it.
Nice to see BelmontClub up on his Markov chains. For the uninitiated: Pij = probability that the process, being in state i, will, on the next move, go to state j. (Sometimes the notation is reversed: prob of going to i from j.) Thus Pii = probability of staying put (going from state i to state i). If Pii = 1, the process is stuck in state i forever.
“I do feel the movement gathering around Sarah Palin”
Let us not hastily substitute a messiah for a madonna.
If this is going to be a peaceful revolution it is to be a peoples revolution. Obama became the personification of the current movement to “transform” America and the tide of sentiment followed with him, a symbol, an empty vessel in which one’s hope could be entrusted. The financial “crisis” has made Obama’s leftists vision more bold because he had been preapproved by the public to do his best. But as soon as his actual policies were fleshed out his true face emerged and now to some a Frankenstine is staring back from the mirror. Let our new leaders, and we need lots of them, from city counsels to the highest offices in the land, say humbly, that they represent the interests of the people, and those interests are best served by our founding documents and enshrined in the Consitution of the United States of America.
Tip of the iceberg, I’d bet.
I’d like to open the hood on NY State and NYC politics. Now that would be a show. Putin and Chavez would be taking notes.
ridgerunner: What “energy subsidy” are you referring to?
Hopeless: I think what you mean is the potentiality for government is high. Anarchy is worse. Because there is corrupt government does not mean that we should not have an expectation that government will not be corrupt nor take steps to make this so. It is an imperfect world, but this does not mean that we should abandon ideals, morality and decency (or hope).
This is the human challenge.
Waiting for the majority to effect a revolution, peaceful or otherwise, is like waiting for Godot.
oh and Siegel is right about NYC and W is right about Markov chains.
@Ridge #5: “the average American…believes that easy living is guaranteed and therefore she has little at stake in maintaining honest government. So she will not put any effort in the trenches of supervising local government.”
This comment inspired me. I’m working overseas right now but when I return, whether in 3 years or ten or more, I’m going to run for some elected office, a local office. I’ll start anywhere above dog-catcher.
An email making the rounds since Obama’s election counts various aspects of electoral precincts that voted for McCain vs those that voted for Obama: number of crimes per 100,000, number of welfare recipients, etc. Interesting juxtaposition of blue state/red state demographics, and I wager if one were to add to the list the number of cities with permanent Democratic mayors/city councils who are under FBI investigation, the list would just continue unchanged. It really is time for a revolution. F
Of the nearly 30 politicos arrested, all but one were Democrats. I know this is hard to believe, but most news reports ignore this fact. Driving home yesterday, I heard this on the radio and they said “Mayor this and assembly that and Republican this…” The only one labeled by party was the Republican.
Corruption among Democrats is so deep it staggers the mind. Yet Republicans can’t capitalize on it because they’ve got enough corruption of their own, and they know whose ox gets gored when scandals come to light,and how differently R and D corruption is treated. The MSM is like the big, tough mob guy that comes up to you at the bar and tells you he knows where you live and where your kids go to school, so maybe you shouldn’t testify at that trial. Republicans have been, for the most part, effectively silenced by this.
Mongoose,
The energy subsidy is the amount of work that is done on behalf of the average American by machines that are powered by fossil fuels, either directly or through electricity generated from fossil fuels. Researchers on the topic estimate that, per day, this work is the equivalent to what could, in the absence of fossil fuels, be provided by over 400 human beings working hard for 8 hours a day. Of course, human power could never directly move anyone along at 60 mph, but the 2009 American life style is supported by fossil fuels that are the equivalent of having 400 “energy slaves.”
I’ve done some unnecessary manual labor that makes me keenly aware of how physically tough it is to accomplish anything without a fossil energy subsidy. One summer thirty years ago, my wife and I built a two-story concrete block building in the wilds of Mississippi using neither power tools nor power. The blocks and the concrete of course were made via fossil fuel energy, but we hand-mixed all the mortar and the concrete to fill the cores. I carried the water up in buckets from a stream below the building site. We drilled holes in timbers with a hand auger. As I said, it was unneccessary work. We could have paid someone to do it, or drilled a well, or bought a powered concrete mixer. When we couldn’t take the perpetual sweating anymore, we’d drive twenty miles and have hamburgers and cold drinks at Sonic. That was about every fifth day. Anyway, although we always had our escape clause, what we experienced was instructive regarding what it is like to live without energy slaves.
Perhaps peak oil will not be the disaster that some expect, but if it is then Joe Six-pack will probably get more interested in civic matters just to protect his diminishing stake.
“like shoveling s**t against the tide” or shoveling acorns with a pitchfork. You dont move the objects you merely agitate them a bit. Team 04 had a decent lawyer with a good practical understanding of the US Constitution as team lead, 44, not so much.
starling, I will gladly contribute to your campaign. The sooner you return the greater the contribution.
it’s not that the democrats are corrupt, it’s that the corrupt are democrats. a fine distinction but a real one.
me too, starling –keep us apprised. Buzz, ‘like digging a hole in water’.
ridgerunner, i’ve done things sorta like that, too –just for the challenge. But never past around age 25 or so. after that, no, please, no.
I had been bothered by Madison’s aversion to “factions” until I figured out he was talking about narrow interests, such as what FDR used to build the modern Dem party from in the 30′s. You got your unions, your ethnic groups, your poor, and so on, all of whom have an itch the Govt can scratch. Makes for a bigger government. Bigger Govt leads to rent seeking (Imelt, call your office) leads to more government and the downward spiral begins.
What is happening in NJ is simply rent seeking by public employees. The developers are looking to build their wealth and cant do it without the cooperation of the planners, inspectors, approvers and factotums. So the PIAF’s seek their rent from the developers. I think its probably worse in those states in Yurp where life has become so terribly circumscribed by regulation. I really believe that this sort of rent seeking is an inevitable result of too much government.
Just a data point for observation:
Several years ago, when I decided to get out of Dodge (er, California), I applied for a few jobs at DoD. Back then, the # of open positions in federal jobs listed on the usajobs.opm.gov website was fixed at between 12,000 – 16,000. This number stayed within that range for the better part of 2 years (mid-2002 through early 2004).
Today’s #: 33,426.
D.C. is quite the boomtown these days.
Ridgerunner:
Thanks for the info. I would like to look that up again. Back around 1987 I was browsing through a small branch library in Lompoc, CA and somehow stumbled onto that incident. I think it was in some American Heritage books. I was amazed that I had never heard of it, but given the good‘ol boy situation I grew up with in SC maybe that is not surprising.
ridgerunner, I was about to jump on “energy subsidy”, highly energetically! The connotation is not what you explain that you intend. Using mechanical energy instead of human power is just progress, and that is a good thing (unless you want us back in the Stone Age).
Public employee unions are breaking California, and wreaking havoc throughout the economy. I am old enough to remember when such unions were illegal! Does anybody remember who the genius was who let this monster loose?
ridgerunner: I hardly see how that is a subsidy. Is using a lever or a plow a subsidy? Is using calculus a subsidy? I think “advantage” may be the word your are looking for. But this energy usage is not a subsidy. A subsidy is a payment, generally made by government, to the receiver of the subsidy to offset the cost of what is being subsidized. People pay for gasoline. If they earn that money honorably, there is no subsidy. That is what economics and commerce (and progress and civilization) are all about.
Some people make shirts for a living and some refine gasoline. Through a market they sell and purchase goods and services. No subsidy here, and nothing to be ashamed of. You make is sound like there is something decadent or underhanded going on in using the fruits of civilized progress. This is not the case.
If you point is that people do not appreciate the material progress of civilization, or certain professions do not lead to physical robustness, well this is rather stating the obvious is it not? These things are not difficult to grasp or turn around, and in any event, one imagines that these faults has been a constant throughout history.
The town you refer to is Athens, TN. The name seems appropriate, especially given that the firefight started over a stolen county election. See “Battle of Athens (1946)” at Wikipedia.
This incident was also the inspiration for a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, “An American Story,” back in the early ’90s. Unfortunately I remember not liking the movie at all and thinking it was pretty subpar for the standard HHOF ususally set for itself. They way overdid the Norman Rockwell as only coastal yuppies can, on the one hand, and then things devolved into a mindless shoot-em-up at the end.
And though I did not, at the time, know anything about the Athens, TN incident, the movie managed to telegraph the plot way in advance and destroy all suspense. Like when all the veteran characters are being introduced in the first act, and one of the guys says to the others, “I was in demolitions …” — gee, ya think something’s gonna go BOOM before the final curtain?
So if you run across this movie during your research, RWE, I wouldn’t recommend it.
As I was driving this morning, I too wondered about the legislation that first allowed collective bargaining for civil servants here in California. It has made a motivated class of people who find it worthwhile to oppose the interests of the other people of the state.
It would seem to me that a state could by legislative action ban such unions. Federal law could attempt to intercede but would have the exceedingly loose view of the Commerce Clause to contend with.
I’m still pissed with Scalia on his vote on Raisch.
ridgerunner:
What Mongoose said @ 26.
“Energy slaves” is also a weird way to describe power tools and the power that runs them. Especially since we are talking about inanimate objects. What, by using power tools human beings are “enslaving” metal and carbon-based molecules? If that is “enslavement,” and a moral value is being applied to the equation (as the entire context of your comment suggests), then what non-hyperbolic room is left to apply a moral value to the term “enslavement” when it applies to one human being stripping the freedom from another and exploiting the labor of the non-free person?
I’m trying to figure out what your “fix” is to what you apparently see as a problem.
here’s another one few’ve heard of; the Battle of Blair Mountain.
California has been the USA trend-setter for decades. Maybe now’s the time for a March On Sacramento. Organize to have 500 or 1000 people sitting in the statehouse doorways from now ’til the state does what it did after Blair Mountain –legislation to solve an emergency.
the cry: “Ban the public employee unions!”
They’re an un-natural beast to begin with –collective bargaining with the citizens, f’r cryin’ out loud?
Start the ball rollin’, Californy!
Maybe what ridgerunners “subsidy” is meant to convey is that if oil reserves are finite and that the “peak oil” theory (the one that says we’re about to run out), then we are living on borrowed time so to speak and things are going to get real bad real quick. Our lifestyles have been subsidized by the availability of cheap oil and that bubble is soon to burst.
If it is true we should start drilling.
annoy: Well then this is still a misuse of the term. Peak oil has been pretty much debunked BTW, but certainly we should start drilling.
Although I said in a different thread that I am a big booster of Pittsburgh, I will also add that our local politics is FUBAR. It is essentially a one-party state (guess which one??), and as a result it exhibits all the ill effects you would expect from prolonged Democratic big-government (mis)management:
– gross overadministration (too many layers of local government)
– anti-business climate (too many taxes and regulations)
– a shrinking tax base in Allegheny County, as workers and younger families move to the outlying counties with lower taxes … leaving a growing proportion of tax-eaters (in our case, lots of seniors) to compete for social services and other public outlays
– unions, unions, unions
Part of the problem is the electorate itself. Due to the steel industry and manufacturing roots, the union legacy here is very strong. I think Allegheny County has a voter registration ratio of 5:1 in favor of the Dems. This goes some way toward explaining why we haven’t had a Republican mayor since 1933. (That, and the corruption indictments of the last guys who were Republican mayors!)
So the practical effect is that the GOP is non-competitive in Allegheny County politics, and therefore you do not get a true marketplace of ideas with two viable candidates arguing their differing cases of how the government should be run. When it comes to general election time, there is always only one viable candidate. Everyone knows it. And hardly anybody seems to be bothered by it. Not bothered enough to change things, at any rate. And so, election after election, “big government” versus “massive government” is pretty much the only choice we get.
The real nutter is that these same Dem-union legacy voters are also for the most part social conservatives.
What’s that definition of insanity again?
(too many layers of local government) sez BW/33. How ’bout 32? Yes, some federal bureaucracies have t*h*i*r*t*y t*w*o levels of organization.
One wonders if, after say 18 or 22 or 26, they didn’t all just start giggling and contrive to see just how Krazy they could get before they ran slap out of doors to paint titles on.
It’s like a thousand HP internal combustion engine that needs 999.9 HP to run the cylinders –so that one could reach out and stop the shaft with just a thumb and forefinger.
buddy –
The job titles must get very interesting.
First Assistant to the Deputy Vice-Director, Department of …
Sheesh.
I sent my sinuses to Arizona
I sent my liver to Peru
I sent my lungs and my kidney
To someone in Sydney
But I’m sending my love to you!
– George Carlin
weSwinger and Whitehall:
Someone in a previous thread had mentioned Stephen Malanga’s article in City-Journal, “The Real Engine of Blue America.” It addresses the issue of public-employee unions and their outsized (and destructive) influence on contemporary politics.
CJ has a NYC focus, but Malanga does mention the spread of the disease to parts of the nation other than Gotham. But essentially it was a stupid pol looking to suck up votes who granted hitherto illegal collective bargaining powers to public employees.
From Malanga:
For years, government employees had no right to organize, on the grounds that there was no competition in the delivery of essential government services and that therefore public unions could hold cities and states hostage by going on strike. Even some private-sector union leaders questioned the wisdom of letting public-sector workers organize and giving them the right to strike. But that began to change in the mid-1950s, when the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) began lobbying for the right of local workers to organize and bargain collectively. The organization scored its first major victory in 1958, when it persuaded New York City mayor Robert Wagner, looking to strengthen his union support, to give municipal workers collective bargaining rights. Over the next several years, other states and cities, especially those with strong union movements, also passed laws allowing public employees to unionize. Buoyed by these victories, AFSCME’s membership rose from 100,000 in 1955 to 250,000 by 1965 and to more than 1 million by 1985.
Other government-employee organizations followed AFSCME’s lead. In 1960 the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) set out to win collective bargaining rights for U.S. teachers, using Mayor Wagner and labor-friendly New York as a test case. Though New York’s first teachers’ walkout, in November 1960, had little public support, the union movement gained adherents among teachers nationwide, so that over the next five years there were 36 strikes against municipal school systems. In 1966 alone, another three dozen strikes occurred, as teacher militancy rose in places like Newark, Baltimore, and Youngstown, Ohio. Meanwhile, membership in the AFT more than doubled to 136,000 from 1960 through 1966.
In retrospect, most of the warnings voiced in those tumultuous years proved accurate. Political leaders and labor experts predicted that government-employee unions would use their monopoly power over public services to win contracts with work rules far more generous and undemanding than in the private sector, and that without the restraints on salaries and benefits that the free marketplace imposes on private firms, unions would win increasingly meaty compensation and pension packages that would be impossible to roll back once enacted.
Additionally, those “meaty compension and pension packages” are far, far better than just about anything available in the private sector, to anyone below CEO level.
Here in Pittsburgh, Port Authority has been a constant thorn in the public’s side for years. PAT is constantly losing money and every couple years the transit workers threaten to strike. Due to distinct geological constraints (our downtown is sandwiched between rivers, and therefore there is literally no land to expand upon even if we wanted to), there are just 14,000 downtown parking spaces for something like 125,000 workers. Yet even given those magnificent odds in their favor, PAT still manages to bungle things through a combination of shoddy service, egg-headed concessions to labor, and completely unrealistic pension packages. But because they are the only game in town (actually, Allegheny County), they get to hold a gun to the public’s head on a regular basis.
As I regularly tell people on my bus route, on which our buses are constantly overfilled, “When you can’t make a profit at 120% capacity, there’s something wrong with your business model.”
But I guess I have to rethink my wording there. Actually, PAT’s “model” works quite well for those for whom it was designed. It’s just that efficiently getting commuters to and from downtown is not the design, and the general public is not the consituency it is designed serve.
I just flew back from Washington DC yesterday, and our flight was facing lengthy delay primarily due to Cleveland airport closure for Obama’s clinic visit. The majority of passengers were loudly opset that Obama was making us late, with the point being repeadly made that his trip was all about pushing bad programs, namely health care. Even the old ladies were cursing Obama’s name. The revolution is brewing…
Related: One passenger worked for Medicaid, and seemed the most upset. “Health care legislation is a huge scam,” he said. “I deal in loss prevention, and we only investigate if the dollar amount exceeds $1 billion”. Nothing in the new plan will change the corruption of the system. He continued to say, that if you want to make $50 million, scam Medicare. They won’t even investigate, as that sum in too small to bother with.
WeSwinger (#25) asked:
Does anybody remember who the genius was who let this monster [public employee unions] loose?
I believe it started in New York City in the late fifties and early sixties.
Starling: I’ll contribute, too!
Wretchard’s absorbing Markov state, P(i,i) = 1, P(i,j) = 0, i ≠ j, brings back fond memories of the Kronecker δ [http://tinyurl.com/22pghe]…
Jamie Irons
Buddy,
the heads of the agencies are paid according to the number of persons who report to them. So unlike a corporate merger where the non performers are sold off or retooled, the incentive is for the bureaucrat to keep the bad on the payroll while adding the good. The really bad performers are shunted to other jobs within the bureau, or a whole program can be re named and shuttled to a different tributary chain of command within the same Bureau.
It is a marvel all its own, a living breathing monster octopus. Gorges on everything its tentacles can sucker in and spews out gallons of ink whenever challenged as a screen.
There is NO incentive to improve or shrink.
My structuring the franchise limitation to compensation and not to union membership is designed to address some of the loopholes that would inevitably arise with a narrower definition. Inevitably if the restriction was worded to narrowly a host of evasions would arise. For example I could anticipate the creation of “contracted service providers” that would be funded from the public treasury but which on paper would be separate or even private agencies. The wording of the Amendment would have to make clear that if your income arises from the distribution of wealth collected using the tax authority, which rests in itself on the coercive potential of the police power, at either the State (which includes all subsidiaries in America) or Federal government then you do not get to vote at that level. The efforts to frustrate such a restriction will probably get complex, with entities set up funded 45% by the state and 45% by the national purse, with the balance filled by “user fees” or foundation grants. The practice of lobbying or supporting lobbying by any entity or person not entitled to vote should be firmly suppressed.
wade, i guess it’s best seen as a jobs program. After all, the wasted money at least gets rolled over into the consumption economy. maybe the waste measure is how much of the tax money that feeds it could be better employed –for the economy that is, i dasn’t go to individuals here –otherwise.
OT but noteworthy. Trouble brewing within Team 44. Seems Rahm is not happy with Hillary promoting Democracy and consulting with her husband. Read all about it in the LAT.
This is where some people start talking about campaign finance reform. We need to publicly fund campaigns or otherwise restrict (or more appropriately further restrict) campaign financing or expand (or more appropriately further expand) campaign financing. All any of that does is murky the waters even more. The good will attempt to play along get caught by an obscure provision and be painted as evil incarnate. The evil will find loopholes or out & out not adhere to the regulations and most likely will avoid any penalty.
In the Godfather when the corrupt cop and the slick guy get gunned down by Michael one of the pieces of the plan was to pay off media personal to report (in this case accurately) the cop was on the take so as to blunt the bad PR of killing a cop would have (perhaps Michael should have called him a racist). This is apparently what we have now.
One woman I know who has run for congress (she did not get past her primary opponent who had national party support) as a Republican describes the political parties and the way things are done in a such a way the book The Firm comes to mind. Essentially, you get into office, the party apparatus then finds something to extort you with and if you play along you can rise high or else. I resist that cynical view, but given this story and the fact the GOP can not capitalize on such stories due to their own problems turns that cynic song into a siren song.
I am not certain what can be done to fix that without trampling on individual liberty. I think at that state & national level the best we can hope for is a number of years of dominance by one crime family and then the other crime family takes over for a time — thereby evening things out.
On the local level though, politics is very personal and if people want to be able to look each other in the eye they need to be honest.
Seems Napoleon tested that jobs program theory retreating from mother Russia, and got about the same result in a different, sort of, way.
Teenagers have a similar appetite but the difference lies in the hope they will change naturally and eventually not require so many calories to feed the change, and while it is a stretch some even eventually contribute to there own feeding or assume the task entirely, leaving their parents to restock and replenish their stores.
I envision no growing up of the Union/Bureaucrat. I anticipate no seed for planting, no fertile soil to plant in and no available muscle to plow, much less to plant as the bummers have eaten the geese and the goats shorn the sheep bagged the chickens and are pulling the tools the furniture and even the symphonium with traces filled with the milkers and a mule.
It isn’t so much the amount of the waste even as it is the lack of equilibrium.
I will grant consideration of the jobs program, but would not consider that a well thought out jobs plan.
Mongoose and Bogie
Regarding the terminology of the non-recurring energy supply for human society: Except for chemosynthetic bacteria, the activities of every species on earth are funded (intentional usage) by photons from the Sun. In animals, this solar energy is mediated through plants over a relatively short period of time (weeks for your garden or years for your or the termites’ wood). Only our species extracts hydrocarbons (stored for millions of years) to fund its activities. The word “subsidy” does not imply that the energy from hydrocarbons is unearned; rather it is used in the sense of these synonyms from Webster’s Unabridged: bonus, allowance. Hydrocarbons are a bonus of energy above the plant-mediated renewable supply that sustained humans until coal began to be mined. That bonus is what makes the difference in life style between the average American of 1859 and of today. Is this concept really so opaque? Is it really so hard to suspect that the fossil fuel supply is finite? For anyone with an open mind, take a look at http://www.theoildrum.com/. You need not buy into the doomer commentary in the threads.
Regarding the term “energy slaves,” it is a means to try to get folks to think about the subsidy. Do you not find it a little bit startling that you and I and every mother’s son in this country are benefiting from an amount of work which if done by hand would require more than 400 human beings to do it for each of us? I am not bemoaning our success. I am simply pointing out that a small reduction in our energy subsidy could have major societal consequences, some favorable, some not.
I’m not a “doomer” in the fundamental sense. Per unit time, the Earth receives 10,000 times more energy from the Sun than humans currently use from fossil fuels. So it would be relatively easy to power electrical generation with solar input and to replace fossil fuel usage with electricity. What makes me pessimistic is the widespread ignorance of source of our ease.
Barack Hussein Nifong.
Hey, sorry strike my link up thread #42. Neo-neocon pointed out to me on her blog that the article is a fake.
ridge 45, all energy is “star” power more or less concentrated. It seems your preferred Sol – photon variety is the most diffuse of all. You are welcome to it. At this time, unless you live in the enlightened (sic) land of France, most of your electricity is “fossil” fuel fired; coal or natural gas, some nuclear. The latter being the most concentrated “star” power of all, which our suave French friends burn with nary a frisson of hysteria. Maybe we will run low on “fossil” fuels someday in the far or near future, but at that point we will have developed nuclear and perhaps some nano-quanta-energy source which will supplant all of that. In the meantime, we here shall remain dignified: no Turkey Lurkey and Henny Penny squawking about a falling sky.
FN: on “fossil” fuel. Methane, CH₄, natural gas, is one of the most common elements in the universe, after hydrogen and helium. Must be a lot greenhouse gas out there. . . Read Thomas Gold. . .
34. buddy larsen:
“…before they ran slap out of doors to paint titles on.”
When I lived in Montgomery, AL, I used to have a friend who lived about 20 or so miles up north of the city and she (and everyone) referred to the town she lived in as “Slap out” because it was so far from “civilization.” I believe it was up around Jordan Lake on one of the western arms, ‘cause we used to go water skiing up yonder. Funny thing…I don’t remember the town.
Anyway, it brought back good memories and your use tickled me, buddy…
One other thing more on topic is that when I ran in that church singles’ group, our activities were always focused on wholesome endeavors. We all ran as a “herd” from which dating pairs cropped up occasionally, but generally we were all just friends; very good friends, in fact. And notwithstanding our “boring” list of activities, such as going out to eat together, having weekend activities, both private and church-oriented, we generally had a great deal of fun, helped each other when difficulties arose, and never plotted nefarious activities that would mean the destruction of another human being’s life in order to raise up ourselves. In short, it harkened back to when towns and communities helped each other (barn raisin’) and even though there were the occasional misfits in the group, folks still valued the concept of “goodwill toward men” and the wholesome message that came from the pulpit.
Of course, all of us in that group had to cope with selfishness and our own ego needs, but we used constructive avenues to accomplish those in healthy ways: run in a 10K every other weekend (to crush your enemies, but employ sportsmanship) or play on the church intramural softball team for your ego stroke. To show what a superior intellect one was, one could study the scriptures and lead bible studies and impart wisdom to their friends. To show what great organizational skills one has, one could participate on any number of committees designed to accomplish community projects – for the poor or anyone (battered spouses) who truly needed help and a sense of being loved.
Most of society cannot get past the “Looking out for No. 1” paradigm that was all the rage in the 60s and 70s. In fact, the disease has even gotten worse…the previous job I had featured a young 30-something single mom colleague who summed it up with a post on her cubicle wall on an 8.5”x 11” paper with about 200 run-on words stating “MEMEMEMEME.” And no, she wasn’t spelling meme. This is what we have come to. This is what the last two generations have been taught; and those without the guts to think and reject the “conventional wisdom,” often choose the coward’s approach to peer pressure and simply “go with the flow.”
This is the concept proposed by the Muppets to my kids in the 80s:
(Get a Move On) Go With the Flow
When every dream you’ve had,
Has gone from good to bad,
Get a move on.
Go with the flow.
When every road you choose,
Gives the loser’s blues,
Get a move on.
Go with the flow.
Well, when you try all day,
Try all night,
Try until you drop,
Until it don’t come right.
If you’re gonna grow, you know you,
Gotta go with the flow.
When the dark comes down,
The night is all around,
Get a move on.
Go with the flow.
You know you can’t pretend,
You’re looking straight at the end.
Get a move on.
Go with the flow.
Well when you’re deep in fear,
Right up to here,
It’s a very ???? atmosphere.
If you’re gonna grow, you know you,
Gotta go with the flow.
Get a move on.
Get a move on.
Go with the flow.
And when the world won’t work.
You’re feeling like a jerk.
Get a move on.
Go with the flow.
And when it’s down the tubes.
You’re feeling like a boob.
Get a move on.
Go with the flow.
When everything’s good-bye.
You’re ready to die.
You wouldn’t give a nickel for an apple pie.
If you’re gonna grow, you know you,
Gotta go with the flow.
The subliminal message? If everything seems impossible, do what Obama wants you to. Don’t think; go with the flow.
There is not a single refrain in that song that offers, “If things are fubar, resist, because they just might be wrong – YOUR assessment just might be RIGHT.
There are an awful lot out there who will never revolt; it’s in their nature now, they have never been taught the lessons of history or Jefferson’s stark quote about “The tree of Liberty…” and they have been conditioned to stay with their peers…to go with the flow.
Thinking? Common sense? Optional.
Good thing about that? They won’t fight for either side. The ebb and “flow” will leave them unable to make a decision.
bogie and Jamie, thanks for the info. Should have guessed, it would have to be NYC.
Turning against unions was a bitter pill for me – I put myself through undergrad and my wife through grad school with very well paid Teamster’s Union Local 70 (Oakland, CA) jobs. The worm turned on my last job when I became a swing shift steward. I had to cover guys who were dead weight at best and thieving from the dock at worst. I didn’t really notice the “boys behaving badly” until I had to stick up for them, knowing I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I’m sure that our fine public employees don’t cut up rough like a bunch of Teamsters.
I don’t take Ridgerunner’s use of “energy slave” or “energy subsidies” as trying to attach negative connotations to our use of energy, despite the negative sounding terms.
Reality is, w/o a convenient source of energy, we’ld be using horses to plow our fields and that ratio of 1:1000 (farmers to acres) would probably be like 1:10 or so. There would be a huge retrenchment of society a lot more people would have to dedicate their livelihood to agriculture and food processing rather than designing the next generation of the IPhone. Human power would be doing a lot more of the work than machines.
A good buddy of mine who is Kos reading leftist recognizes this fact and concedes “green power” is not yet ready for prime time and that people really don’t understand the ramifications by declaring petro-energy off limits.
I’m not a “doomer” in the fundamental sense. Per unit time, the Earth receives 10,000 times more energy from the Sun than humans currently use from fossil fuels. So it would be relatively easy to power electrical generation with solar input and to replace fossil fuel usage with electricity. What makes me pessimistic is the widespread ignorance of source of our ease.
If this was relatively easy, it would have already been done. If it is so easy to use solar energy, since sunlight costs you nothing, the people who could set this up would make a fortune. The fact that no one has done so thus far would seem to indicate IT IS NOT PRACTICAL to do at this time, if ever.
Wanting something to be true does not make it true. But there are an astonishing number of people who cannot grasp that.
Starling, here’s a word for you. “Concatenation” is of course a word in its own right, but for some reason, it is also the formal word for a flock of Starlings (like a ‘pride’ of lions or ‘covey’ of quail). Anyway since it’s a linking up of interconnected items, there’s your campaign site/newsletter title!
(as a hobby i make mottos. my own motto is “always have a motto”)
Tcobb @ 52
Thanks for stepping forward with such a timely demonstration of the widespread ignorance that makes me pessimistic.
The quoted material below is from Wikipedia and lists some of the current solar thermal power plants in operation or under construction.
“BrightSource Energy entered into a series of power purchase agreements with Pacific Gas and Electric Company in March 2008 for up to 900MW of electricity, the largest solar power commitment ever made by a utility.[27] BrightSource is currently developing a number of solar power plants in Southern California, with construction of the first plant planned to start in 2009.
In June 2008, BrightSource Energy dedicated its 4-6 MW [28] Solar Energy Development Center (SEDC) in Israel’s Negev Desert. The site, located in the Rotem Industrial Park, features more than 1,600 heliostats that track the sun and reflect light onto a 60 meter-high tower. The concentrated energy is then used to heat a boiler atop the tower to 550 degrees Celsius, generating superheated steam.[29]
A working tower power plant is PS10 in Spain with a capacity of 11MW.
The 15MW Solar Tres plant with heat storage is under construction in Spain. In South Africa, a 100MW solar power plant is planned with 4000 to 5000 heliostat mirrors, each having an area of 140 m².[30] A 10MW power plant in Cloncurry, Australia (with purified graphite as heat storage located on the tower directly by the receiver).”
In the context of a democracy, the basis for statism is scarcity of resources. You don’t have enough food to go around? Well, then you need a wise and benevolent government to ration the food so that there is no starvation. That is the path to power; where there is scarcity (real or perceived) there is political opportunity. Let no crisis go to waste.
But what if there is no scarcity? The solution is to promote policies that will create them. That’s what has been happening in the US for quite some time. The economy won’t run properly without affordable energy. That is the key.
Stop people from pursuing any practical sources of energy production, such as drilling for oil, using coal, or building nuclear power plants. Insist upon reliance on using sources that are wholly impractical, such as solar or wind. The scarcity will come, and the rationale for further empowering our worthless political class follows after.
TCobb,
I took a serious look at a couple of alternative energy technologies when planning our house. Geothermal H.AC and a rooftop PV system.
My first cut at the analysis showed real promise on the PV but my second cut that promised went away. The first analysis neglected to factor in the cost of the grid tie & inverter systems. In addition, we’ld probably not get a whole lot of electrons from November through March. This factored in the fact our utility would buy the whole electrical output at highly inflated rates (though you had to buy from them at inflated rates).
The new wave of PV material holds great promise.
The geothermal system was a lesson in salesmanship. The salesman from the local company putting them in stopped by and delivered a quote. He then told me “We’ll not consider the ductwork as you need it for both systems — so it would be a wash”. Well after he was done the system looked promising.
However, when I looked the numbers over on my own the total quote was not as promising. They shifted their costs over to the duct work. I would have been buying a “cheap” geothermal system and EXPENSIVE duct work. Plus we’ld have to some supplemental heating for the coldest winter days.
One other problem (one we did not face) is that most residences will need a vertical loop field — that is the heat sink will need to be sunk straight down into the earth rather than horizontally under the frost line. More expensive proposition that is.
Now, both technologies are promising. What is required on the PV part is even better material and industrial capacity. Geothermal too, needs more industrial capacity.
TCobb at 55
“Insist upon reliance on using sources that are wholly impractical, such as solar or wind.”
Thanks for stepping forward with a further demonstration. I refer you to the above Wikipedia material which lists solar thermal power plants built by companies that want to lose money. Now even the business executives are commies.
Obama ‘Victory’ Not Necessarily Goal in Afghanistan
“I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,”
Obama told ABC News.
Thanks for stepping forward with such a timely demonstration of the widespread ignorance that makes me pessimistic.
Ignorance can be cured. Stupidity can’t. I fear that you fit within the second category.
If you have examples of ANY EXISTING projects being able to produce energy at a cost on level with gas/oil/coal/nuclear –and NOT projections from a Greenie channeling Peter Pan–actual working plants–let me know.
I only made 12 E-mini points today. Could’ve made double that if I’d stayed off this damn blog. Educating the hardheads on here costs me too many dollars. I guess you’re right, I’m stupid to waste time and money here.
#34 buddy larsen – “It’s like a thousand HP internal combustion engine that needs 999.9 HP to run the cylinders –so that one could reach out and stop the shaft with just a thumb and forefinger.” Superb. I’m stealin’ that one.
The answer:
Okay, okay… I hate the silver bullet as much as the next guy, but sometimes the simplest solution can be revolutionary.
First: term limits. No, the Founders never included it but the moment the son of a previous president became president, the Founders’ sons should have spoken up… Hmm… I think I just answered why they didn’t.
Second: Banning group campaign donations. No companies, no PACs, no unions… nothing. All donations must be individual in nature and must be reported online within 24 hours of receiving such donations.
Again, I hate the idea of the panacea to all our problems. Hell, I just heard yet another uppity pot smoker (really elitist about his pot… weird) claim that all of our fiscal worries would disappear if we just legalize marijuana. And they say the stuff isn’t dangerous. Psha.
However, it’s all about incentives. These are only the first common sense steps to ending the kind of shenanigans we see in public office. The next steps are up to the voters to determine whether or not character matters.
Finally, when did the double space replace the indention as the standard paragraph break?
First of all –and do i ever mean ‘of all’ –Emperor Hirohito did not attend the ceremony, he was not required to do so. The first contact Hirohito had with MacArthur was when the general made what amounted to a courtesy call on the Emperor in the palace. MacArthur had some genius to the way he handled that situation –to the everlasting respect and gratitude of the Japanese people, and to the benefit of both victor and vanquished. Mac concentrated his ire on the Tojo faction –and rightly, i believe.
I really wish our president had a little more history –or failing that a little less.
As is, he’s right at that ‘handicapped by small knowledge’ stage –which makes a big problem for us –and the world.
thanks skook –yeh, with that little torque, the thing is mainly about burning energy, making noise, exhausting itself, and taking the place of something that might ‘work’.
ridgerunner, i have to side with tcobb on this one. so let me put some numbers on it. my understanding is that the PGE PV array that you mention above has a 25 year payout. i don’t know what line of work you are in, but i don’t know of many capitalists who would invest in a project with a payout of 2-3%, which is what that implies. and i suspect that it is a subsidized return.
meanwhile, we are putting up wind turbines in Texas that generate power at the equivalent of $10/MMBtu or more, which is about 3X the cost of current natural gas fired generation which can be run when the operator wants it to run, and not when the weather allows.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for investing in research to reduce our usage of fossil fuels, but the implementation has to make economic sense. Otherwise, we are just destroying the wealth of our nation.
Ridge, From Wiki:
The United States is the largest energy consumer in terms of total use, using…. 29000 TWh) in 2005….
—–
100 megawatts (one ‘proposed’ solar plant) divided by 29,000 terawatts is 0.00000344 percent.
I have a colleague who keeps telling me he can make money selling electricity to the grid by installing a windmill on his roof. He has no good answer for why no else is doing it.
Oil is cheap even at $200 a barrel.
buddy larsen
I really wish our president had a little more history –or failing that a little less.
That’s what we get when the teaching of history devolves into “Oppression Studies.” If there was any justice, those who teach “Oppression Studies” in lieu of actual history need to subjected to treatment that will make them the most current subject of future “Oppression Studies.”
Steeple writes
I’m all for investing in research to reduce our usage of fossil fuels, but the implementation has to make economic sense. Otherwise, we are just destroying the wealth of our nation.
EXACTLY.
buddy: “…he’s right at that ‘handicapped by small knowledge’ stage –which makes a big problem for us –and the world.” I’ve been pondering this as the Gates thing hit the news. It is interesting how quickly you can size up a person by speaking with him for an hour or two. Even better if you can do so as he interacts with his underlings and you can observe the dynamics. Several world leaders have already this with Obama, e.g., Sarkozy, Putin, and one wonders how quickly they could intuit what the rest of us are only seeing clearly now in cases such as these, where he does something outside the coverage zone of his MSM protection.
steeple
I agree that a profit of 2-3% per year doesn’t sound like much, though it’s better than what many businesses are making. I average close to 2% per day of my working capital when I focus and avoid distractions like today’s. However, PGE’s mere 2% annually is a profit, and as such gives lie to TCobb’s captialized assertions.
ridge 69, it may be what some businesses are making today based on sunk capital but that is not what 1) they want to be making or 2) what returns new capital is seeking.
I would argue that PGE is not making a profit on this investment, because their cost of capital is well north of 2% (just a cursory look shows that their common stock yields 4.4%; i suspect their overall cost of capital is north of 10%). Therefore, they are destroying wealth by taking using capital that costs much more than 2% to make a return of 2%.
You go broke really quickly doing much of that. Unless you can pass it all through to the ratepayer, which I’m sure they are trying to do.
Bonzo sayeth: I have a colleague who keeps telling me he can make money selling electricity to the grid by installing a windmill on his roof. He has no good answer for why no else is doing it.
I sayeth dude probably thinks he’ll put up the windmill and get a check from his utility ever now and then and that is what he considers making money. Never mind factoring in the up front and the cost of his money. PV on a small scale in my mind makes sense but I just have this notion that any monies brought in by a small scale wind turbine would be eaten up by maintenance.
#64 Steeple, my analysis on PV and geothermal both had similar but shorter cost recovery periods than what you note, but both were still longer than I cared for.
skook/68; the way that ‘MSM coverage’ is looking at the moment, it sure didn’t do a not-ready-for-prime-time chi-town pol any great favor by sticking him up there in that ridiculous-looking ersatz golden chariot. Cuz, it can’t hold him up, doesn’t look like. MSM managed to betray EVERYBODY –quite a trick. Like sitting in to crook a poker game and the pot just disappears. “Hey how’d we manage to ALL lose?” “Dunno –it didn’t seem possible.”
However, PGE’s mere 2% annually is a profit, and as such gives lie to TCobb’s captialized assertions.
Yeah–but when you have a choice between putting your money where it makes X% profit and (X+ Y(where Y is greater than zero))% profit what is the logical choice? And once again–but for the last time–what existing solar generating plants make power at a lower cost than oil/natural gas/coal/nuclear power?
I am waiting for enlightenment, but only as to the last question posed.
buddy: Correct. It can’t hold him up. The question is – what will be the MSM strategy now? If he had kept his mouth shut, policy failures eventually could have been blamed on subordinates, who would have been fed to eager MSM wolves. Or just airbrushed off the reviewing stand. But when he clearly does it to himself, then those around him simply look like patsies when they rise to his defense. Of course, much could change but the bloom is off the rose, as my Scottish Grandma would say.
Re: energy sources
1) Federal subsidies for energy production
2) Levelized cost of new energy by technology
The Russians have struck oil under the basement rocks. Such oil cannot be biotic in origin. And it’s been noticed that some oil fields are refilling. There is more oil in this planet than we know, and we’re not going to run out in a few decades. Fortunately, since there is no substitute for transportation that is anywhere near ready. Most of the current alternatives just will not scale big enough.
If we’re lucky, in two years we’ll have a demonstrated fusion technology. Not based on magnetically confined plasma (ITER). But that still doesn’t solve transportation fuel issues for anything smaller than a train.
Wretchard: Siegel writes: “Paterson has recently proposed to curb the influence of the spending interests by tying the growth of state spending (locally generated revenues, as opposed to funds from the Obama stimulus) to the inflation rate… Yet even were such a law somehow passed, the public-sector unions would work ceaselessly, and probably successfully, to overturn it. To make such a measure meaningful would require putting it in the state constitution. That would be no small task.”
No foolin’. He advocates a state constitutional convention. And that is perhaps the only way we can break the stranglehold on a national level, too. But any attempt to do so while these special interests remain so able to manipulate the system will only produce a situation even worse than what we have now. These must be broken first. Then we can plan something new.
Where electrical and heating energy is concerned, spend 15% of our budget on renewable resources, 30% on nuclear, and let 55% be fought over clean-coal, natural gas, and oil.
Kind of arbitrary but it is a plan. A little more work and it would be a defensible plan. Tell me why the feds can not propose a sensible energy policy? Don’t want to offend the Wahabbs?
Let me know.
Speaking of corruption, I hear that the economy is so bad in New Jersey, that the Mafia had to lay off three judges!
Skookumchuk,
Colorado has a limitation on growth of state spending usually referred to as a taxpayer bill of rights. It caps spending growth by inflation + population growth (roughly so – the most common manifestation of that is to link it to new building). Colorado’s version will even dictate decreases (referred to as the “ratchet down” effect) in absolute spending (not simply reduction in spending growth). Needless to say the left is not happy with such curbs.
Here in WI an assemblyman (perhaps inspired by yours truly) put forth a similar measure for our state constitution and it did not get anywhere even though it lacked the “ratchet down” effect.
Talking with my state senator about this he objected to the fact it would allow spending growth rather than force out and out spending cuts (it seemed the old cliche about the perfect being the enemy of the good applies).
No one argues against the need to increase absolute spending to deal with population growth and inflation — we just want to curb growth in terms of REAL spending.
Tell me why the feds can not propose a sensible energy policy?
It may sound like a Zen or Sufi type of saying, but the plain fact is that if we had a sensible energy policy an energy policy wouldn’t be needed at all. How many bureaucrats and politicians would that put out of work? Follow the paradox…it generally leads to someone with the morals of Hannibal Lector who makes their living off a check they receive from the government.
MA: “… we just want to curb growth in terms of REAL spending.” Of course. But it will take an enormous effort.
In Califonia ( Pacific Gas & Electric land ) PV is booming solely due to Federal and State subsidies.
The Federal credit is 30%… and just kicked in this year without a $2,000 limit.
The California subsidy is rigged through PUC pricing mechanisms such that to the taxpayers it looks like the money is coming from PG&E !
The combined effect is to provide internal rates of return of about 10% after taxes basically inflation adjusted !
So any Californian holding munis should sell them to install a solar array on his property ASAP.
The California subsidy is stepped down in stages based on the capacity of systems already installed. There is a subsidy pool for homeowners and another one for commercial facilities.
The price of polysilicon has dropped and capacity has risen dramatically. Perhaps PV one day will make sense without subsidies — that day still looks far off.
BTW the electric rate schedule in California uses five different tiers all of which move up in the summer months and back down in the winter months…
Right now the PUC is looking to bump rates up 17% across the board to fund the PV subsidies !
All of that to fund a trivial fraction of California’s electric power.
Tier 1 $0.13 0-500 Watts continuous average load;
Tier 2 0.15 501-650 Watts;
Tier 3 0.26 651-1000 Watts;
Tier 4 0.36 1001-2000 Watts;
Tire 5 0.46 2001+ Watts…
(Figures rounded/approximate…variations exist across the State)
Those installing PV systems get to sell their excess juice back to the utility at mid-day rates calculated typically as Tier 4 or 5…
By comparison conventional sources are almost an order of magnitude less expensive.
Politics entirely responsible for the PV industry. That’s why the Green Party of Germany has made that northern country the world’s largest solar array market!
The problem is not the politics, which flows from the economics, but the economics. California, NJ, NY, and MI, as Kotkin pointed out, have gone from diversified economies and thus lobbies and bosses, to states with a few really rich yuppies, and illegal alien servants.
Cheered on by a profoundly feminized and female oriented media. Which is hard-wired to want princes and princesses instead of ordinary men and women.
Yuppies + women in public life = NYC. Filled with Masters of the universe and hard-scrabble illegal aliens, Rosa the illegal alien nanny.
That’s all that needs to be said. It is not going to change unless one part of the equation, either Yuppies eliminated or women changed, changes.
If the problem is corruption, then the only solution can be incorruption. In a universe governed by entropy, however, where is incorruption to be found? Every proposed political solution to corruption will always itself be corrupted in the end, for all things human, including the human psyche, are subject to entropy. The human race has no power to conquer corruption. We may slow down the effects of entropy a little, but corruption will still be the inevitable end of all we do.
The remarkable thing, therefore, is not that we should find corruption in the course of human affairs, but that we should ever find anything else.
Back to the topic of corrupt politicians. Why does the populace put up with it? Because the populace itself has been corrupted. A huge portion of the voting public votes for its particular interest and is quite willing to be led by corrupt politicians. Everybody is on the take. Union members vote in a block for democrats, the indigent vote for the democrats, the minorities vote for the democrats. They all view the government as a treasure trove to be divvied up amongst pirates. They all get part of the spoils. Of course it hasn’t occurred to these voters that their lords and masters walking by with a big pink cake and letting them scuttle around the floor grabbing crumbs isn’t the best of situations, but these folks don’t think too far ahead anyway. Some of them get a hankering for a big pink cake of their own, and go into politics. Or peddle influence some other way. But most are content with the crumbs; and quite willing to punch a fellow in the face to get more crumbs.
With a corrupted populace what else do we expect? Not sure how we get out of this easily. What happens when it rains and melts the pink cake away? Whatever will we all do without our little crumbs? I suppose we’ll all have to learn how to bake our own little cakes.
I know a guy who paid $50K to put on a photovoltaic solar system that can run his house – in the daytime, only, no storage. And he sells his excess daytime power back to the power company. Basically he gets “free” electricity, if $50K for a system that is guaranteed to last 20 years is free. He claims it gives him a 5% return on investment but I doubt that. And this is in Florida.
Hard labor penalties seems to have worked throughout history. The death penalty precludes recidivism too.
Interesting (to me, anyway!) side note on energy sources:
I have a close friend who is rather an amazing person. She is a gorgeous, slender blond, has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, with expertise in fluid dynamics and combustion, and is a bit taller than I am (I’m 6’3′).
She has a project with a small company she helped form to burn coal “cleanly” (and it really is clean, and had demonstrated effectivenes and efficiency). She had roughly fifty coal-burning utilities across the country interested in her product, but only about 15 to 20 (she thinks) will ultimately “bite.”
I asked her why. Her answer was interesting and unexpected. The hangup wasn’t due to government obstruction, or regulatory hurdles, or even economics (the economics are overwhelmingly favorable to adopting her method).
The problem is that the boards of directors, CEO’s and such types in the utility industry are, more often than not, incredibly “conservative” in the sense of cautious, fearful of innovation or taking any risk. They aren’t at all “forward looking.”
They are unimaginative.
Jamie Irons
Elby: This is why there has to be three legs to our society: Capitalism, limited government with checks and balances, and religious faith (and here I do mean the Judeo-Christian heritage, not just any religious faith). No one of these will carry the weight by itself.
Our “system” is a pragmatic one that grows from the English tradition, and it is not really an ideology in the sense of Continental models; it is a mixture of things. It is not totalitarian in either the political sense or the philosophical sense. It does not attempt to describe, explain, regulate or anticipate all that is Man. This is it strength; this is its weakness. It has faith in Man and hopes for what is high within him, but knows his fallen nature and is wary of his weakness. It imagines that liberty is of the highest political value, but seeks to limit the power of men over one another. It seeks the balance of The One, The Few and The Many; each has its strengths and each its dangers. Each must be protected from each of the others. It hopes for the best and plans for the worse.
As I said on another post, we would do well not to meddle with it much, just return to it.
I still have faith in it, but corrupt governments that are locked down–Wretchrad’s absorbing Markov chains–may have to be reduced by outside forces. It may take regional or federal action to change matters.
That is why Obama is so dangerous. Once corruption is unified across the nation by Federal Government, it will be hard to deal with it on the state or regional level.
I think that LOTM has a grip one way or the other on another related issue, that one being universal suffrage. We may have to reassess this.
I still have faith in the traditional American system. The struggle is with our characters, our natures. Are we too far gone?
Jamie, that is the result of the culture of a highly regulated and subsidized industry.
Jamie:
You might run this by your friend. I only deal with coal on the transport side, but my impression is that Australian and Canadian utility companies using coal are more innovative than their US counterparts. I may well be wrong, but it would be interesting to check.
I still have faith in the traditional American system. The struggle is with our characters, our natures. Are we too far gone?
What I have long considered the glory of the American idea, and it is *still* revolutionary even if Americans have become desensitized to the revolutionary nature of it, is that it shocked the prevailing European system, then self-considered as the most enlightened in the world, re: the nature of the relationship between citizen and government.
Borrowing from Locke (and others), the Founders proclaimed that the citizen was the master, not the servant, of the government; that the articulated restraints of a constitutional system were to be upon government, not upon citizens; that government had obligations towards the citizen and the citizen had rights, not vice versa; and that, given all this, government was not what happened to citizens, but rather was what citizens made of it.
When I say that this is the glory of the American idea, I use that word deliberately. What else but glorious and splendid and worthy of praise would you call an idea that does the utmost to assert and uphold individual liberty and dignity, that gives the common man and woman the greatest clear opportunity at pursuit of happiness of any system ever designed?
For a long, long time, it did appear that there was something in the American DNA, so to speak, that retained the impression of this glorious idea. We knew, somehow, deep down, that whatever our grievances with our government, we didn’t have to resign ourselves to the situation … that we had tossed out an abusive government once before and could do so again if we wanted.
Wretchard just recently posted a thread about Michael Totten’s interview with an Iraqi, in which Wretchard made the observation that Iraq seemed to be a “damaged culture,” a system in which people had gotten used to hunkering down for survival’s sake. Wretchard has also written in previous posts about the mindset (which he finds frustrating) of “bahala na” among so many dysfunctional cultures, where people somehow resign themselves to tolerating the intolerable, even to the point of tragic absurdity where “bahala na” is the shrugging reaction to something like a ferry disaster that would have been completely preventable had basic safety procedures been followed.
In the sense of “bahala na” as being a surrender to abuse, neglect and destruction, then I would say that the American Revolution was one of the great anti-”bahala na” episodes in history. And Americans have, historically, been very proud of this. And justifiably so, when we still carried the Founders’ pro-liberty DNA in our systems.
The great question is, as Mongoose asks, whether this is still our nature. Or whether Americans have joined the sad historical pantheon of damaged cultures where, when the goon squads roll down the street, the vast majority shrugs and dives for cover.
Jamie Irons,
For decades, at least until the Savings and Loans Scandals, the Thrift business was the home of the financial underachievers. Dim bulbs like Uncle Billy in “It’s A Wonderful Life” had a simple life. They took in deposits by offering 2% interest, made loans at 3% interest, and made it to the golf links by 4 PM. In the Industrial world Utilities had a similarly sheltered existence. Generating a safe regulated return on investment for the widows and orphans who were the stockholders left the Executives with few problems more complicated then finding their way home after getting drunk at the Country Club. The English sent the fool in the family into The Church and Americans used regulated industries to the same purpose.
I’ve always heard it said that ‘Jersey had the best government that money could buy…
And the hilarity continues …
Apparently, if you can’t beat City Hall, you stage a protest, whereupon City Hall chains the doors shut.
Here in Pittsburgh today:
Protesters demanding jobs hit mayor’s office
Staff for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl have chained the office door to prevent union protesters demanding jobs from entering.
The service-sector unions say about 100 members participated in this morning’s protest. They say they want Mr. Ravenstahl to address the fact that mostly low-wage jobs have been created by new developments subsidized by taxpayer money. They say these jobs keep families poor.
Officials in Mr. Ravenstahl’s office did not immediately return phone calls or comment on the situation.
The protesters say they plan to remain outside the office until he addresses their concerns.
Note the several assumptions and attitudes that the article leaves unquestioned:
1. The assumption that “service-sector unions” somehow have a right to
exclusive preferment for hiring in jobs funded by taxpayer dollars.
2. That the unionized public employee then can demand whatever sums of taxpayer money, in the form of wages, that suits the union’s and the worker’s interest. In other words, that the employee, not the employer, should have the primary power to set the employee’s wages.
3. That “low-wage jobs” “keep families poor.” As in, the assumption that the unionized public employee has NO choice of where to work but in a low-wage taxpayer-funded job, forever and ever. And that the solution to low wages is to raise wages by fiat (tax hikes) … rather than having the unionized public employee (1) improve his/her skills so he/she can get promoted, or (2) Go get another, better-paying job.
This, folks, is the howl of dependency. The mark of a person who views himself as having no choice but to rattle his cup at the doors of City Hall, because government is his livelihood and his whole universe; and who believes, usu. subconsciously, that if he does not get the government to use its cudgel on someone else (i.e. the taxpayer), then the cudgel must inevitably be used on him.
Blert and RWE
Re: photovoltaics
The real sin is net metering. Where else can a producer of electrical power sell at RETAIL prices?
It sure ain’t worth retail to me, a regular customer.
As to utility management conservatism – HECK YEA! You expect us utility types to take a flyer on some new technology that might not work? Our job is to keep the lights on 24/7. The homes, businesses, and hospitals all depend on that juice being there when needed. If not, the utility catches royal heck.
So is the steady state of your Hotel California Markov chain {(a state such that once entered, the process never leaves.) A state i is an absorbing state if and only if Pii = 1 (and thus all of the the other Pij = 0).”} found on the conga line or is it the pre-conga condition that is the state in equilibrium?
Blert, WRT your #82, those of us living in Northern CA in the 1990′s had a front-row seat to the Annular Yankfest of the office of the Governor, the Lobbyists, the California Legislative Assembly, and the criminally conspiring executives of several energy producing companies.
Even the left wing Sacramento Bee reported that Davis was infamous for demanding hefty contributions to his “campaign chest” for anyone seeking an audience.
The legislature comprised a pack of mercenary looters elected by voters who almost universally believe in the Tooth Fairy. (Remember Speaker Willie Brown?????)
The lobbyists kept the oil industry solvent just by greasing the politicians.
The public had been warned in 1999 to expect rolling brown-outs to begin within a year. Growing population and industry, but no new power generating capacity. I remember seeing that on a below-the-fold front page article in the Mercury News. I also remember noticing that the article was followed up by… NOTHING. No politicians, no further word from the utilities… silence.
When the really severe blackouts started, Gray Davis authorized purchasing electricity from a bunch of obscure out-of-state suppliers at incredibly high rates.
WTF?
Years of investigation by the Federal Energy Regulatory commission later determined that several energy trading companies including Enron, had deliberately restricted power to create the shortages. There were several instances of power generating stations in California receiving unexpected orders to shut down for inspection and maintenance, in spite of increasingly acute demand. This sort of cynical manipulation led Davis to declare a state of emergency and authorize purchase of additional electricity with taxpayer funds. $43 BILLION to purchase power at exorbitant rates for the next twenty years. The deal was secret until the newspapers sued Davis to make the information public.
#97 Whitehall,
My utility does not offer net-metering. Instead what they will do is enter into a 10 year contract (with an exit clause for the homeowner) buying all electricity coming off of the PV for like 2-2.5x the normal rate. The catch is, you as a producer are enrolled in the green energy program and have to pay 1.5-2x the normal rates.
Tcobb @ 55:
Well said. I had thought it was a money issue. That the Left had some designated recipient for the largess associated with the ‘renewable’ energy monies but that it and could be ‘power and control’ also make sense. IOW, another opportunity to loot. Maybe a bit of both?
steeple @ 64:
It turns out that T Boone has put that one on hold and wants to sell the already ordered wind turbines. It turns out that the deals he thought he had have failed to materialize. Also, it turns out that in a lot of the current wind turbines, the transmissions are not designed correctly and a bunch have had to be replaced every 3 years or so. And to the tune of a lot of dollars. Wind is just not really practical yet. PV may get there sooner and shows more promise.
Back to the corrupt politicians, rabbis and kidney salesmen –
In Israel, they made a mistake, kind of. When they opened to immigration from Russia, they got the Russian mob with it. True they did a lot of good but they got: human bondage in the form of the sex trade and (under the radar) indentured workers (slaves), huge drug traffic and gambling corruption. There is a large presence in tel Aviv of these guys. They have some type of presence in any large town. I have seen them in Ashqelon where they run the sex trade. As long as they stay ‘under the radar’ and keep the civilians out of the line of fire, they are left to do what they wish. The locals yokels have other issues to deal with. Also, the Russians run organ trading from the former Eastern block with impunity that services most of Western Europe and the ME. It is a huge problem. That this whole convoluted mess has shown up in NJ does not surprise me.
As an aside to this, most Americans are pretty ‘Pollyanna-ish’ about the seamier side of life and the rest of the world. They mostly just do not see it until it comes knocking at 3am.
My favorite “Demotivator” from Despair, Inc. is Madness that says:
Oh, and it has a pretty picture with it too. Go find it at Despair, Inc. Now.
What? Why are you still here?
[Social media = Unlocking the awesome potential of behavioral disorders]
MF/99; Annular Yankfest –heh–there actually IS a word “annulus” –the space between the shaft and the tube. Eggs Ackley where we now exist!
Buddy,
As you recall, annulus is “little ring” etymologically.
And for the biologically inclined:
5 (a) of fungi : a membranous or fleshy ring that surrounds the stipe of certain agarics after the expansion of the pileus : the remnant of the veil (b) of a moss : an elastic ring of cells between the operculum and the mouth of the capsule (c) of a fern : a line of cells partly or entirely surrounding the sporangium and each having inner tangential and radial walls thickened and outer wall thin and by its contraction bringing about rupture of the sporangium and assisting in spore discharge (d) : the fleshy rim of the corolla in some asclepiads (as of the genus Stapelia) (e) : the calyxlike whorl at the base of the strobilus of some horsetails (genus Equisetum)
6 (a) : one of the ringlike but not truly segmented parts of the body of some annelids (as leeches) (b) : ANNUAL RING 2
(cribbed from Webster’s)
Jamie Irons
in drilling tech, Jamie, it’s the space between the outside of the drillpipe and the wall of the hole being drilled. simplified thumbnail, it’s important to maintain fluid characteristices and pump pressure/output ratios of the ‘return’ drilling fluid (that which is coming back up the hole) in ‘laminar’ flow –as ‘turbulent’ flow washes out the shaft –more or less, particular to stratum penetrated –and decreases fluid velocity in the annulus –possibly enough to fail to carry out ‘cuttings’ –which can ‘stick the pipe’ and lose the well. If the drillstring ‘lift’ is at an increasing tension over the free number, then it’s a clue ‘in the dark’ as to these washout chambers, in which case one increases fluid viscosity –but always at the price of slower rate of penetration –which increases the hmm, large, daily drilling costs. very simplified –the petro engineering profs write books, make careers, on the detailia thumbnailed above.
Buddy,
I love it when you talk dirty!
Jamie Irons
haw! guess that WAS kinda earthy, at that!
actually, you may have discovered a real point –the underlying reason why the New Bluenoses of the Greenish Shade so hate the oilpatch –all that tubular penetrating and such –right out in daylight –why, Lands Sakes!
Here I thought you guys were still talking about the care and feeding of mushrooms.
oh, that’s the same for mushrooms or us helotes of serf city, USSA: “keep in dark and feed manure.”