Our economy is based on growth. Without it there's no way to service interest payments on debt. Nonetheless, I find it hard to understand how 2.4% growth is considered anemic. It's growing, yes? Shouldn't that be good enough?
Debt is a claim on tomorrow's wealth, and we Elk Grovians and for that matter the rest of you in our grand nation have an awful lot of work tomorrow to pay off today's debts. But what kind of work do you suppose that will be?
In the developing world, the only economic model they have is to export consumables to nations like ours. Their economic growth is based on selling stuff to us, which pulls up their standard of living. Turns out that the best way to combat poverty in Asia is for us to consume more. As they expand their manufacturing base, it takes ever increasing consumption here in Elk Grove to keep them working, to expand their economies. We've outsourced the production...but not the consumption. Consumption is our role in the global economy and we're pretty fucking good at it. Look around you, with your laptop, 2.1 vehicles, electric power gadgets, plastic fans, lampshades, roads, bridges, and ironing boards. You are an excellent consumer, very good at it.
But! We've outsourced many of our productive jobs and as we continue to send out more jobs every day, fewer of us can afford to increase our consumption. So we borrow; more debt to pay for more stuff to keep our economy going. And so it is that during our little recession, while personal debt is being reduced voluntarily, our governments are massively, massively increasing their debts, so on the whole our economy is still based on increasing debt, still dependent on a growing share of tomorrow's wealth.
This cannot last, but we're going to continue to deficit spend because we have no other model, and in my little view, this can only lead to living less extravagantly in the future.
Yesterday on NBC news we heard from $30/an hour factory workers in Winchester, VA, who are no longer going to earn $30/hour as they are no longer going to manufacture light bulbs. Lost in this reporting, indeed, intentionally ignored in this report, is how CFLs are exclusively produced in China, so these workers have no options available to them to convert to the manufacturing of CFLs, because they can't compete with $4/hour Chinese. A few more manufacturing jobs were lost yesterday, alongside a few million earlier losses. Not two hundred yards from my office where I work, we lost 60 manufacturing jobs in 2009 when Kramer Carton closed up, shipping their manufacturing apparatus to eastern Canada, where Canadians will produce cartons for apple juice, for chocolate bars, for Ziplock bags, for American consumers to consume.
But how do you suppose a worker, who used to make $30/hour making stuff, is going to be buying apple juice, chocolate bars and Ziploc bags to keep our economy going when he now only makes $14/hour in his new retail sales job at Target or other "service related" job?
He's not...not unless the government steps in and spends a trillion and a half each year of tomorrow's wealth (read: borrowed dough) to fix up foreclosed homes for resale, to build more fucking highways, to stimulate sales of artificially inflated housal units, to stimulate the selling of more cars via cash for clunkers...on and on.
You had better get used to living with less, dear reader. This is my opinion, based on my observations. Our consumers will consume fewer consumables relative to today's consumption of consumables. That is not to say that we have to accept a decline in our standard of living; no, not if we increase our political freedoms, social equality, our opportunities to live in decent communities, increase our access to clean environments.
But. I don't see this happening in my America. I see us attempting to continue suburban sprawl, suburban consumption, road building, housal unit consumption, foreign energy consumption, wars for freedom, wars on drugs, wars for war, until it tears us apart at the seams because it's not sustainable, and at some point we will have to stop growing. I am the ultimate pessimist, but that's a good thing methinks, as I have prepared for the worst. Today, I live in the best.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
It'll Kill Jobs!
One more reason I never sign those petitions outside mega-shopping depots -- proposition 23, which would "suspend" AB32 until unemployment falls below a specified value for a specified time.
We are hearing the argument that AB32, a program to achieve quantifiable reductions in GHGs, would kill jobs, so we ought to suspend it until we "recover." This argument, espoused by those on the right, is made by the same group of cretins responsible for the hallucinated economy over the past decade who caused the unemployment situation we are in. I say this, because the wealthy were primarily responsible for deregulating the industries that led to housal unit bubbling...and the wealthy are predominantly right leaning.
Aside from this proposition, we hear from the right regarding SB375, a law passed in 2008 aimed at prompting communities to consider climate change impacts in the planning of new development. Their argument: this will kill jobs, too.
Unfortunately, we are riding a red wave through the November elections, as we have no long term view on anything and we pin the lack of economic progress on the incumbents. This was going to happen regardless, as a hallucinated economy is just that -- fake, pretend, make-believe -- and there's no way we had any hope of "recovering" in such a short time frame following thirty years of 1) eviscerating our manufacturing base, 2)converting to a services only economy, 3) ever increasing dependence on foreign energy, and 4) basing our entire prosperity on increasing levels of debt.
Personally, I don't really care about the climate -- but truthfully I'm glad others do, for it is a fantastic catalyst for creating communities worth a damn. We now have laws that mandate reductions in carbon emissions that can only lead to better designed places to live, places totally unlike Elk Grove. With these laws in effect, we have the potential to never again build such a fucked up place like the city I live in -- car dominant, brutalized by traffic, full of people who have no sense of community, of place, or who give a shit about their public realms.
But, the right intends on hijacking these laws, already passed by the legislature and the governor, for the sake of continuing sprawl, auto dependence, foreign carbon dependence, and buildingcommunities developments not worth a damn.
I believe this proposition will pass, because we will have been suckered into the "fear" of continued economic hardship, in a state reeling from 16% "real" unemployment.
The good news today is that CARB adopted nice, harsh targets for reduction via SB375, contrary to the opinions from the California Building Industry Association. This will, in the long run, hopefully prevent the extension of Elk Grove all the way to the Consumnes River, hopefully prevent our city from building Franklin Crossing, a totally worthless subdivision plan that epitomizes the multiple failures of community, energy conservation, environmental stewardship, and the notion of a worthwhile place to live. It is low density sprawl four miles farther away from existing sprawl, already fifteen miles from everything. It is nothing more that mandating extreme automobile dependence for every "resident." Or, should I say, consumer?
Yet -- you can be assured that the original developers of such sprawl, Reynen and Bardis Development, LLC, are staunchly in opposition to SB375 and totally in favor of proposition 23.
Too bad John Reynen filed personal bankruptcy in 2008. Awwwwww. He used to be a part of Reynen and Bardis Communities. Tell me, when was the last time low density suburban sprawl ever morphed into a viable "community?"
Never.
We are hearing the argument that AB32, a program to achieve quantifiable reductions in GHGs, would kill jobs, so we ought to suspend it until we "recover." This argument, espoused by those on the right, is made by the same group of cretins responsible for the hallucinated economy over the past decade who caused the unemployment situation we are in. I say this, because the wealthy were primarily responsible for deregulating the industries that led to housal unit bubbling...and the wealthy are predominantly right leaning.
Aside from this proposition, we hear from the right regarding SB375, a law passed in 2008 aimed at prompting communities to consider climate change impacts in the planning of new development. Their argument: this will kill jobs, too.
Unfortunately, we are riding a red wave through the November elections, as we have no long term view on anything and we pin the lack of economic progress on the incumbents. This was going to happen regardless, as a hallucinated economy is just that -- fake, pretend, make-believe -- and there's no way we had any hope of "recovering" in such a short time frame following thirty years of 1) eviscerating our manufacturing base, 2)converting to a services only economy, 3) ever increasing dependence on foreign energy, and 4) basing our entire prosperity on increasing levels of debt.
Personally, I don't really care about the climate -- but truthfully I'm glad others do, for it is a fantastic catalyst for creating communities worth a damn. We now have laws that mandate reductions in carbon emissions that can only lead to better designed places to live, places totally unlike Elk Grove. With these laws in effect, we have the potential to never again build such a fucked up place like the city I live in -- car dominant, brutalized by traffic, full of people who have no sense of community, of place, or who give a shit about their public realms.
But, the right intends on hijacking these laws, already passed by the legislature and the governor, for the sake of continuing sprawl, auto dependence, foreign carbon dependence, and building
I believe this proposition will pass, because we will have been suckered into the "fear" of continued economic hardship, in a state reeling from 16% "real" unemployment.
The good news today is that CARB adopted nice, harsh targets for reduction via SB375, contrary to the opinions from the California Building Industry Association. This will, in the long run, hopefully prevent the extension of Elk Grove all the way to the Consumnes River, hopefully prevent our city from building Franklin Crossing, a totally worthless subdivision plan that epitomizes the multiple failures of community, energy conservation, environmental stewardship, and the notion of a worthwhile place to live. It is low density sprawl four miles farther away from existing sprawl, already fifteen miles from everything. It is nothing more that mandating extreme automobile dependence for every "resident." Or, should I say, consumer?
Yet -- you can be assured that the original developers of such sprawl, Reynen and Bardis Development, LLC, are staunchly in opposition to SB375 and totally in favor of proposition 23.
Too bad John Reynen filed personal bankruptcy in 2008. Awwwwww. He used to be a part of Reynen and Bardis Communities. Tell me, when was the last time low density suburban sprawl ever morphed into a viable "community?"
Never.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Bike V Minivan
Not two miles away and about nine minutes before I left my own housal unit on my bicycle this morning, a bicyclist was killed at the intersection of Sheldon and Lewis Stein. He was thrown off his bike into the windshield of the Honda minivan that hit him, requiring emergency care for a child in the minivan who received a cut eye from flying glass:
That looks to be one hell of an impact. The driver was headed east, and just as that lady who was killed by an eastbound driver in Natomas a few days ago, right into the rising sun.
Of course, I can't speculate who's at fault here, but then, understand my bias as an Elk Grovian bicycle commuter -- there are a lot of bad drivers in our city and a whole lot of bad bicyclists, too. There are far, far too many of both who disrespect each other, the law, and either their or other's safety.
It is just as likely that this driver was going too fast for the sun-in-the-eyes excuse, as much as it is that the bicyclist ran the red light. I see both of these actions nearly every day, and only time will reveal what was the primary cause of this accident.
This incident has generated a hundred very non-informative, unimaginative, and horribly thought out comments on the sacbee.com forum. My blog is one of them. Riders with attitudes, bad drivers -- the car v bicycle debate rages on. It's no coincidence, I believe, that a minivan was involved. I believe that minivan drivers are the worst, and female Asian minivan drivers in particular, and I say that from personal observations (and two car-bike collisions) over my 14,000 miles of bicycle commuting in Elk Grove and Sactown. I could care less about the political incorrectness of such a statement; female Elk Grovian Asian foreign-made-minivan drivers suck; many are downright ignorant of bicyclists, they are, far and away, the worst when it comes to [their lack of] signaling, and rarely provide any margin between themselves and me. This minivan was driven by a 36-year old man, telling you how my stereotyping doesn't necessarily equate to dead bicyclists.
Elk Grove is among the most extreme auto dependent cities in the nation -- full of housal units and strip malls but no jobs, no expectation to get anywhere without a fucking car due to non-human distances and geometries -- this is a leading cause of such accidents, car or bicyclist faults aside, but it is never discussed. Urban design is never considered, yet has the most dramatic impact on multi-mode traveling. If we had converted just a few damn lanes and created two north-south & east-west paths in our city, physically separated from vehicles by so much as a two foot strip of grass, there'd be thousands more cyclists, a whole lot less foreign oil burnt, fewer obese Elk Grovians, and a better living experience. But -- cars are just too important in a city dominated by single use zoning where everything you need to do can't be done without a goddamn car. We had the potential along the Laguna creek for an east to west option but we opted for the eight lane Laguna freeway, or we bermed it up to build low density sprawl right up to its banks such that we can't even shoehorn in a continuous bike path.
Instead, anyone willing to ride a bike has to do so along the six-lane SheldonRoad Freeway, filled with irate females droping off their kids, alpha male jackoffs showing you who's in control, and possibly, just possibly, an I-couldn't-see-him-with-the-sun-in-my-eyes man simply driving too fast for the conditions.
That looks to be one hell of an impact. The driver was headed east, and just as that lady who was killed by an eastbound driver in Natomas a few days ago, right into the rising sun.
Of course, I can't speculate who's at fault here, but then, understand my bias as an Elk Grovian bicycle commuter -- there are a lot of bad drivers in our city and a whole lot of bad bicyclists, too. There are far, far too many of both who disrespect each other, the law, and either their or other's safety.
It is just as likely that this driver was going too fast for the sun-in-the-eyes excuse, as much as it is that the bicyclist ran the red light. I see both of these actions nearly every day, and only time will reveal what was the primary cause of this accident.
This incident has generated a hundred very non-informative, unimaginative, and horribly thought out comments on the sacbee.com forum. My blog is one of them. Riders with attitudes, bad drivers -- the car v bicycle debate rages on. It's no coincidence, I believe, that a minivan was involved. I believe that minivan drivers are the worst, and female Asian minivan drivers in particular, and I say that from personal observations (and two car-bike collisions) over my 14,000 miles of bicycle commuting in Elk Grove and Sactown. I could care less about the political incorrectness of such a statement; female Elk Grovian Asian foreign-made-minivan drivers suck; many are downright ignorant of bicyclists, they are, far and away, the worst when it comes to [their lack of] signaling, and rarely provide any margin between themselves and me. This minivan was driven by a 36-year old man, telling you how my stereotyping doesn't necessarily equate to dead bicyclists.
Elk Grove is among the most extreme auto dependent cities in the nation -- full of housal units and strip malls but no jobs, no expectation to get anywhere without a fucking car due to non-human distances and geometries -- this is a leading cause of such accidents, car or bicyclist faults aside, but it is never discussed. Urban design is never considered, yet has the most dramatic impact on multi-mode traveling. If we had converted just a few damn lanes and created two north-south & east-west paths in our city, physically separated from vehicles by so much as a two foot strip of grass, there'd be thousands more cyclists, a whole lot less foreign oil burnt, fewer obese Elk Grovians, and a better living experience. But -- cars are just too important in a city dominated by single use zoning where everything you need to do can't be done without a goddamn car. We had the potential along the Laguna creek for an east to west option but we opted for the eight lane Laguna freeway, or we bermed it up to build low density sprawl right up to its banks such that we can't even shoehorn in a continuous bike path.
Instead, anyone willing to ride a bike has to do so along the six-lane Sheldon
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Guaranteed Gridlock
Here's my take. I understand it makes sense to run up deficits during recessions, with the expectation that we will run surpluses during the good times to make the long term somewhat balanced.
But we never did that. We ran massive deficits even during our finest hour, 2003-2006. Remember those years? Do you remember them fondly? Boy, we were on high, weren't we? Equities, housal unit values, and employment were all roaring along nicely. It's too bad we never understood it to be entirely hallucinated, a mirage.
Here's my take. Looking at the bottom of my blog to see today's national debt, I fully expect to see this increase at the current rate for at least the next two years, because I expect a Republican rout here in a few weeks on these mid-term elections. Our nation has no long term vision, the Democrats have had two years to solve the economic problem, didn't do it, so we're gonna flip the switch and give the ball to the other side for a while. All of which will ensure two or three years of guaranteed gridlock. It will be baked into the brownie, yearly deficits of 1,500,000 million for the next two or three years, guaranteed, because neither party will have the balls or the pull to wrest deficit spending from our government.
That said, today I forecast a national debt equal to 100% of GDP by the end of 2013.
There was never any real American prosperity. It was all hallucinated. That 20% of our economic value was based on the financing, lawyering, and insuring of a shrinking manufacturing base is about all you really need to know about our collective hallucination regarding our economy. We had a thirty year deficit financed binge yet we can't seem to handle twenty four months of a mild slowdown.
So we've had as much as we can stand, two years of economic hardship is too much to bear, so let's throw out the old bums for a set of new bums. Vote those Republicans in, they'll clean up Washington! Eliminate waste! Eliminate fraud! Lower taxes! Shrink big government! Cut spending! Tea Partier's unite!
I like to wax on our polarized political system as it really makes no never mind to me whoever is running our governments, and indeed I find it an enjoyable spectacle. I am very nearly out of personal debt and have access to everything I need or could possibly want because I didn't follow the same actions of the past thirty years of my city government, my county government, my state government, or my federal government -- I decreased my deficits during that time. Regardless of party, every level of government that represents me failed to do the same. Truthfully I have no vested interest in any outcome, not unless my third party starts winning. Fat chance.
So here's an early toast to 100% GDP debt!
But we never did that. We ran massive deficits even during our finest hour, 2003-2006. Remember those years? Do you remember them fondly? Boy, we were on high, weren't we? Equities, housal unit values, and employment were all roaring along nicely. It's too bad we never understood it to be entirely hallucinated, a mirage.
Here's my take. Looking at the bottom of my blog to see today's national debt, I fully expect to see this increase at the current rate for at least the next two years, because I expect a Republican rout here in a few weeks on these mid-term elections. Our nation has no long term vision, the Democrats have had two years to solve the economic problem, didn't do it, so we're gonna flip the switch and give the ball to the other side for a while. All of which will ensure two or three years of guaranteed gridlock. It will be baked into the brownie, yearly deficits of 1,500,000 million for the next two or three years, guaranteed, because neither party will have the balls or the pull to wrest deficit spending from our government.
That said, today I forecast a national debt equal to 100% of GDP by the end of 2013.
There was never any real American prosperity. It was all hallucinated. That 20% of our economic value was based on the financing, lawyering, and insuring of a shrinking manufacturing base is about all you really need to know about our collective hallucination regarding our economy. We had a thirty year deficit financed binge yet we can't seem to handle twenty four months of a mild slowdown.
So we've had as much as we can stand, two years of economic hardship is too much to bear, so let's throw out the old bums for a set of new bums. Vote those Republicans in, they'll clean up Washington! Eliminate waste! Eliminate fraud! Lower taxes! Shrink big government! Cut spending! Tea Partier's unite!
I like to wax on our polarized political system as it really makes no never mind to me whoever is running our governments, and indeed I find it an enjoyable spectacle. I am very nearly out of personal debt and have access to everything I need or could possibly want because I didn't follow the same actions of the past thirty years of my city government, my county government, my state government, or my federal government -- I decreased my deficits during that time. Regardless of party, every level of government that represents me failed to do the same. Truthfully I have no vested interest in any outcome, not unless my third party starts winning. Fat chance.
So here's an early toast to 100% GDP debt!
I'm Serious
According to the State of California, I have serious medical conditions...serious enough that medical marijuana is an approved therapy for what ails me. As I wandered through a handful of cannabis dispensaries this morning I observed several dozen other Californians who also suffer from serious medical conditions. I know, I now know, how the State of California's medical marijuana statues are about easing untold human suffering in this cold, cruel world.
I wonder about sarcasm and the law...so I maintain that this post contains none whatsoever. None! What you may infer to be sarcasm, even knowing that virtually every other post on my blog is dripping with it, is not in this case.
Firstly, I was neither impressed, at all, with the knowledge base that dispensary "associates" have over the products they were selling, nor with the doctor providing the recommendation. Does THC laden balm, sold at every dispensary, rubbed on those seriously painful locations, actually provide for levels of THC into the bloodstream? Would it be sufficient to induce a high? If so, how much balm are we talking about? And what sorta high, what strains are used in the balm? Ask ten associates and you'll get eight answers. To get an idea regarding the lack of consistency, navigate yourself to any on-line marijuana forum and try, just try, to decipher and understand the random, chaotic, non-punctuated, badly spelled threads. I enjoy reading such boards on myriad subjects ranging from thrash metal to the economy, yet there isn't a topic so horribly structured as that sponsored by the marijuana enthusiast community. That there are a number of posts whose authors readily admit to being stoned beyond stoned while authoring hints as to why this might be.
Secondly, you don't have to concern yourself about knowing what exactly you're taking when you purchase medical marijuana, because you can be assured the dispensaries have no idea what you're taking when you purchase medical marijuana, because they have no idea what they're selling. Well, I should say that they most certainly know it's ganja, but know this -- I can sell marijuana back to the dispensary as a member of the cooperative, and they have no idea what I used to grow the stash other than what I've told them. Pesticides? Neem oil? Nutes? Indoor? Outdoor? Strain? Cloned or from seed? Mostly indica, or sativa dominant? No idea. They won't ask. I won't tell.
Come on, none of this matters. When you go to Walgreen's for St. John's Wort or Vitamin E, did you stop to think how virtually all vitamins sold in the U.S. are manufactured in China? Do you really think you know what's in them?
I only point this out on my monologues because one really does not have to look hard to see the forest for the trees regarding the therapeutic benefits of medicinal pot. Notice that no word in that last sentence is surrounded by quotes! Tell me -- when was the last time you saw twenty five people line up outside a Rite-Aid pharmacy before it opened? That my fair city of Elk Grove refuses to allow dispensaries simply forces the demand elsewhere...and there is an awful lot of demand. I maintain an even stonger conviction that a growing number of Elk Grovians will be burning many more barrels of foreign oil to drive to Sacramento to buy their medicine. Sales taxes for the city. Wa-hey.
I wonder about sarcasm and the law...so I maintain that this post contains none whatsoever. None! What you may infer to be sarcasm, even knowing that virtually every other post on my blog is dripping with it, is not in this case.
Firstly, I was neither impressed, at all, with the knowledge base that dispensary "associates" have over the products they were selling, nor with the doctor providing the recommendation. Does THC laden balm, sold at every dispensary, rubbed on those seriously painful locations, actually provide for levels of THC into the bloodstream? Would it be sufficient to induce a high? If so, how much balm are we talking about? And what sorta high, what strains are used in the balm? Ask ten associates and you'll get eight answers. To get an idea regarding the lack of consistency, navigate yourself to any on-line marijuana forum and try, just try, to decipher and understand the random, chaotic, non-punctuated, badly spelled threads. I enjoy reading such boards on myriad subjects ranging from thrash metal to the economy, yet there isn't a topic so horribly structured as that sponsored by the marijuana enthusiast community. That there are a number of posts whose authors readily admit to being stoned beyond stoned while authoring hints as to why this might be.
Secondly, you don't have to concern yourself about knowing what exactly you're taking when you purchase medical marijuana, because you can be assured the dispensaries have no idea what you're taking when you purchase medical marijuana, because they have no idea what they're selling. Well, I should say that they most certainly know it's ganja, but know this -- I can sell marijuana back to the dispensary as a member of the cooperative, and they have no idea what I used to grow the stash other than what I've told them. Pesticides? Neem oil? Nutes? Indoor? Outdoor? Strain? Cloned or from seed? Mostly indica, or sativa dominant? No idea. They won't ask. I won't tell.
Come on, none of this matters. When you go to Walgreen's for St. John's Wort or Vitamin E, did you stop to think how virtually all vitamins sold in the U.S. are manufactured in China? Do you really think you know what's in them?
I only point this out on my monologues because one really does not have to look hard to see the forest for the trees regarding the therapeutic benefits of medicinal pot. Notice that no word in that last sentence is surrounded by quotes! Tell me -- when was the last time you saw twenty five people line up outside a Rite-Aid pharmacy before it opened? That my fair city of Elk Grove refuses to allow dispensaries simply forces the demand elsewhere...and there is an awful lot of demand. I maintain an even stonger conviction that a growing number of Elk Grovians will be burning many more barrels of foreign oil to drive to Sacramento to buy their medicine. Sales taxes for the city. Wa-hey.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Bob Made Me Do It
Been sick for two weeks straight, trying to get to the bottom of an iron level falling by the month, trying to recover from a fever that led to an entire mouthful of canker sores, where chewing vicodin by the handful doesn't seem to have any effect anymore. Like everyone else, I hate being sick.
Having slept in most mornings to get past this, I've been forced to drive to work more these past two weeks as the Elk Grovian e-Tran buses don't run beyond 7:45 in the morning. I'm chronically tired, and having to drive myself is a somewhat more dangerous endeavor for both you and me as now you get a drugged up, drowsy partner in traffic.
Nonetheless, yesterday morning on Broadway I was very nearly rear-ended as I had stopped to allow a lady to exercise her use of the crosswalk at 53rd. I saw her a long way off, because I'm acutely aware of how many crosswalks there are on Broadway -- a whole lot. And this time of year, in both September and March, the sun rises very nearly in-line with the road and it can be exceedingly difficult to see. I am aware of this, because I bike to work this same direction, and I am always, always aware of my surroundings as a bicyclist is just as transparent to a speeding, inattentive motorist blinded by the sun as is a pedestrian in the crosswalk. I slow down.
Even I had a hard time seeing this lady at first, even for someone who claims to be wary of other users of the roadway. I had stopped well before she attempted to enter the walk from the opposite side, and a consequence of doing so led to a motorist behind me to squeal her brakes so as to not hit me. Unbelievable. I could possibly, quite possibly, understand this from time to time, but the next time you travel westbound on Broadway take note of how many black tire marks there are, how many times other people have had to react the same way this driver did, and think about how many times people have failed to stop in time. It happens all the time.
If you do so, you'll not have to wonder how yesterday an 80-year old lady was killed while walking her dog in Natomas, crossing in a marked crosswalk. Interviewed, the driver said she couldn't see her because of the sun.
That should be an good enough excuse, right? I mean, Bob (bright orange ball) is something of a pesky nuisance to motorists, something we haven't yet been able to fix through the magic of automotive technology like we have with back-up cameras and electronic stability control. It's out of her hands, she couldn't see.
Scroll over the map of that intersection, and then tell me that speed couldn't have possibly contributed to this lady's death. The intersection of two collector roads in the heart of suburbia? If it's anything like every fucking intersection in Elk Grove, there isn't anyone who 1) even knows the posted speed limit and 2) obeys it. This lady died due to the excessive speed of another lady, most certainly. If you can't see because of the sun, slow the fuck down.
I can only imagine what the driver will have to live with for the rest of her fifty/sixty years on this rock, having to live with having killed someone else by accident. She may even live longer than the lady she killed, because she knows damn well she'll never walk around Natomas, knowing how dangerous it is. Fuck no, she's gonna drive the rest of her days. It was an accident, yes, but one that's widely acceptable, one that's actually expected, considering that we build roadways with the express purpose of moving motorized vehicles -- and every other user? Take your chances. We built these Natomas roads without any "hazzards" to create friction, to slow down drivers, with no trees or other obstacles to drivers who wander out of their lanes, who get themselves into trouble due to speed.
No. The only hazzards are eighty year old ladies and their dogs in marked crosswalks.
Having slept in most mornings to get past this, I've been forced to drive to work more these past two weeks as the Elk Grovian e-Tran buses don't run beyond 7:45 in the morning. I'm chronically tired, and having to drive myself is a somewhat more dangerous endeavor for both you and me as now you get a drugged up, drowsy partner in traffic.
Nonetheless, yesterday morning on Broadway I was very nearly rear-ended as I had stopped to allow a lady to exercise her use of the crosswalk at 53rd. I saw her a long way off, because I'm acutely aware of how many crosswalks there are on Broadway -- a whole lot. And this time of year, in both September and March, the sun rises very nearly in-line with the road and it can be exceedingly difficult to see. I am aware of this, because I bike to work this same direction, and I am always, always aware of my surroundings as a bicyclist is just as transparent to a speeding, inattentive motorist blinded by the sun as is a pedestrian in the crosswalk. I slow down.
Even I had a hard time seeing this lady at first, even for someone who claims to be wary of other users of the roadway. I had stopped well before she attempted to enter the walk from the opposite side, and a consequence of doing so led to a motorist behind me to squeal her brakes so as to not hit me. Unbelievable. I could possibly, quite possibly, understand this from time to time, but the next time you travel westbound on Broadway take note of how many black tire marks there are, how many times other people have had to react the same way this driver did, and think about how many times people have failed to stop in time. It happens all the time.
If you do so, you'll not have to wonder how yesterday an 80-year old lady was killed while walking her dog in Natomas, crossing in a marked crosswalk. Interviewed, the driver said she couldn't see her because of the sun.
That should be an good enough excuse, right? I mean, Bob (bright orange ball) is something of a pesky nuisance to motorists, something we haven't yet been able to fix through the magic of automotive technology like we have with back-up cameras and electronic stability control. It's out of her hands, she couldn't see.
Scroll over the map of that intersection, and then tell me that speed couldn't have possibly contributed to this lady's death. The intersection of two collector roads in the heart of suburbia? If it's anything like every fucking intersection in Elk Grove, there isn't anyone who 1) even knows the posted speed limit and 2) obeys it. This lady died due to the excessive speed of another lady, most certainly. If you can't see because of the sun, slow the fuck down.
I can only imagine what the driver will have to live with for the rest of her fifty/sixty years on this rock, having to live with having killed someone else by accident. She may even live longer than the lady she killed, because she knows damn well she'll never walk around Natomas, knowing how dangerous it is. Fuck no, she's gonna drive the rest of her days. It was an accident, yes, but one that's widely acceptable, one that's actually expected, considering that we build roadways with the express purpose of moving motorized vehicles -- and every other user? Take your chances. We built these Natomas roads without any "hazzards" to create friction, to slow down drivers, with no trees or other obstacles to drivers who wander out of their lanes, who get themselves into trouble due to speed.
No. The only hazzards are eighty year old ladies and their dogs in marked crosswalks.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Love Affairs With Debt
My little burg received $2,389,651 in grant money from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development -- money, of course, coaxed from the cold, thin air -- for the Elk Grovian Neighborhood Stabilization Program. With this, our city proudly announced the offering of a previously foreclosed unit for sale, $215,000.
Here's my rub -- the housal unit has to be sold to a family making no more than $87,720, likely one of a dozen or so other restrictions like having to be first time buyers, etc.
I have always maintained that one should never engage a mortgage for more than 2x annual income, yet this program mandates this rule be broken. Not only will the newowners owers begin their debt servicing with a larger debt to income ratio than average, if our current deflationary economy continues their debts will only become a larger millstone around their necks...without even mentioning the possibility that unit values may still fall another 10%, 15%, 20%, and being so burdened they might end up becoming housal foreclosurists themselves in 2016.
OK, you say, this new family will drop down $42,300 from their savings for a down payment -- thereby meeting my 2x criteria and with skin in the game will not foreclose in the future. Uh-huh. With banks paying savings interest at 0.4%, yep, there must be millions of such families out there with loads of down payment cash.
OK, you say, this new family would be able to afford such a mortgage with today's rates. Uh-huh. If you look at the location of said housal unit, square in the heart of a jobless city, you can be assured that Elk Grove will gain a whole lot more sales tax revenue from the 30 years of perpetual selling of the 2.3 motorized vehicles needed to shuttle these owners to jobs elsewhere. The city will gain a whole lot more in property tax revenues from this family paying 1.5% of $215,000 rather than something more affordable for such an income. We will have artificially inflated prices along with enslaving another Elk Grovian couple into perpetual debt servitude, both with an "afordable" mortgage and "affordable" car payments.
This was an exercise in blowing borrowed federal monies because it's "free," and if Elk Grove didn't, some other city would have. Another two million, atop countless other millions, to stimulate the housal market, to shore up current borrowers (and their votes) to the detriment of future borrowers. This same shit was what caused our economic crisis in the first place -- people spending money they didn't have on more housal unit than they needed.
On that note, you may perhaps understand why I could care less if our economy never recovers, as we continue to do every fool thing possible to perpetuate Americans love affair with debt servitude.
Here's my rub -- the housal unit has to be sold to a family making no more than $87,720, likely one of a dozen or so other restrictions like having to be first time buyers, etc.
I have always maintained that one should never engage a mortgage for more than 2x annual income, yet this program mandates this rule be broken. Not only will the new
OK, you say, this new family will drop down $42,300 from their savings for a down payment -- thereby meeting my 2x criteria and with skin in the game will not foreclose in the future. Uh-huh. With banks paying savings interest at 0.4%, yep, there must be millions of such families out there with loads of down payment cash.
OK, you say, this new family would be able to afford such a mortgage with today's rates. Uh-huh. If you look at the location of said housal unit, square in the heart of a jobless city, you can be assured that Elk Grove will gain a whole lot more sales tax revenue from the 30 years of perpetual selling of the 2.3 motorized vehicles needed to shuttle these owners to jobs elsewhere. The city will gain a whole lot more in property tax revenues from this family paying 1.5% of $215,000 rather than something more affordable for such an income. We will have artificially inflated prices along with enslaving another Elk Grovian couple into perpetual debt servitude, both with an "afordable" mortgage and "affordable" car payments.
This was an exercise in blowing borrowed federal monies because it's "free," and if Elk Grove didn't, some other city would have. Another two million, atop countless other millions, to stimulate the housal market, to shore up current borrowers (and their votes) to the detriment of future borrowers. This same shit was what caused our economic crisis in the first place -- people spending money they didn't have on more housal unit than they needed.
On that note, you may perhaps understand why I could care less if our economy never recovers, as we continue to do every fool thing possible to perpetuate Americans love affair with debt servitude.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Dollar This, Dollar That
I bicycle past the 65th Avenue and Highway 50 intersection a few times a week, usually around 4:00 PM alongside a crush of vehicles. For 1.4 miles I have no bike lane, the only section of my entire ride where I don't, and I face the wrath of irate motorists as I occupy a foot or two of their #2 lane. Some are particularly uncooperative; assholes who either give me no room, yell out obscenities, or block the bike lane ahead of me at the next stop to "show me." I simply go right down the middle of the road when they do that -- I don't ride on the sidewalk for the same reason they don't drive on it -- because it's illegal.
Within a few weeks will come the grand opening of a new Target store, adding a few hundred more vehicles per hour into the maw of that intersection. If I thought today's drivers were irate, wait until they get to sit through two more light cycles to get back home to Elk Grove. Truthfully, this is quite a dangerous thing, as some alpha-male jackoff in a Chevy Tahoe might, just might, take his impatient anger to the next level.
What's worse, though, is that discount stores like Target always attract the worst of Americana. I will now get to bicycle alongside many more obese, unkempt, pajama-clad, middle-aged, and rather unpleasant looking women shuttling themselves to Target from South Sacramento, often in barely-smogged jalopies, most of whom are bitter, grumpy, impatient!, and who will, under no circumstances, give a bicyclist any share of the road. I am always on the lookout for these drivers, as dangerous as those alpha-males.
This is what we're going to get more and more of, by the way, as discounting chains are the rising stars in our "new economy." Dollar General. Dollar Tree. Family Dollar. Dollar This. Dollar That. Fred's. WalMart. Target. TJMaxx. All selling low-quality Chinese/Bengali/Vietnamese/Sri Lankan shit -- but hey! the consumer is crushed, her debt is twelve and a half times her annual disposable income, so cheap imported processed food, cheap pillowcases, and cheap cigarettes are in store for the foreseeable future...and once we go there there's no coming back.
135,000 square feet of retail coming to a corner near me...and of course, some Sacramento high school marching band will be enlisted to lead the opening day parade, with free hot dogs, soda, and perhaps a giveaway cloth Target bag to more easily allow consumers to haul consumables out the door. Hmmm...I wonder why marching bands weren't employed during the shuttering of Kramer Carton and the loss of 60 manufacturing jobs, not a half mile from this intersection. I suppose it's because those former employees wanted their own cheap merchandise, too, unwilling to pay other Americans' higher wages to make the stuff they bought, so other Americans reciprocated, forcing [all] jobs to places where labor is cheaper...but I digress.
This Target (pronounced Tar-jaay) will only detract from my quality of life as I wrestle with increasingly infuriated motorists, but I will stop my narcissistic rant at this point, realizing how the quality of life for thousands of other Americans will only improve with this new commercial unit and hundreds perhaps thousands more just like it. Easier access to imported shit for many is much more important to our national livelihood than a single bicyclist's overblown irrational fear about a coupla cars. I now know that.
Within a few weeks will come the grand opening of a new Target store, adding a few hundred more vehicles per hour into the maw of that intersection. If I thought today's drivers were irate, wait until they get to sit through two more light cycles to get back home to Elk Grove. Truthfully, this is quite a dangerous thing, as some alpha-male jackoff in a Chevy Tahoe might, just might, take his impatient anger to the next level.
What's worse, though, is that discount stores like Target always attract the worst of Americana. I will now get to bicycle alongside many more obese, unkempt, pajama-clad, middle-aged, and rather unpleasant looking women shuttling themselves to Target from South Sacramento, often in barely-smogged jalopies, most of whom are bitter, grumpy, impatient!, and who will, under no circumstances, give a bicyclist any share of the road. I am always on the lookout for these drivers, as dangerous as those alpha-males.
This is what we're going to get more and more of, by the way, as discounting chains are the rising stars in our "new economy." Dollar General. Dollar Tree. Family Dollar. Dollar This. Dollar That. Fred's. WalMart. Target. TJMaxx. All selling low-quality Chinese/Bengali/Vietnamese/Sri Lankan shit -- but hey! the consumer is crushed, her debt is twelve and a half times her annual disposable income, so cheap imported processed food, cheap pillowcases, and cheap cigarettes are in store for the foreseeable future...and once we go there there's no coming back.
135,000 square feet of retail coming to a corner near me...and of course, some Sacramento high school marching band will be enlisted to lead the opening day parade, with free hot dogs, soda, and perhaps a giveaway cloth Target bag to more easily allow consumers to haul consumables out the door. Hmmm...I wonder why marching bands weren't employed during the shuttering of Kramer Carton and the loss of 60 manufacturing jobs, not a half mile from this intersection. I suppose it's because those former employees wanted their own cheap merchandise, too, unwilling to pay other Americans' higher wages to make the stuff they bought, so other Americans reciprocated, forcing [all] jobs to places where labor is cheaper...but I digress.
This Target (pronounced Tar-jaay) will only detract from my quality of life as I wrestle with increasingly infuriated motorists, but I will stop my narcissistic rant at this point, realizing how the quality of life for thousands of other Americans will only improve with this new commercial unit and hundreds perhaps thousands more just like it. Easier access to imported shit for many is much more important to our national livelihood than a single bicyclist's overblown irrational fear about a coupla cars. I now know that.
The Smaller The Woman, The Bigger The SUV
It was mid-2006 when I observed that the smaller the woman, the bigger the SUV she drove. I specifically remember where I was -- in my work's parking lot, watching a cadre of small women drive up in huge rigs to the child care center to drop off their kids. I used this statement in earlier Monologue posts.
This exact quote was used today in a editorial by David Brooks, and in a surprisingly sarcastic fashion for a syndicated columnist he detailed that the woman is, of course, wearing her tennis whites with her doubles teammate on her shoulders because she has more than enough headroom in her 4-ton SUV.
You will be able to correctly guess my race after the following statement: "as I mentally envisioned D. Brook's statement, I only thought of a white woman." That's what I thought. I did not even consider that a small black woman or a small Bengali woman might also do the same thing, but it's probably because in all my years of observation the women were always small and white.
I would say that the vainer the white woman the bigger the rig, too, and well-to-do white women can be notoriously vain. My Elk Grove was/is full of them, particularly in the better neighborhoods -- you know, those who lived in homes that commanded $605,000 in 2006 that today might fetch $327,000. A half million dollar house with a tenth of a million in garaged vehicles with a twentieth of a million in income -- vanity ran strong.
Now, not four years after the SUV boom, you can really see our cars' age, can't you? A few door dings here, dirt encrusting the inner perimeter of those custom rims there -- man, if I had to drive one of those things would I be embarrassed. Would I ever!
D. Brooks argues that maybe we'll reset our thinking, to where smallness supersedes our last era of excess...something I've been saying for a few years here but without really thinking it will ever happen -- where perhaps material possessions are exchanged for valid communities, for neighborly relationships. He details the efforts of a rising young Christian minister in Alabama who's noteworthy for his views on non-materialistic piety. Anyone who's read these Monologues knows that I don't need the teachings of a supposed humble Jesus to tell me the destructiveness American materialism has had on our society, but I'll tell you, many do. The most conspicuous display of consumption I see on a daily basis is my bicycle ride past Christian Brothers High School, where $32 million worth of Land Rovers, E65's and Escalades parade through Oak Park shuttling the next generation of conspicuous consumers to school.
Perhaps we become better people if we are forced into an economic calamity where materialism isn't possible anymore, but my pessimism trumps all. I still think that going forward, under any conditions, the smaller the woman, the more her ride will bling. We can't escape our materialism.
This exact quote was used today in a editorial by David Brooks, and in a surprisingly sarcastic fashion for a syndicated columnist he detailed that the woman is, of course, wearing her tennis whites with her doubles teammate on her shoulders because she has more than enough headroom in her 4-ton SUV.
You will be able to correctly guess my race after the following statement: "as I mentally envisioned D. Brook's statement, I only thought of a white woman." That's what I thought. I did not even consider that a small black woman or a small Bengali woman might also do the same thing, but it's probably because in all my years of observation the women were always small and white.
I would say that the vainer the white woman the bigger the rig, too, and well-to-do white women can be notoriously vain. My Elk Grove was/is full of them, particularly in the better neighborhoods -- you know, those who lived in homes that commanded $605,000 in 2006 that today might fetch $327,000. A half million dollar house with a tenth of a million in garaged vehicles with a twentieth of a million in income -- vanity ran strong.
Now, not four years after the SUV boom, you can really see our cars' age, can't you? A few door dings here, dirt encrusting the inner perimeter of those custom rims there -- man, if I had to drive one of those things would I be embarrassed. Would I ever!
D. Brooks argues that maybe we'll reset our thinking, to where smallness supersedes our last era of excess...something I've been saying for a few years here but without really thinking it will ever happen -- where perhaps material possessions are exchanged for valid communities, for neighborly relationships. He details the efforts of a rising young Christian minister in Alabama who's noteworthy for his views on non-materialistic piety. Anyone who's read these Monologues knows that I don't need the teachings of a supposed humble Jesus to tell me the destructiveness American materialism has had on our society, but I'll tell you, many do. The most conspicuous display of consumption I see on a daily basis is my bicycle ride past Christian Brothers High School, where $32 million worth of Land Rovers, E65's and Escalades parade through Oak Park shuttling the next generation of conspicuous consumers to school.
Perhaps we become better people if we are forced into an economic calamity where materialism isn't possible anymore, but my pessimism trumps all. I still think that going forward, under any conditions, the smaller the woman, the more her ride will bling. We can't escape our materialism.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Four Minutes Before Friday
My electric utility wrapped up its NERC reliability audit Friday and NERC set us back about fifteen years in the process, all to stop super-hacker.
We pulled the plug on remotely accessing every relay and digital fault recorder in our grid because of critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reliability requirements. The idea being that super-hacker might 1)use wire cutters to clip a substation fence, one deemed "critical," 2) hope he doesn't set off the perimiter alarm, 3) drag his laptop behind him as he crawls through the hole, 4) pick the lock to the substation control room, 5) disarm the control room alarm, 6) plug into a relay (provided he knows how, and of course, has a laptop with a serial to USB connector...but he is super-hacker...), 7) hack through the two levels of relay security and hope he doesn't ping the relay fail alarm, and 8) hack back into our SCADA/EMS network, causing all sorts of mischief.
Is this for real? Really, is this for real?
Again -- electric rates are only going up because of stupid shit like this. We lost fifteen years of real-time access to relays that help troubleshoot outaged equipment. We'll have to re-engineer a "secure" method because apparently steps 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 above aren't secure enough, and it's gonna be expensive. Or maybe we never get it back, in which case we lose one of the most valuable tools we've ever had. Either way, super-hacker wins.
Now when a fault occurs we'll send a electrical technician out to the substation, who's going to be happy to do it cause it'll be time and a half thank-you-very-much, double time on a holiday like today, to pull event records from a relay that I was able to do remotely in less than four minutes before Friday. Burn more foreign oil ostensibly to limit super-hacker. Now I'll be waiting for the elec-tech to either return from the field with a thumbdrive (if NERC doesn't ban all thumbdrives because super-hacker left one lying in the parking lot and I thought it was cool and I plugged it into my computer just for shits and giggles, unleashing the demon lurking within) or maybe he'll be able to e-mail it from the substation (if NERC doesn't ban all network access because of super-hacker). What may have taken us twenty minutes to analyze and put back into service may well take a few hours now.
Actually, we only lost remote access to our critical substations, the list of which I am forbidden to know. So super-hacker can proceed with steps 1 through 8 above if he just does so at a non-critical substation, and he can go to the NERC website to see the criteria we used to develop our forbidden list. Zounds! I wonder: would I be jailed if I blogged what substations we lost access to, for divulging "critical assets" without actually knowing them because I'm forbidden to know? Is that the same thing, or can I hide behind plausible deniability? In court: "how could I have divulged them, your honor -- I've been deliberately made unaware of said forbidden list so as to benefit or shield me from any responsibility associated through the knowledge of said forbidden list. Therefore I am in a condition to which I can safely and believably deny knowledge of said forbidden list, and so I could not have possibly divulged it."
How, exactly, is reliability enhanced if equipment at "critical" substations is out of service longer than it would have otherwise been? Isn't that the whole fucking idea, to keep critical assets in service? Otherwise, why would they be deemed critical?
We pulled the plug on remotely accessing every relay and digital fault recorder in our grid because of critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reliability requirements. The idea being that super-hacker might 1)use wire cutters to clip a substation fence, one deemed "critical," 2) hope he doesn't set off the perimiter alarm, 3) drag his laptop behind him as he crawls through the hole, 4) pick the lock to the substation control room, 5) disarm the control room alarm, 6) plug into a relay (provided he knows how, and of course, has a laptop with a serial to USB connector...but he is super-hacker...), 7) hack through the two levels of relay security and hope he doesn't ping the relay fail alarm, and 8) hack back into our SCADA/EMS network, causing all sorts of mischief.
Is this for real? Really, is this for real?
Again -- electric rates are only going up because of stupid shit like this. We lost fifteen years of real-time access to relays that help troubleshoot outaged equipment. We'll have to re-engineer a "secure" method because apparently steps 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 above aren't secure enough, and it's gonna be expensive. Or maybe we never get it back, in which case we lose one of the most valuable tools we've ever had. Either way, super-hacker wins.
Now when a fault occurs we'll send a electrical technician out to the substation, who's going to be happy to do it cause it'll be time and a half thank-you-very-much, double time on a holiday like today, to pull event records from a relay that I was able to do remotely in less than four minutes before Friday. Burn more foreign oil ostensibly to limit super-hacker. Now I'll be waiting for the elec-tech to either return from the field with a thumbdrive (if NERC doesn't ban all thumbdrives because super-hacker left one lying in the parking lot and I thought it was cool and I plugged it into my computer just for shits and giggles, unleashing the demon lurking within) or maybe he'll be able to e-mail it from the substation (if NERC doesn't ban all network access because of super-hacker). What may have taken us twenty minutes to analyze and put back into service may well take a few hours now.
Actually, we only lost remote access to our critical substations, the list of which I am forbidden to know. So super-hacker can proceed with steps 1 through 8 above if he just does so at a non-critical substation, and he can go to the NERC website to see the criteria we used to develop our forbidden list. Zounds! I wonder: would I be jailed if I blogged what substations we lost access to, for divulging "critical assets" without actually knowing them because I'm forbidden to know? Is that the same thing, or can I hide behind plausible deniability? In court: "how could I have divulged them, your honor -- I've been deliberately made unaware of said forbidden list so as to benefit or shield me from any responsibility associated through the knowledge of said forbidden list. Therefore I am in a condition to which I can safely and believably deny knowledge of said forbidden list, and so I could not have possibly divulged it."
How, exactly, is reliability enhanced if equipment at "critical" substations is out of service longer than it would have otherwise been? Isn't that the whole fucking idea, to keep critical assets in service? Otherwise, why would they be deemed critical?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Everyone Wins
The Elk Grovian City Council has now voted to permanently ban medical marijuana dispensaries.
Now our 8,450 residents who are qualified to consume cannabis will simply climb into their cars and drive to Sacramento where there are forty seven dispensaries, doing nothing more than blowing money on both weed and foreign oil.
From a purely economic perspective, Elk Grove will probably gain more from their ban by gaining tax revenues from residents having to purchase motor vehicles at our Auto Mall sooner than they otherwise would have due to them driving sixty more miles each week to get their weed from afar...more than having taxed the dispensaries in the first place.
Those city council members...smart fuckers they are...are much smarter than I.
Of course, we have Jim Cooper clearly in opposition to said dispensaries because law enforcement will forever be in opposition to de-criminalization. And I can see his point. If this state's consumers choose to de-criminalize pot, the role of law enforcement will be reduced, and as a lifelong enforcer of the law he clearly needs to support laws that expand the role law enforcement officers have in providing that enforcement. In the same fashion, electric utilities are in favor of the smarte grid for precisely the same reason -- their futures are only enhanced by creating complex technological solutions...solutions that in the end will lead to more energy use. With our smarte grid you can be assured that we will consume more energy overall, not less. With our ban on dispensaries you can be assured that we will consume more marijuana overall, not less.
So we'll ban medical marijuana in our fair city to the applause of Christian Conservatives while failing to recognize that our constituents will simply drive a few more million vehicle miles annually to Sactown to get their weed and get loaded in their cars before driving back home to Elk Grove. Potheads will still have access to herb. Our religious right will feel good about their ban and how "Elk Grove is a better place for it." Oil companies will feel good about having a dedicated clientele consuming foreign petroleum to get their weed, because they will go to great lengths to score. Our city will gain tax revenues for selling more cars to potheads. The religious right will simply be taxed more to maintain the roads needed to shuttle these potheads to Sacramento and beyond, but they won't even notice.
In the end, everyone wins.
Now our 8,450 residents who are qualified to consume cannabis will simply climb into their cars and drive to Sacramento where there are forty seven dispensaries, doing nothing more than blowing money on both weed and foreign oil.
From a purely economic perspective, Elk Grove will probably gain more from their ban by gaining tax revenues from residents having to purchase motor vehicles at our Auto Mall sooner than they otherwise would have due to them driving sixty more miles each week to get their weed from afar...more than having taxed the dispensaries in the first place.
Those city council members...smart fuckers they are...are much smarter than I.
Of course, we have Jim Cooper clearly in opposition to said dispensaries because law enforcement will forever be in opposition to de-criminalization. And I can see his point. If this state's consumers choose to de-criminalize pot, the role of law enforcement will be reduced, and as a lifelong enforcer of the law he clearly needs to support laws that expand the role law enforcement officers have in providing that enforcement. In the same fashion, electric utilities are in favor of the smarte grid for precisely the same reason -- their futures are only enhanced by creating complex technological solutions...solutions that in the end will lead to more energy use. With our smarte grid you can be assured that we will consume more energy overall, not less. With our ban on dispensaries you can be assured that we will consume more marijuana overall, not less.
So we'll ban medical marijuana in our fair city to the applause of Christian Conservatives while failing to recognize that our constituents will simply drive a few more million vehicle miles annually to Sactown to get their weed and get loaded in their cars before driving back home to Elk Grove. Potheads will still have access to herb. Our religious right will feel good about their ban and how "Elk Grove is a better place for it." Oil companies will feel good about having a dedicated clientele consuming foreign petroleum to get their weed, because they will go to great lengths to score. Our city will gain tax revenues for selling more cars to potheads. The religious right will simply be taxed more to maintain the roads needed to shuttle these potheads to Sacramento and beyond, but they won't even notice.
In the end, everyone wins.
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