As oil is a global product, how is it we should expect our government, one government among three hundred others, to be able to do something about the price of gas?
Outside of the $.18 per gallon federal tax which I suppose could be altered, the price of crude is set on the world market. Peruvians are paying the same price for a barrel of crude as are Moroccans as are the Chinese, as are we.
Then we love to lambaste our multinational oil companies like Chevron and Shell who are "gouging us," "taking advantage of us," or otherwise sticking it to the little guy. Interesting. They produce only about 6% of the world's supply -- the rest comes from state run oil companies -- ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia, PEMEX in Mexico, etc. If indeed we enact legislation to seize the "excessive" profits from Exxon et al, the net result will hardly effect a change in the price of petrol at your pump.
For someone who has lamented the tragic state of American suburbia and its energy intensive requirements, your Franklin Monologues author takes great pleasure with $4 (and rising) gasoline. I enjoy being spot on regarding the actions this nation will take, almost in lockstep -- step one, we'll go after "fraud, waste, and abuse" in the oil markets, ensuring that there's no price gouging, or that ruthless speculation gets weeded out. When that fails to produce any meaningful results, as we all know it will, we'll then (step two) rhetorically ask why we're not investing in the development of the ninety three Saudi Arabia's worth of oil locked up underneath North Dakota in the shale plays. When that fails to produce any meaningful result, as we all know it will, then in step three we'll ask for drilling rights in ANWR, rhetorically asking why migratory caribou seemingly have more rights than extreme commuters who grind out daily commutes from Stockton to Milpitas cleaning the next hot-shit Internet company's buildings after hours. Step four involves Republican grandstanding, asking why Obama hates America, hates our way of life and asking why he's out to destroy our economy and the good folks of America. Step five involves discussions on a gas tax holiday. Step six, however, is the only meaningful step-- people simply decide to drive less. Demand falls in response to $4.50 diesel, which raises inventories and lowers prices.
If you want lower gas prices, then drive less. The price will fall if you don't demand it. That's pretty simple, really, and this is already happening.
Friday's bicycle ride down Franklin Blvd., all 25 minutes of it, was indeed wonderful. A massive tail wind and $4.19 gasoline both acting to make my ride a beautiful thing -- little effort needed in pedaling and fewer cars to potentially mow me down.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Weather Is Not News
Or so I used to think that weather was not news, not until I saw the southeastern tornado devastation over the week.
Under most conditions not involving death or dismemberment, the weather is simply not news. It rains. It gets windy. Hail falls. Snow melts. These are natural things and are often reported excessively, with a camera crew up at Blue Canyon, watching the snow fall, or a camera crew on a bridge overlooking a swollen river.
I can blog about them, however, as blogs are opinions, not newsworthy outlets. Thursday and Friday were awful days to be riding a bicycle between Elk Grove and Sacramento -- 17mph winds from the direct north. I arrived at work both days with completely bloodshot eyes full of debris and the ingestion of a sufficient quantity of pollen to stun a cape buffalo. I'm not normally allergic to trees (grasses, yes, which peak here in another three-four weeks) but all this flying at me at 27 mph (10 on the bike + 17 from the wind) left me wheezing for a few hours each morning.
It is not at all worth the 25 minutes each afternoon I get to ride at 22 mph down Franklin Blvd. home with the wind behind me. Fun, yes...but it doesn't offset the misery of the mornings.
A question was posed on the NBC nightly news about how bad our weather has become, and not so subtly the answer becomes "man's contribution to global climate disruption leads to exacerbation of extreme weather events." That's interesting. Still, the worst tornado "event" occurred in 1899, worst in total deaths, that is. Seems to me this was still pretty early in the industrial revolution, although coal had been consumed in great quantities even then.
We are always looking for a reason, for a rationale for why a tornado comes in an wipes a quarter of a town off the map. Survivors thank God for his mercy, while those killed are now thanking God directly, too. I will argue that, because the earth spins around the sun at a rate of one revolution every 24 hours, tornadoes and hurricanes...just...happen. Weather happens. A tornado in the year 1325 in Oklahoma was presumably just as bad for any Native American as it is for an American in 2011, and presumably will be just as bad for any American in 2208.
Under most conditions not involving death or dismemberment, the weather is simply not news. It rains. It gets windy. Hail falls. Snow melts. These are natural things and are often reported excessively, with a camera crew up at Blue Canyon, watching the snow fall, or a camera crew on a bridge overlooking a swollen river.
I can blog about them, however, as blogs are opinions, not newsworthy outlets. Thursday and Friday were awful days to be riding a bicycle between Elk Grove and Sacramento -- 17mph winds from the direct north. I arrived at work both days with completely bloodshot eyes full of debris and the ingestion of a sufficient quantity of pollen to stun a cape buffalo. I'm not normally allergic to trees (grasses, yes, which peak here in another three-four weeks) but all this flying at me at 27 mph (10 on the bike + 17 from the wind) left me wheezing for a few hours each morning.
It is not at all worth the 25 minutes each afternoon I get to ride at 22 mph down Franklin Blvd. home with the wind behind me. Fun, yes...but it doesn't offset the misery of the mornings.
A question was posed on the NBC nightly news about how bad our weather has become, and not so subtly the answer becomes "man's contribution to global climate disruption leads to exacerbation of extreme weather events." That's interesting. Still, the worst tornado "event" occurred in 1899, worst in total deaths, that is. Seems to me this was still pretty early in the industrial revolution, although coal had been consumed in great quantities even then.
We are always looking for a reason, for a rationale for why a tornado comes in an wipes a quarter of a town off the map. Survivors thank God for his mercy, while those killed are now thanking God directly, too. I will argue that, because the earth spins around the sun at a rate of one revolution every 24 hours, tornadoes and hurricanes...just...happen. Weather happens. A tornado in the year 1325 in Oklahoma was presumably just as bad for any Native American as it is for an American in 2011, and presumably will be just as bad for any American in 2208.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Express Pumping
So, I filled up the truck this morning at the Arco at Franklin and 47th...$92 bucks, and of course I'm expecting to pay $392 as I'm expecting a real oil/gasoline shortage sometime over the next decade or two.
I watched three others this morning fill up with $5.00 worth of gas...somewhere around a gallon and a third, I'd reckon. I've always filled completely up every time I've ever entered a gas station simply to reduce the number of trips I have to take there, regardless of whether or not I could afford a full fillup. Nowadays I get to jack off in my truck for ten minutes each time I go to the gas station, waiting in line behind the myriad people who fill at $5 a crack and visit the station six times a week. I visit maybe six times a year in the truck. I bite the bullet and pay the bill all at once.
Three people filling $5. I admit that represents a few minutes of work for me and 2/3rds an hour for a lot of people, but the fill station doesn't discriminate between those willing to fill up and those who are just trying to get to their next gig.
Here's my thoughts: someday there'll be an express pump at most stations for fill ups only, much like there's business class on airlines. People willing to fill their tanks will get priority over those who only want a coupla bucks worth of gas. Yep, the price per gallon will be a little bit more, but as we know that people will make illegal u-turns to get to the station with gas that's $0.01 cheaper, a full quarter differential for Express Pumping will draw those in their Mercedes, their Beemers, their Land Cruisers, and their Chevy Trucks (me) into these express lanes such that the wait is minimal, the gas is pumped by a professional, and the commoners (whose unwillingingless to pay so much as another nickel per gallon) will never entering the query.
We are creating toll roads across the U.S. for the exact same reason -- the rich whose time is more valuable than yours, more valuable than sitting idle on congested freeways, willing to pay a premium for the right to commute 72 miles a day to their financial, insurance, or real estate jobs from their 3,700 sq ft housal units on 1/2 acres 37 miles down the interstate.
Toll roads are already here. Toll gasoline stations are next, you watch. Rich people unwilling to fill their Land Cruisers next to $5.00-paying people, but who are willing to pay extra for the right to fill first, amongst other expensive imported rigs. If this would be considersed discriminatory, then perhaps a simple express lane can be created for those willing to pay a premium for expedited service, at a price premium that eliminates most others from contention.
That'll be the line for me...oh yeah...
I watched three others this morning fill up with $5.00 worth of gas...somewhere around a gallon and a third, I'd reckon. I've always filled completely up every time I've ever entered a gas station simply to reduce the number of trips I have to take there, regardless of whether or not I could afford a full fillup. Nowadays I get to jack off in my truck for ten minutes each time I go to the gas station, waiting in line behind the myriad people who fill at $5 a crack and visit the station six times a week. I visit maybe six times a year in the truck. I bite the bullet and pay the bill all at once.
Three people filling $5. I admit that represents a few minutes of work for me and 2/3rds an hour for a lot of people, but the fill station doesn't discriminate between those willing to fill up and those who are just trying to get to their next gig.
Here's my thoughts: someday there'll be an express pump at most stations for fill ups only, much like there's business class on airlines. People willing to fill their tanks will get priority over those who only want a coupla bucks worth of gas. Yep, the price per gallon will be a little bit more, but as we know that people will make illegal u-turns to get to the station with gas that's $0.01 cheaper, a full quarter differential for Express Pumping will draw those in their Mercedes, their Beemers, their Land Cruisers, and their Chevy Trucks (me) into these express lanes such that the wait is minimal, the gas is pumped by a professional, and the commoners (whose unwillingingless to pay so much as another nickel per gallon) will never entering the query.
We are creating toll roads across the U.S. for the exact same reason -- the rich whose time is more valuable than yours, more valuable than sitting idle on congested freeways, willing to pay a premium for the right to commute 72 miles a day to their financial, insurance, or real estate jobs from their 3,700 sq ft housal units on 1/2 acres 37 miles down the interstate.
Toll roads are already here. Toll gasoline stations are next, you watch. Rich people unwilling to fill their Land Cruisers next to $5.00-paying people, but who are willing to pay extra for the right to fill first, amongst other expensive imported rigs. If this would be considersed discriminatory, then perhaps a simple express lane can be created for those willing to pay a premium for expedited service, at a price premium that eliminates most others from contention.
That'll be the line for me...oh yeah...
Monday, April 25, 2011
I Am Global Warming
I fought my way to work and back on the bicycle today against two wrong way riders, a small truck driver who told me to get out of the road as I was entering the left hand turn lane at 59th, 16 mph headwinds and concomitant allergens, a good dousing in the morning soaking the equipment, and a left testicle whose incision following surgery has opened up, is oozing, and is extremely painful just sitting here, let alone straddling the saddle.
What a miserable ride...but I did it anyway. I have to lose some weight. I have to get prepared for the Eppie's Great Race in July, and another run beforehand. I am struggling...
I didn't ride to save gasoline today. No way. Do you really think that saving five measly bucks is worth all this? The risks from bad drivers and wrong way cyclists and lung disease? This is exactly why 99.934% of Elk Grovians drive or have to be driven to work.
I'm pretty sure I'm the real cause of Global Warming by riding my bicycle. Yep. I'm a constant, visible reminder to thousands of you Elk Grovians as you drive past me on Franklin Blvd. just how shitty it'd really be if you weren't burning those twenty one million barrels of oil each day, if you didn't have your two point five cars to get you around. You look at me, thinking "glad I ain't him," and drive just a little bit faster.
I can see it now -- you're fidgeting uncomfortably at the Valero pump station at Franklin and Meadowgate, wondering if you should stop at $65 or if you should accept the possibility of overdrafting and just fill up the tank on your minivan. You see me bicycle by into that headwind. "Glad I ain't him," you mutter to yourself, as you squeeze that handle just a little bit tighter -- "fill 'er up...fill 'er up."
I Am Global Warming.
What a miserable ride...but I did it anyway. I have to lose some weight. I have to get prepared for the Eppie's Great Race in July, and another run beforehand. I am struggling...
I didn't ride to save gasoline today. No way. Do you really think that saving five measly bucks is worth all this? The risks from bad drivers and wrong way cyclists and lung disease? This is exactly why 99.934% of Elk Grovians drive or have to be driven to work.
I'm pretty sure I'm the real cause of Global Warming by riding my bicycle. Yep. I'm a constant, visible reminder to thousands of you Elk Grovians as you drive past me on Franklin Blvd. just how shitty it'd really be if you weren't burning those twenty one million barrels of oil each day, if you didn't have your two point five cars to get you around. You look at me, thinking "glad I ain't him," and drive just a little bit faster.
I can see it now -- you're fidgeting uncomfortably at the Valero pump station at Franklin and Meadowgate, wondering if you should stop at $65 or if you should accept the possibility of overdrafting and just fill up the tank on your minivan. You see me bicycle by into that headwind. "Glad I ain't him," you mutter to yourself, as you squeeze that handle just a little bit tighter -- "fill 'er up...fill 'er up."
I Am Global Warming.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Ought Six to Ought 'Ait
Blogger has been acting up lately -- a few errors here and there that make posting a real chore. But one error, the broken gadget that used to be at the bottom of my web page, the National Debt Clock, may not be blogger's fault.
Perhaps it's because the number has gotten so damn big that computers can't process it anymore...
Since I've been a protection relay engineer at SMUD, if I were to add up every relay, each calculating voltage and current signals at a 240Hz rate since I've become a protection engineer five years ago, if I were to add them all up they'd still be less than the national debt. 325 microprocessor relays * 4 intervals per cycle * 60 cycles per second * 60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour * 12 hours a day * 365.25 days a year * five years = 12.3 trillion while the national debt is $14.3 trillion.
Indeed, for the foreseeable future the processes of all the relays in all the substations in Sacramento County will stay behind the debt. The debt is growing at a rate of $686 dollars for every Hertz of the North American electrical system. Now that's a Hertz donut.
Is is no wonder why the S&P credit rating agency recently downgraded our treasury debt from stable to negative? Of course, this coming from an institution whose AAA ratings of millions of worthless fucking collateralized debt obligations helped spur the mild slowdown of ought six to ought 'ait really shouldn't mean a damn thing...but for some reason we still like to think they are the experts at rating stuff. Fine.
Personally, I'd rate our nation well below AAA. But that's just me, and I'm just an observer, nothing else. I had the sublime experience to wander about the South Sacramento Super WalMart this afternoon looking for canned whole peeled tomatoes. The New Asian supermarket not 1/8 of a mile away from my in-law's house doesn't carry that, no. Tomatoes in a can? No way. Canned eel? Well, which species among the dozens they carry would you like?
As I exited the parking lot (I could only turn right when I really wanted to go left...ahhh, to wish for my bicycle...) I was then forced to commute all the way down through Little Saigon -- not that this was a problem, mind you, just that I was pretty sure that every supermarket for the next three miles wasn't going to carry canned tomatoes, either, so I found myself at the Super WalMart. As I took note, there wasn't a single Vietnamese person shopping there that I could observe. No, most apparently must shop at the specific Vienamese shopping stores. And as I further took note, a good 65% of WalMart patrons were clinically obese. Hmmmm...didn't seem to see a single obese person at the New Asia Supermarket except for me.
I wondered to myself in the checkout line -- this is AAA? This? I should expect to rate the $14.3 million million dollars in debt held by all these Americans as triple A? Really? Slovenly, unkempt, potentially riotous should WalMart run short of retro Air Jordan shoes, endlessly circling the parking lot in their Expeditions looking for that prime-cut parking slip yet willing to walk the equivalent of three miles through the discount bargain bins?
I am not a fan of what passes for culture these days. I perhaps tend to see the negative, because to blog about the positives would be pretty damn boring, if I could even think of a few. I most certainly see the negative in our national financial outlook. I most certainly see the negative in our utter failure to develop any coherent energy policy in the face of a looming oil crisis that can be seen from four hundred miles down the road. I want to stay one step ahead of rioting Elk Grovians/South Sacramentans should the Chevron station turn up empty one cold winter morning in 2019 or if the retro Jordans disappear.
But for want of canned tomatoes for Easter salsa, I drove 6.5 miles in my truck, hastening the day some real energy crisis arrives, wondering why anyone would rate my own debt as sterling, someone consuming a half gallon of $4 petrol for a $1.29 can of whole, peeled tomatoes. I found myself just as culpable as every other American I decry for wanton energy wastefulness.
My rating: BB-
Perhaps it's because the number has gotten so damn big that computers can't process it anymore...
Since I've been a protection relay engineer at SMUD, if I were to add up every relay, each calculating voltage and current signals at a 240Hz rate since I've become a protection engineer five years ago, if I were to add them all up they'd still be less than the national debt. 325 microprocessor relays * 4 intervals per cycle * 60 cycles per second * 60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour * 12 hours a day * 365.25 days a year * five years = 12.3 trillion while the national debt is $14.3 trillion.
Indeed, for the foreseeable future the processes of all the relays in all the substations in Sacramento County will stay behind the debt. The debt is growing at a rate of $686 dollars for every Hertz of the North American electrical system. Now that's a Hertz donut.
Is is no wonder why the S&P credit rating agency recently downgraded our treasury debt from stable to negative? Of course, this coming from an institution whose AAA ratings of millions of worthless fucking collateralized debt obligations helped spur the mild slowdown of ought six to ought 'ait really shouldn't mean a damn thing...but for some reason we still like to think they are the experts at rating stuff. Fine.
Personally, I'd rate our nation well below AAA. But that's just me, and I'm just an observer, nothing else. I had the sublime experience to wander about the South Sacramento Super WalMart this afternoon looking for canned whole peeled tomatoes. The New Asian supermarket not 1/8 of a mile away from my in-law's house doesn't carry that, no. Tomatoes in a can? No way. Canned eel? Well, which species among the dozens they carry would you like?
As I exited the parking lot (I could only turn right when I really wanted to go left...ahhh, to wish for my bicycle...) I was then forced to commute all the way down through Little Saigon -- not that this was a problem, mind you, just that I was pretty sure that every supermarket for the next three miles wasn't going to carry canned tomatoes, either, so I found myself at the Super WalMart. As I took note, there wasn't a single Vietnamese person shopping there that I could observe. No, most apparently must shop at the specific Vienamese shopping stores. And as I further took note, a good 65% of WalMart patrons were clinically obese. Hmmmm...didn't seem to see a single obese person at the New Asia Supermarket except for me.
I wondered to myself in the checkout line -- this is AAA? This? I should expect to rate the $14.3 million million dollars in debt held by all these Americans as triple A? Really? Slovenly, unkempt, potentially riotous should WalMart run short of retro Air Jordan shoes, endlessly circling the parking lot in their Expeditions looking for that prime-cut parking slip yet willing to walk the equivalent of three miles through the discount bargain bins?
I am not a fan of what passes for culture these days. I perhaps tend to see the negative, because to blog about the positives would be pretty damn boring, if I could even think of a few. I most certainly see the negative in our national financial outlook. I most certainly see the negative in our utter failure to develop any coherent energy policy in the face of a looming oil crisis that can be seen from four hundred miles down the road. I want to stay one step ahead of rioting Elk Grovians/South Sacramentans should the Chevron station turn up empty one cold winter morning in 2019 or if the retro Jordans disappear.
But for want of canned tomatoes for Easter salsa, I drove 6.5 miles in my truck, hastening the day some real energy crisis arrives, wondering why anyone would rate my own debt as sterling, someone consuming a half gallon of $4 petrol for a $1.29 can of whole, peeled tomatoes. I found myself just as culpable as every other American I decry for wanton energy wastefulness.
My rating: BB-
Temporary Reprieve
I think we absolutely ought to 1) seize oil company excessive profits as they are announced this week, and 2) eliminate the federal gasoline tax.
Wouldn't you agree?
Uh-huh. This would absolutely drop the price at the pump, most certainly. Bus as these profits are sure to be the biggest political football this year, I am eagerly awaiting the next twelve weeks of congressional bipartisan grandstanding to arrive at absolutely nowhere and to perform absolutely nothing here. This will give me a lot to blog about, he-he.
I'm a regular Elk Grovian bicycle commuter, perhaps one of nineteen others in this city of one hundred and forty three thousand auto-dependent consumers. Come on...bicycling has always been a nice way for me to get around but hot damn, it's again fantastic to be a bike commuter! I only wish for even higher gasoline prices. I don't do this to gloat...no. I could easily argue that because we fail to charge the user (through gas taxes/charges) the true costs of extreme auto-dependency, bicycling makes no financial sense until the price exceeds $7.25 a gallon. At least. Until then...fuck yeah, I'm gonna gloat.
But, as I've heard grumblings from those around me about how we ought to cut out that federal gasoline tax to lower prices, I'd be particularly pissed if this came to pass...but I could easily see a spooked Congress vying for their 2012 elections pass something like a "temporary reprieve for the good folks of America." Pissed, because just more of my general tax dollars would then be plowed back into the maintenance of a gold-plated roadway system designed to function on $3.50 gas and below. We already don't tax the user sufficiently; watch, a sustained high cost of gas would most certainly prompt such legislation, just you wait.
Then, Obama might just want to take this week's opportunity and push for an "excessive profits" tax on oil companies. To which I'd also be a bit pissed, but mainly because my 401(k) holds perhaps ten thousand dollars worth of Exxon, Mobil and Valero shares. It would be another tax on me, yes. Not only that, we're clamoring for more drilling -- what, exploratory wells come free? They have to take their profits (save for a few dozen billion for the top brass and us shareholders) and plow them back into finding new reserves. Go ahead -- tax the shit out of them, gain for a few months/years, then scratch your collective heads in 2019 in wonderment, asking why domestic production is 9% lower than it was back in 2011.
It's a good time to be an Elk Grovian bicyclist, indeed. I just wish my crotch was fully recovered from the surgery! For some reason a stitch or two blew out last Friday and I'm really worried about the ride tomorrow morning. It's not as if I can ride every day, and it's not as if I will be able to ride when I'm 61 around here, either -- not with a planned population/suburban housal unit explosion that will turn Franklin Blvd. into a 6-lane expressway in 20 years. It's not as if I'll be able to take Light Rail either, certainly not when federal tax dollars being diverted to road maintenance to compensate for thetemporary permanent "gas tax holiday" will no longer be available for things like national parks and public transit.
I'll just have to climb into one of my several vehicular units and remain angry to no end:
Wouldn't you agree?
Uh-huh. This would absolutely drop the price at the pump, most certainly. Bus as these profits are sure to be the biggest political football this year, I am eagerly awaiting the next twelve weeks of congressional bipartisan grandstanding to arrive at absolutely nowhere and to perform absolutely nothing here. This will give me a lot to blog about, he-he.
I'm a regular Elk Grovian bicycle commuter, perhaps one of nineteen others in this city of one hundred and forty three thousand auto-dependent consumers. Come on...bicycling has always been a nice way for me to get around but hot damn, it's again fantastic to be a bike commuter! I only wish for even higher gasoline prices. I don't do this to gloat...no. I could easily argue that because we fail to charge the user (through gas taxes/charges) the true costs of extreme auto-dependency, bicycling makes no financial sense until the price exceeds $7.25 a gallon. At least. Until then...fuck yeah, I'm gonna gloat.
But, as I've heard grumblings from those around me about how we ought to cut out that federal gasoline tax to lower prices, I'd be particularly pissed if this came to pass...but I could easily see a spooked Congress vying for their 2012 elections pass something like a "temporary reprieve for the good folks of America." Pissed, because just more of my general tax dollars would then be plowed back into the maintenance of a gold-plated roadway system designed to function on $3.50 gas and below. We already don't tax the user sufficiently; watch, a sustained high cost of gas would most certainly prompt such legislation, just you wait.
Then, Obama might just want to take this week's opportunity and push for an "excessive profits" tax on oil companies. To which I'd also be a bit pissed, but mainly because my 401(k) holds perhaps ten thousand dollars worth of Exxon, Mobil and Valero shares. It would be another tax on me, yes. Not only that, we're clamoring for more drilling -- what, exploratory wells come free? They have to take their profits (save for a few dozen billion for the top brass and us shareholders) and plow them back into finding new reserves. Go ahead -- tax the shit out of them, gain for a few months/years, then scratch your collective heads in 2019 in wonderment, asking why domestic production is 9% lower than it was back in 2011.
It's a good time to be an Elk Grovian bicyclist, indeed. I just wish my crotch was fully recovered from the surgery! For some reason a stitch or two blew out last Friday and I'm really worried about the ride tomorrow morning. It's not as if I can ride every day, and it's not as if I will be able to ride when I'm 61 around here, either -- not with a planned population/suburban housal unit explosion that will turn Franklin Blvd. into a 6-lane expressway in 20 years. It's not as if I'll be able to take Light Rail either, certainly not when federal tax dollars being diverted to road maintenance to compensate for the
I'll just have to climb into one of my several vehicular units and remain angry to no end:
Riding Out The Storm
A Sacramento area cameraman, looking for a 2.5 second sound bite for the evening news, might just catch me in passing the several gasoline stations along my route on Franklin Blvd. If I were to be interviewed I'd end up on the cutting room floor because I'm not doing it to avoid the $4 gas. Well...I am, but really, I've been riding underneath $1.70 gas, too. My guess is he'd simply show my picture in passing, edit out the part where I actually say anything (like gasoline would have to be $7 a gallon to make bicycling cost effective), and simply state that "there goes another brave person weathering out this high price storm on his bicycle."
The terminology on the NBC News the other night, showing a guy riding his bike in Denver, was exactly that; he's "riding out the high price storm."
Like riding a bike is only valid for as long as a storm passes -- a temporary condition like bad weather.
Perhaps high prices (if you really call $4 high...really?) are temporary. But to conclude that riding it out on a bicycle, "just waiting for prices to go down," is so damn shortsighted.
Whatever happened to global warming, huh? Suspended, as soon as we have to pay over $3.87 a gallon. Not that I'm a particular fan of global warming (and neither am I a skeptic), but doesn't a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels improve the situation? Say 100%? The only way to prevent it would be to reduce burning them. But that discussion is apparently only valid at $3.00 or below.
What do you suppose will happen if prices remain at $4? There's a lot to consider why they might -- We've devalued our dollar to bail out non-productive segments of our FIRE economy; not gonna be rising anytime soon methinks. We've lobbed a few hundred cruise missiles into a nation responsible for 2% of the world's production but we aren't willing to support regime change, so we're perpetuating the shut-in of Libyan oil supply. There's always been Middle East tension, jeez! What, a coupla hundred Syrian protester deaths are spooking the market this time? They're spooked all the time!
I heard again this evening another Republican congressman's intention to pursue domestic production in the hinterlands...say, even farther out in the gulf, or ANWR. Sean Hannity loves to speak of the 18 Saudi Arabia's worth of shale oil we have underneath North Dakota. Perhaps, yes, we do. But to extract out a barrel's worth would cost $200 each...and if you're bitching about $4 gas now...and every one of these cretins has not yet demonstrated any knowledge that U.S. production peaked in 1971 and has decreased every year, every year, since, while U.S. imports have increased every year, every year, since. To raise domestic production is heartfelt indeed, but completely ignorant of the realities of a finite, non-renewable, declining domestic supply.
The terminology on the NBC News the other night, showing a guy riding his bike in Denver, was exactly that; he's "riding out the high price storm."
Like riding a bike is only valid for as long as a storm passes -- a temporary condition like bad weather.
Perhaps high prices (if you really call $4 high...really?) are temporary. But to conclude that riding it out on a bicycle, "just waiting for prices to go down," is so damn shortsighted.
Whatever happened to global warming, huh? Suspended, as soon as we have to pay over $3.87 a gallon. Not that I'm a particular fan of global warming (and neither am I a skeptic), but doesn't a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels improve the situation? Say 100%? The only way to prevent it would be to reduce burning them. But that discussion is apparently only valid at $3.00 or below.
What do you suppose will happen if prices remain at $4? There's a lot to consider why they might -- We've devalued our dollar to bail out non-productive segments of our FIRE economy; not gonna be rising anytime soon methinks. We've lobbed a few hundred cruise missiles into a nation responsible for 2% of the world's production but we aren't willing to support regime change, so we're perpetuating the shut-in of Libyan oil supply. There's always been Middle East tension, jeez! What, a coupla hundred Syrian protester deaths are spooking the market this time? They're spooked all the time!
I heard again this evening another Republican congressman's intention to pursue domestic production in the hinterlands...say, even farther out in the gulf, or ANWR. Sean Hannity loves to speak of the 18 Saudi Arabia's worth of shale oil we have underneath North Dakota. Perhaps, yes, we do. But to extract out a barrel's worth would cost $200 each...and if you're bitching about $4 gas now...and every one of these cretins has not yet demonstrated any knowledge that U.S. production peaked in 1971 and has decreased every year, every year, since, while U.S. imports have increased every year, every year, since. To raise domestic production is heartfelt indeed, but completely ignorant of the realities of a finite, non-renewable, declining domestic supply.
Thinking About Public Transportation Just A Little Bit More
"I'll probably start thinking about public transportation a little bit more." -- Wealthy San Francisco SUV female driver filling up with $4.79 gasoline as reported on NBC Nightly News this evening.
This is why I love nightly news reporting on gasoline. It's fake. They intentionally edit for rich women in SUVs, with well manicured nails, a large wedding ring, nice clothes, an expensive watch, a diamond bracelet, and a late-model $43,000 rig, bitching about gasoline prices. She'll start thinking about public transportation? Are you fucking kidding me? And the way she rolls her eyes saying "public transportation..." says that what she's saying is a total lie. She'll never intentionally sit next to a commoner.
This woman would never never! pay bus fare to get to her FIRE (Finance, Insurance or Real Estate) job in Palo Alto. Are you kidding me? This kind of reporting makes for a good sound bite to be sure, but well-to-do white San Franciscan women are among the last class of people in this nation who will willingly go without their SUVs. The day they mount a bus or a BART train to save a dollar or three is a day we'll not see in our lifetimes.
After having spent fifty grand on a vehicular unit and nine hundred and twenty thousand on a loft in SoMa, do you really think this woman gives a shit about another dollar per gallon? No way. She'll be burning gasoline in her rig all the way through $25 a gallon. She didn't spend her life working to live in San Francisco and spend three day weekends in Napa Valley to ride a fucking bicycle.
Ironically, San Francisco is among one of the best places in this nation for those willing to live a low energy lifestyle -- it's built compactly with most amenities within walking distance, and has a vibrant, spirited atmosphere. This is why it costs eight hundred thousand dollars just to buy a brick shithouse -- people want to live there. I want to live there, too...but it's too expensive for my income. Instead, I opted for an extreme energy intensive cheap Sacramento suburb where I have to drive everywhere for everything...as 40% of the rest of America has done.
Indeed, tonight I really, really wanted to take light rail to the Amon Amarth metal gig in mid-town Sacramento. The venue was only two blocks away from the 16th street light rail station...but the last light rail train on weekends leaves at 9:26 PM, thanks to service cuts implemented during our little economic slowdown in 2008. The show ended tonight at 11:35. I had no option available to me other than solo occupant commuting by private automobile if I wanted to see the show. So I drove, consuming $4 gasoline every twenty miles driven.
With no mortgage and a $50/hour recession proof job, you can be assured that I will continue to recreationally use oil at the same level I currently use it all the way through $25 a gallon, too, and as our civic, state, and federal leaders continue to fail to deliver viable alternatives to private automobiling, well, there will continue to be no other options and there's nothing that's going to stop me. I'm no different from that rich woman on the news -- only I won't "probably" start thinking about public transportation a "little" bit more. I think about using my bicycle or public transportation every time I leave my housal unit. I think about it ahead of time, even thinking about how I could work around RTs shitty scheduling, but alas, if I wanted to see the show I had to drive myself. I exhausted all other carpooling options. I cannot ride my bicycle in the dark around here because we 1) have no safe north-south bicycle-only option, and 2) there's no bicycle parking outside the Ace of Spaces venue. I'm not risking my life bicycling on Franklin Blvd in the dark, never. I'm not risking losing my bicycle by having to chain it up to some lamp post in the back alley because there are no bike lockers or dedicated bicycle parking areas.
The presumption among the Ace Of Spades venue and the rich woman filling her SUV in a San Francisco fill station is that we are supposed to drive ourselves. Our national identity hinges about solo-occupant private-automobiling. My mom, my two sisters and brothers-in law and me and my wife all commute by private solo occupant motorized vehicular units. The more affluent, the more this rings true. We are not conditioned to take a bus. Many simply won't do it, regardless of the price of gasoline.
This is why I love America. Fat, overweight, out of shape solo-occupant commuters commuting 36-miles to their national defense jobs designing predator drones to kill pro-Qaddafi Libyans so that oil production resumes and their commutes are each a nickel cheaper than what they otherwise would have been. This is why I love America.
This is why I love nightly news reporting on gasoline. It's fake. They intentionally edit for rich women in SUVs, with well manicured nails, a large wedding ring, nice clothes, an expensive watch, a diamond bracelet, and a late-model $43,000 rig, bitching about gasoline prices. She'll start thinking about public transportation? Are you fucking kidding me? And the way she rolls her eyes saying "public transportation..." says that what she's saying is a total lie. She'll never intentionally sit next to a commoner.
This woman would never never! pay bus fare to get to her FIRE (Finance, Insurance or Real Estate) job in Palo Alto. Are you kidding me? This kind of reporting makes for a good sound bite to be sure, but well-to-do white San Franciscan women are among the last class of people in this nation who will willingly go without their SUVs. The day they mount a bus or a BART train to save a dollar or three is a day we'll not see in our lifetimes.
After having spent fifty grand on a vehicular unit and nine hundred and twenty thousand on a loft in SoMa, do you really think this woman gives a shit about another dollar per gallon? No way. She'll be burning gasoline in her rig all the way through $25 a gallon. She didn't spend her life working to live in San Francisco and spend three day weekends in Napa Valley to ride a fucking bicycle.
Ironically, San Francisco is among one of the best places in this nation for those willing to live a low energy lifestyle -- it's built compactly with most amenities within walking distance, and has a vibrant, spirited atmosphere. This is why it costs eight hundred thousand dollars just to buy a brick shithouse -- people want to live there. I want to live there, too...but it's too expensive for my income. Instead, I opted for an extreme energy intensive cheap Sacramento suburb where I have to drive everywhere for everything...as 40% of the rest of America has done.
Indeed, tonight I really, really wanted to take light rail to the Amon Amarth metal gig in mid-town Sacramento. The venue was only two blocks away from the 16th street light rail station...but the last light rail train on weekends leaves at 9:26 PM, thanks to service cuts implemented during our little economic slowdown in 2008. The show ended tonight at 11:35. I had no option available to me other than solo occupant commuting by private automobile if I wanted to see the show. So I drove, consuming $4 gasoline every twenty miles driven.
With no mortgage and a $50/hour recession proof job, you can be assured that I will continue to recreationally use oil at the same level I currently use it all the way through $25 a gallon, too, and as our civic, state, and federal leaders continue to fail to deliver viable alternatives to private automobiling, well, there will continue to be no other options and there's nothing that's going to stop me. I'm no different from that rich woman on the news -- only I won't "probably" start thinking about public transportation a "little" bit more. I think about using my bicycle or public transportation every time I leave my housal unit. I think about it ahead of time, even thinking about how I could work around RTs shitty scheduling, but alas, if I wanted to see the show I had to drive myself. I exhausted all other carpooling options. I cannot ride my bicycle in the dark around here because we 1) have no safe north-south bicycle-only option, and 2) there's no bicycle parking outside the Ace of Spaces venue. I'm not risking my life bicycling on Franklin Blvd in the dark, never. I'm not risking losing my bicycle by having to chain it up to some lamp post in the back alley because there are no bike lockers or dedicated bicycle parking areas.
The presumption among the Ace Of Spades venue and the rich woman filling her SUV in a San Francisco fill station is that we are supposed to drive ourselves. Our national identity hinges about solo-occupant private-automobiling. My mom, my two sisters and brothers-in law and me and my wife all commute by private solo occupant motorized vehicular units. The more affluent, the more this rings true. We are not conditioned to take a bus. Many simply won't do it, regardless of the price of gasoline.
This is why I love America. Fat, overweight, out of shape solo-occupant commuters commuting 36-miles to their national defense jobs designing predator drones to kill pro-Qaddafi Libyans so that oil production resumes and their commutes are each a nickel cheaper than what they otherwise would have been. This is why I love America.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Medical Consumers
I loved Paul Krugman's complaint this morning about calling patients "medical consumers."
"The prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong...with our society's values."
For three years now on my little blog I've made mention how Americans are referred to by every institution -- not as citizens -- but as consumers. I don't know how medical consumption should be seen any differently...particularly not when 70% of our economy is consumer spending and 16% of our GDP is consumed by health care. I have to think these two areas overlap to some degree.
Without verifing, that Krugman is an economic wonk he's most certainly referred to citizens as consumers two dozen times in just the past week alone. Yet somehow, as citizens become patients, whoa! Back up the trolley! The consumption of medical products and services should somehow be exempt?
I like the idea of people as consumers; what it does is take the "human" out of the equation, and gives me something to blog about. Consumers have no responsibilities towards other consumers. Hmmm...just like Americans today. Consumers have no responsibilities towards making habitable, human-scaled places to live. Hmmm...just like Americans today. Consumers' only job is to make a corporation's pile of money into an even larger pile of money. Hmmm...just like Americans today.
We've created an "education industry," for-profit institutions that leave outgoing students mired in debt while corporate shareholders sit on a beach making 20 percent. (I'm one of them, to be sure. I've money in mutual funds that most certainly invest in Phoenix (NASDAQ: APOL) My retiremental future is dependent on sucking even more monies out of the next generation of students...well, at least to become more profitable. So long as it makes me money, I don't give a damn about what value this institution provides to society. That's for a citizen to think about, but I'm not a citizen, I'm a consumer.
Jeffrey Immelt has created a wholly owned subsidiary, GE Healthcare, whose sole purpose (at least to me) is to extract profits from sick people. So long as my holdings of GE stock makes me money, I don't give a damn about a healthier citizenry. I only care about fixing up consumers so that they live longer to consume more, obviously increasing my holding values of Best Buy, Home Depot, et al. Indeed, sick people are immensely profitable -- the most profitable segment of our population. And we have the most sick people of any advanced nation on earth and the percentages are growing. Imagine that -- built-in growth. I'm not certain how my mutual funds invest on any given stock, but I can be damned sure that both Phillip Morris (lung cancer producer, NYSE:PM) and AstraZenica (lung cancer drug manufacturer, NYSE:AZN) both find themselves in my portfolio.
Interestingly, my last blog post indicated a desire to move away from equities. However, I'm just a dumb blogger (an Internet consumer, hehe) -- you think I really ought to double down on a systemic collapse, on an economic depression? I admit I'm moving in a more secure direction to be sure, but I didn't take all my 401(k) and purchase T-bills or gold with it. What I wish for and what I get are too often two totally different things. For now, medical consumers are powering my growth in wealth. A healthier citizenry is not, has not, and will not be on any horizon in my lifetime, for we are both far from healthy and we are far from being citizens.
Citizenry has faded. We cannot fall behind a Democratic president, regardless of his party. He's a nigger to a great number of white Republican consumers around me. Bush was a dolt to a great number of white Democratic consumers around me. We see ourselves on one side of the ideological fence or the other. We don't give a damn about our 2.1 wars; they mean nothing to us as consumers, save for our stock in Raytheon (NYSE: RTN). I count on not a single neighbor for anything, anything at all, here in sterile white suburbia. If and when a resource shortage ever comes I'm hoarding, and I'm going to get mine. I've got no reason to become a citizen, to band with others to trade skills, labor, or assistance. I don't even know their fucking names -- why would I suddenly ask them to trade a cup of sugar for a little charcoal fluid?
"This kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong..."
We already use this kind of language. We've been using it for as long as we've debased the citizen and exhalted the consumer.
"The prevalence of this kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong...with our society's values."
For three years now on my little blog I've made mention how Americans are referred to by every institution -- not as citizens -- but as consumers. I don't know how medical consumption should be seen any differently...particularly not when 70% of our economy is consumer spending and 16% of our GDP is consumed by health care. I have to think these two areas overlap to some degree.
Without verifing, that Krugman is an economic wonk he's most certainly referred to citizens as consumers two dozen times in just the past week alone. Yet somehow, as citizens become patients, whoa! Back up the trolley! The consumption of medical products and services should somehow be exempt?
I like the idea of people as consumers; what it does is take the "human" out of the equation, and gives me something to blog about. Consumers have no responsibilities towards other consumers. Hmmm...just like Americans today. Consumers have no responsibilities towards making habitable, human-scaled places to live. Hmmm...just like Americans today. Consumers' only job is to make a corporation's pile of money into an even larger pile of money. Hmmm...just like Americans today.
We've created an "education industry," for-profit institutions that leave outgoing students mired in debt while corporate shareholders sit on a beach making 20 percent. (I'm one of them, to be sure. I've money in mutual funds that most certainly invest in Phoenix (NASDAQ: APOL) My retiremental future is dependent on sucking even more monies out of the next generation of students...well, at least to become more profitable. So long as it makes me money, I don't give a damn about what value this institution provides to society. That's for a citizen to think about, but I'm not a citizen, I'm a consumer.
Jeffrey Immelt has created a wholly owned subsidiary, GE Healthcare, whose sole purpose (at least to me) is to extract profits from sick people. So long as my holdings of GE stock makes me money, I don't give a damn about a healthier citizenry. I only care about fixing up consumers so that they live longer to consume more, obviously increasing my holding values of Best Buy, Home Depot, et al. Indeed, sick people are immensely profitable -- the most profitable segment of our population. And we have the most sick people of any advanced nation on earth and the percentages are growing. Imagine that -- built-in growth. I'm not certain how my mutual funds invest on any given stock, but I can be damned sure that both Phillip Morris (lung cancer producer, NYSE:PM) and AstraZenica (lung cancer drug manufacturer, NYSE:AZN) both find themselves in my portfolio.
Interestingly, my last blog post indicated a desire to move away from equities. However, I'm just a dumb blogger (an Internet consumer, hehe) -- you think I really ought to double down on a systemic collapse, on an economic depression? I admit I'm moving in a more secure direction to be sure, but I didn't take all my 401(k) and purchase T-bills or gold with it. What I wish for and what I get are too often two totally different things. For now, medical consumers are powering my growth in wealth. A healthier citizenry is not, has not, and will not be on any horizon in my lifetime, for we are both far from healthy and we are far from being citizens.
Citizenry has faded. We cannot fall behind a Democratic president, regardless of his party. He's a nigger to a great number of white Republican consumers around me. Bush was a dolt to a great number of white Democratic consumers around me. We see ourselves on one side of the ideological fence or the other. We don't give a damn about our 2.1 wars; they mean nothing to us as consumers, save for our stock in Raytheon (NYSE: RTN). I count on not a single neighbor for anything, anything at all, here in sterile white suburbia. If and when a resource shortage ever comes I'm hoarding, and I'm going to get mine. I've got no reason to become a citizen, to band with others to trade skills, labor, or assistance. I don't even know their fucking names -- why would I suddenly ask them to trade a cup of sugar for a little charcoal fluid?
"This kind of language is a sign that something has gone very wrong..."
We already use this kind of language. We've been using it for as long as we've debased the citizen and exhalted the consumer.
Decline
There are fewer of us working today as a percentage of our population:
My guess is that this number won't be increasing anytime soon; I think that as more boomers retire they will only offset the number of currently unemployed people re-entering the workforce. Besides, the great run-up in the percentage already occurred as women entered the workforce in the 70s and 80s, to counterbalance their insatiable lust for their own cars, another 800 square feet of housal unit space per person than what they grew up in, and of course their own cellularized telephones, iPods, and laptop computers.
Notwithstanding a steady or perhaps declining percentage of workers comes a fifteen trillion dollar national debt that will, perhaps, someday have to be repaid. Or perhaps not. But clearly, maintaining even a balanced budget is harder with fewer workers, because as the percentage decreases fewer will be paying taxes and more will be sucking off the public teats of Medicare and Social Security.
But why, would you at all suppose, our labor force would increase? There are at least three reasons I can think of why U.S. labor will only find itself on foreign shores over the coming decades:
So, going forward, the former power transformer welder in Pittsburgh, PA who used to make $37/hour will find the voltage to his own housal unit transformed by Brazilian and South Korean transformers, while he shuttles himself off to work as a forklift driver for Target making $16/hour. Along with a flat participation rate, we're also seeing a flat wage rate as good manufacturing jobs are outsourced and lower quality service jobs fill the void.
So not only are fewer people working to pay taxes, their wages are flat while government expenditures for social programs is rocketing upward. We are indeed heading into interesting times to be a decent wage earner here in the U.S. -- we're going to have to support all this overhead somehow, lest it come crashing down over us. Can we do it?
My guess is that this number won't be increasing anytime soon; I think that as more boomers retire they will only offset the number of currently unemployed people re-entering the workforce. Besides, the great run-up in the percentage already occurred as women entered the workforce in the 70s and 80s, to counterbalance their insatiable lust for their own cars, another 800 square feet of housal unit space per person than what they grew up in, and of course their own cellularized telephones, iPods, and laptop computers.
Notwithstanding a steady or perhaps declining percentage of workers comes a fifteen trillion dollar national debt that will, perhaps, someday have to be repaid. Or perhaps not. But clearly, maintaining even a balanced budget is harder with fewer workers, because as the percentage decreases fewer will be paying taxes and more will be sucking off the public teats of Medicare and Social Security.
But why, would you at all suppose, our labor force would increase? There are at least three reasons I can think of why U.S. labor will only find itself on foreign shores over the coming decades:
- Labor in Asia and Latin America is cheaper, primarily because they burn less oil. They don't have the same massive overhead of benefits, don't have to get taxed as much to gold plate their roads to get them to work from their 45 mile distant housal units, etc.
- The cost of electricity to be used in manufacturing is cheaper; coal is powering all of China's growth and they're exempt from climate legislation. The air in Beijing is so fucking dirty as a constant reminder how they've not yet implemented the same expensive pollution measures as the U.S. has.
- Taxes and benefits are most certainly lower, probably in both real and percentage terms. They don't have the same massive, massive social programs as we do here, which could by themselves bankrupt our nation without some controls.
So, going forward, the former power transformer welder in Pittsburgh, PA who used to make $37/hour will find the voltage to his own housal unit transformed by Brazilian and South Korean transformers, while he shuttles himself off to work as a forklift driver for Target making $16/hour. Along with a flat participation rate, we're also seeing a flat wage rate as good manufacturing jobs are outsourced and lower quality service jobs fill the void.
So not only are fewer people working to pay taxes, their wages are flat while government expenditures for social programs is rocketing upward. We are indeed heading into interesting times to be a decent wage earner here in the U.S. -- we're going to have to support all this overhead somehow, lest it come crashing down over us. Can we do it?
Six Hundred To One
As the story goes, in 1960 my co-worker earned $10,000 a year and gasoline was $0.40 a gallon. Today he earns 10x as much, and gas is 10x as much. At four dollars a gallon, he has to work the same amount for a gallon; about one minute and fifteen seconds each.
That's a pretty fair return, eh? For one minute and fifteen seconds of working, he'd be able to purchase a gallon of fuel that could power a tractor auger that could drill 62 post holes. He'd spend three days' effort if he had to do that by hand, creating about a 600:1 ratio increase in human productivity. That's a pretty good return for four dollars.
But...we're bitching about the price because we don't just use oil for productive uses, to take advantage of that 600:1 leverage. No, we instead squander that leverage to work like hell in the country to live in the city, where we work like hell in the city to live in the country, and all the while we commute 49 miles a day in an oil powered vehicular unit for that privilege.
We built our infrastructure on cheap oil. At work, I've created a special protection scheme to protect an underground 230kV electric cable underneath Carmichael that was installed in 1976. We find the cost of replacing this cable to be so prohibitively expensive that we absolutely have to do everything we can to keep it in service as long as possible. The problem is, there is no way, no way, to reduce the level of service this cable provides from, say, an "A" rating to a "B" rating or lower. It has to remain in service; without it, another outage somewhere else could outage tens of thousands of customers for extended periods.
The same thing would occur with our highways -- if we reduced and deferred maintenance on them at even a slightly lower level than today (which everyone thinks is already pretty fucking low), they would deteriorate at an exponential rate -- they need to be maintained at a high level of service at all times, or else one more chink would make it unusable.
A nation like the U.S. needs cheap oil, because we overbuilt our infrastructure, our mega-schools, our fleets of school buses, and most perniciously, our insatiable demand for private automobiling. We need cheap oil because so much of the energy we burn is used simply to keep the system maintained. This is not yet the case in developing nations who have fewer paved roads, smaller schools where kids can walk to instead of being delivered by mom every morning in the minivan.
The supposed nuclear renaissance in the United States ended this last March 11th with Fukushima. We won't build another nuclear reactor here in my lifetime, methinks. If we are to be expanding our economy, we need power to do it. Expanding power won't be coming from nuclear; indeed, I would argue that renewables might not expand at a fast enough rate to even offset the decommissioning of existing nuclear plants over the next few decades. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, just how many wind turbines would be needed to replace the energy production from just one San Onofre reactor?
Which is somewhat too bad in my opinion, as I still believe that nuclear energy will eventually become the only true non-intermittent resource we have 125 years from now; oil, coal, and natural gas will all be substantially reduced in that time frame, and what do you suppose will then power all the tractor-trailers and heavy equipment needed to maintain the electric grid, bridges, and roads?
That's a pretty fair return, eh? For one minute and fifteen seconds of working, he'd be able to purchase a gallon of fuel that could power a tractor auger that could drill 62 post holes. He'd spend three days' effort if he had to do that by hand, creating about a 600:1 ratio increase in human productivity. That's a pretty good return for four dollars.
But...we're bitching about the price because we don't just use oil for productive uses, to take advantage of that 600:1 leverage. No, we instead squander that leverage to work like hell in the country to live in the city, where we work like hell in the city to live in the country, and all the while we commute 49 miles a day in an oil powered vehicular unit for that privilege.
We built our infrastructure on cheap oil. At work, I've created a special protection scheme to protect an underground 230kV electric cable underneath Carmichael that was installed in 1976. We find the cost of replacing this cable to be so prohibitively expensive that we absolutely have to do everything we can to keep it in service as long as possible. The problem is, there is no way, no way, to reduce the level of service this cable provides from, say, an "A" rating to a "B" rating or lower. It has to remain in service; without it, another outage somewhere else could outage tens of thousands of customers for extended periods.
The same thing would occur with our highways -- if we reduced and deferred maintenance on them at even a slightly lower level than today (which everyone thinks is already pretty fucking low), they would deteriorate at an exponential rate -- they need to be maintained at a high level of service at all times, or else one more chink would make it unusable.
A nation like the U.S. needs cheap oil, because we overbuilt our infrastructure, our mega-schools, our fleets of school buses, and most perniciously, our insatiable demand for private automobiling. We need cheap oil because so much of the energy we burn is used simply to keep the system maintained. This is not yet the case in developing nations who have fewer paved roads, smaller schools where kids can walk to instead of being delivered by mom every morning in the minivan.
The supposed nuclear renaissance in the United States ended this last March 11th with Fukushima. We won't build another nuclear reactor here in my lifetime, methinks. If we are to be expanding our economy, we need power to do it. Expanding power won't be coming from nuclear; indeed, I would argue that renewables might not expand at a fast enough rate to even offset the decommissioning of existing nuclear plants over the next few decades. Do you have any idea, any idea at all, just how many wind turbines would be needed to replace the energy production from just one San Onofre reactor?
Which is somewhat too bad in my opinion, as I still believe that nuclear energy will eventually become the only true non-intermittent resource we have 125 years from now; oil, coal, and natural gas will all be substantially reduced in that time frame, and what do you suppose will then power all the tractor-trailers and heavy equipment needed to maintain the electric grid, bridges, and roads?
Borrowing From Tomorrow To Pay For Yesterday
Chatting with a contemporary in the electric consulting field last week, he made mention of a number of acquaintances who, after having paid off their mortgage fell into severe non-mortgage debt. Presumably because as the thinking goes there's all this disposable income now floating around to pay off that new automobile unit, the granite counter tops, the Monte Carlo vacation.
Only problem is that income streams in somewhat slowly compared to your streams of wants; this has always been an issue, but somehow it gets amplified as you think you can pay it off sans mortgage but you simply grow your debt too fast. You then start borrowing from tomorrow to pay for what you spent yesterday and today becomes the same as it always was -- still mired in debt.
I am not a fan of either Obama's or Paul Ryan's budget proposals as both fail to address debt; Ryan's perhaps may get to a neutral deficit, but neither stems the increase in future debt.
There is no better way, in my little opinion (and it is indeed little) to weather the storm of looming deficits and debts at the federal, state, county and local levels than to hold no personal debt. For many of us, this means renting...not a bad thing. I am acquainted with several older couples (say, 10-20 years older than I) who carry as much mortgage debt today as they did in 1987. The standard line is refinancing; they all continued to refinance with higher levels of debt than the last. But this makes supposed sense -- if you have a $16k bill on that new Tacoma at 7.2% and a few $4k credit cards at 13%, just roll those into a mortgage debt at 5.15% and write off that interest. In some respects, our tax policies have encouraged more mortgage debt, but then, with only a $45/month increase in mortgage payments now spread over three hundred and sixty months, all that remaining disposable income can now be used (you guessed it) to drive up even more debt. That Tacoma? Four years, max. Getting a bit used, eh? Trim is starting to fall off the passenger door, a coupla pebble dents in the quarter panels...time for a new Land Cruiser! And hey! And hey! Mortgage rates are now only 4.65%! Refinance yet again!
A couple I know, roughly my mom's age, owes $200,000 on the housal unit she's been living in since, perhaps, 1978. Another couple, down in the town of Franklin, in the same unit since, perhaps, 1985, still owe $220,000. A pool. A new addition. New windows. A paint job. All things driving perpetual debt.
I will continue to argue that going forward, with an entire set of governments all unwilling to agree on how to lower debts, will all fail to do so. The good news is that we are borrowing from tomorrow to pay for yesterday, but today is still lookin' good! With this reprieve, reduce your debt, hold cash instead of equities, consider metals if you've already reduced your debt, gain better control over your own requirements for living and above all, be worth more to your employer than what they are paying you. These are not things that most of us can do in a bubble, so be prepared to work with others; not easy in the land of endless suburbia where we don't depend on anything else by anyone else...
I would fail to see how following these things could possibly go wrong even supposing we have 3.8% growth for the next fifty years and some tech breakthrough yielding unlimited energy. I obviously don't see this happening, but hey, what could go wrong with being more valuable to your employer, even if you are your own employer, huh?
Only problem is that income streams in somewhat slowly compared to your streams of wants; this has always been an issue, but somehow it gets amplified as you think you can pay it off sans mortgage but you simply grow your debt too fast. You then start borrowing from tomorrow to pay for what you spent yesterday and today becomes the same as it always was -- still mired in debt.
I am not a fan of either Obama's or Paul Ryan's budget proposals as both fail to address debt; Ryan's perhaps may get to a neutral deficit, but neither stems the increase in future debt.
There is no better way, in my little opinion (and it is indeed little) to weather the storm of looming deficits and debts at the federal, state, county and local levels than to hold no personal debt. For many of us, this means renting...not a bad thing. I am acquainted with several older couples (say, 10-20 years older than I) who carry as much mortgage debt today as they did in 1987. The standard line is refinancing; they all continued to refinance with higher levels of debt than the last. But this makes supposed sense -- if you have a $16k bill on that new Tacoma at 7.2% and a few $4k credit cards at 13%, just roll those into a mortgage debt at 5.15% and write off that interest. In some respects, our tax policies have encouraged more mortgage debt, but then, with only a $45/month increase in mortgage payments now spread over three hundred and sixty months, all that remaining disposable income can now be used (you guessed it) to drive up even more debt. That Tacoma? Four years, max. Getting a bit used, eh? Trim is starting to fall off the passenger door, a coupla pebble dents in the quarter panels...time for a new Land Cruiser! And hey! And hey! Mortgage rates are now only 4.65%! Refinance yet again!
A couple I know, roughly my mom's age, owes $200,000 on the housal unit she's been living in since, perhaps, 1978. Another couple, down in the town of Franklin, in the same unit since, perhaps, 1985, still owe $220,000. A pool. A new addition. New windows. A paint job. All things driving perpetual debt.
I will continue to argue that going forward, with an entire set of governments all unwilling to agree on how to lower debts, will all fail to do so. The good news is that we are borrowing from tomorrow to pay for yesterday, but today is still lookin' good! With this reprieve, reduce your debt, hold cash instead of equities, consider metals if you've already reduced your debt, gain better control over your own requirements for living and above all, be worth more to your employer than what they are paying you. These are not things that most of us can do in a bubble, so be prepared to work with others; not easy in the land of endless suburbia where we don't depend on anything else by anyone else...
I would fail to see how following these things could possibly go wrong even supposing we have 3.8% growth for the next fifty years and some tech breakthrough yielding unlimited energy. I obviously don't see this happening, but hey, what could go wrong with being more valuable to your employer, even if you are your own employer, huh?
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Leave The Recession Alone!
NBC News today mentioned how gasoline prices during this recession has led to higher food prices, is hurting families, blah blah blah blah blah.
How they've failed to report that the recession ended in June, 2009, almost a good two years hence.
Remember, the recession has long ago ended. It's no longer. To make reference to families suffering today due to the consequences of a minor economic slump that happened two years ago is just wrong, according to those at the National Bureau of Economic Research and to the author of this monologue. Families aren't suffering due to any recession; their suffering is due to their own doing, not to the economy at large. That any given family has endured a layoff or a foreclosure or a repossession or a cut in hours or a takeback is their own damn fault, not because the economy is dour. Laid off? Shouda worked a bit harder, slick. Shouda been more valuable to your employer than what they were payin' you, slick. Shouda landed a recession proof job, slick, not selling pianos, mortgage insurance, microwave ovens, Kirby vacuums, kitchen cabinets, speculative real estate, hot tubs, financial products or pool tables...
I'm tired of hearing about how the Great Recession is still to blame. Might as well keep on blaming Bush. Indeed, some are. But regardless, the recession is over...and it's been over for nearly two fucking years. Get over it. If you can't find a job then you, obviously, aren't looking hard enough. There are plenty of corporate $9/hour wageslave positions available around Elk Grove in this Target/Walmart/Best Buy/Lowe's/Radio Shack/Burger King economy of ours. Go out and get one instead of bitching about how the Great Recession has you down.
Nine dollars an hour. One hour's work will get pissed away each day as you drive your 2006 Ford Expedition with the $6k rims to your front desk managerial job at the freeway Hilton Garden Inn, some eleven miles away from your rental. Won't matter really -- you spent $860 for that in-dash nav system for those twice-a-year trips outside Elk Grove that could have perhaps been saved or invested, but no, your income is below Federal poverty levels for Sacramento county and you obviously know you'd be better off not declaring any assets lest you be denied free assistance, so two thumbs up for in-dash navigation. So much better than those outdated, archaic paper maps, too. Spending a full afternoon folding them up after the weekend dash to Infineon Raceway for the Toyota/Save Mart 350? No way...
Yep. Sick and tired of the recession! It's over, but all you alls don't want to believe it. What, you don't trust the PHDs at the National Bureau of Economic Research? They're doctors, you know, and everyone trusts doctors. They're right. It's over. Been over. Leave The Recession Alone!
Growth has resumed. Deficits have quintupled, yes, but growth has resumed. Regardless of your little unemployment figures (which is a lagging indicator, by the way) we've been growing for almost eight straight quarters. Stop blaming the recession! Leave The Recession Alone!
How they've failed to report that the recession ended in June, 2009, almost a good two years hence.
Remember, the recession has long ago ended. It's no longer. To make reference to families suffering today due to the consequences of a minor economic slump that happened two years ago is just wrong, according to those at the National Bureau of Economic Research and to the author of this monologue. Families aren't suffering due to any recession; their suffering is due to their own doing, not to the economy at large. That any given family has endured a layoff or a foreclosure or a repossession or a cut in hours or a takeback is their own damn fault, not because the economy is dour. Laid off? Shouda worked a bit harder, slick. Shouda been more valuable to your employer than what they were payin' you, slick. Shouda landed a recession proof job, slick, not selling pianos, mortgage insurance, microwave ovens, Kirby vacuums, kitchen cabinets, speculative real estate, hot tubs, financial products or pool tables...
I'm tired of hearing about how the Great Recession is still to blame. Might as well keep on blaming Bush. Indeed, some are. But regardless, the recession is over...and it's been over for nearly two fucking years. Get over it. If you can't find a job then you, obviously, aren't looking hard enough. There are plenty of corporate $9/hour wage
Nine dollars an hour. One hour's work will get pissed away each day as you drive your 2006 Ford Expedition with the $6k rims to your front desk managerial job at the freeway Hilton Garden Inn, some eleven miles away from your rental. Won't matter really -- you spent $860 for that in-dash nav system for those twice-a-year trips outside Elk Grove that could have perhaps been saved or invested, but no, your income is below Federal poverty levels for Sacramento county and you obviously know you'd be better off not declaring any assets lest you be denied free assistance, so two thumbs up for in-dash navigation. So much better than those outdated, archaic paper maps, too. Spending a full afternoon folding them up after the weekend dash to Infineon Raceway for the Toyota/Save Mart 350? No way...
Yep. Sick and tired of the recession! It's over, but all you alls don't want to believe it. What, you don't trust the PHDs at the National Bureau of Economic Research? They're doctors, you know, and everyone trusts doctors. They're right. It's over. Been over. Leave The Recession Alone!
Growth has resumed. Deficits have quintupled, yes, but growth has resumed. Regardless of your little unemployment figures (which is a lagging indicator, by the way) we've been growing for almost eight straight quarters. Stop blaming the recession! Leave The Recession Alone!
Regardless.
Absolutely love the top story tonight on NBC News regarding the outrageous, insane, ridiculous, criminal prices us Americans are paying for gasoline. Four whole dollars per gallon? Someone should be hanged.
Indeed, Sadam Hussein did get hanged, in part due to our Elk Grovian desire to drive everywhere for everything. So now we're looking for someone else to hang: today the news reported that it's speculators who are causing the increase in prices, so apparently they're next up on the dais.
Perhaps speculation has something to do with the run-up. I don't disagree; however, I question the NBC reporting that fails to argue that other causes may indeed be a falling dollar due to bailing out top financial firms and an insatiable lust for oil that far, far exceeds our domestic capacity to produce. Instead, Obama wants to crack down on speculators! Crack Down On Waste! Crack Down On Fraud! Crack Down On Abuse!
How about cracking down on 260 lb. Minnesota snow cows commuting 68 miles a day to their jobs in an oversized vehicle burning foreign oil driving on asphalt roads built on foreign oil subsidized by taxpayers? Both you and I know that would be politically incorrect, and that's why I know that we will never address our profligate internal energy usage until the day we run into a true resource shortage.
I'm looking forward to that day. I am waiting for another 1973, or 1979. Another "shortage," real or imagined, would be good for this nation in my opinion. We'd focus our energies on things other than what we are supposed to power our cars with. The Elk Grove City Council, wondering why developers won't build mile after mile of tract homes along the banks of the Cosumnes River, might finally adopt transit-oriented developments (TOD) instead of the energy-intensive madness of continued suburban sprawl.
But...I'm pretty sure we're not headed there. Not with Obama lambasting oil speculators in his speech today in Reno. Have you been to Reno lately? Do you have any idea how much energy people there use to commute from their homes on the 13th and 15th tees on the Arrow Creek Country Club to their jobs in the city proper in their 12-mpg diesel powered F250s?
Doesn't matter. These owners will drive regardless, as that's what they're conditioned for. That's what they've come to expect as citizens of the most energy intensive nation on earth. That's why they chose to live in remote areas. They didn't work their entire lives in the financial/insurance services sector to take a fucking bus to work. They deserve more, and they're going to consume oil regardless of price. Regardless. They know that if they didn't burn that petroleum themselves, those damn Indians or Chinese or Brazilians will do it for them...
This is America, goddamn it. We're going to exploit the world's petroleum whether they want us to or not. If they choose not to sell it, well, that's what the U.S. Navy is for. If they choose to ask for a few more dollars for it as it's priced in dollars and the dollar has fallen, well, then our leaders will scapegoat speculators, abusers, traders, and oil companies and their wicked Arab co-conspirators.
Everyone but the end user.
Indeed, Sadam Hussein did get hanged, in part due to our Elk Grovian desire to drive everywhere for everything. So now we're looking for someone else to hang: today the news reported that it's speculators who are causing the increase in prices, so apparently they're next up on the dais.
Perhaps speculation has something to do with the run-up. I don't disagree; however, I question the NBC reporting that fails to argue that other causes may indeed be a falling dollar due to bailing out top financial firms and an insatiable lust for oil that far, far exceeds our domestic capacity to produce. Instead, Obama wants to crack down on speculators! Crack Down On Waste! Crack Down On Fraud! Crack Down On Abuse!
How about cracking down on 260 lb. Minnesota snow cows commuting 68 miles a day to their jobs in an oversized vehicle burning foreign oil driving on asphalt roads built on foreign oil subsidized by taxpayers? Both you and I know that would be politically incorrect, and that's why I know that we will never address our profligate internal energy usage until the day we run into a true resource shortage.
I'm looking forward to that day. I am waiting for another 1973, or 1979. Another "shortage," real or imagined, would be good for this nation in my opinion. We'd focus our energies on things other than what we are supposed to power our cars with. The Elk Grove City Council, wondering why developers won't build mile after mile of tract homes along the banks of the Cosumnes River, might finally adopt transit-oriented developments (TOD) instead of the energy-intensive madness of continued suburban sprawl.
But...I'm pretty sure we're not headed there. Not with Obama lambasting oil speculators in his speech today in Reno. Have you been to Reno lately? Do you have any idea how much energy people there use to commute from their homes on the 13th and 15th tees on the Arrow Creek Country Club to their jobs in the city proper in their 12-mpg diesel powered F250s?
Doesn't matter. These owners will drive regardless, as that's what they're conditioned for. That's what they've come to expect as citizens of the most energy intensive nation on earth. That's why they chose to live in remote areas. They didn't work their entire lives in the financial/insurance services sector to take a fucking bus to work. They deserve more, and they're going to consume oil regardless of price. Regardless. They know that if they didn't burn that petroleum themselves, those damn Indians or Chinese or Brazilians will do it for them...
This is America, goddamn it. We're going to exploit the world's petroleum whether they want us to or not. If they choose not to sell it, well, that's what the U.S. Navy is for. If they choose to ask for a few more dollars for it as it's priced in dollars and the dollar has fallen, well, then our leaders will scapegoat speculators, abusers, traders, and oil companies and their wicked Arab co-conspirators.
Everyone but the end user.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Inflation
Having put my first tax-deferred dollar into my retirement account in 1994 when I was still a college student, I look back at the Dow industrial charts and wonder how in 1995 it began an until-then unprecedented steep upward climb. Of course there have been some spectacular retreats between 1995 and 2011, but overall I think the Dow is much higher than it historically should be. Historically, compared to the eight decades that preceded my entrance.
Along with an inflated Dow, we have inflated educational costs, too. I'm amazed at my good fortune to have graduated college in 1995, just before the "education industry" discovered how to graduate students with $90,000 in debt, how tuition has risen three times faster than the rate of inflation to ostensibly cover the costs of state education where 2/3rds used to be covered by the state of California but now only covers 1/5th. I had the good fortune to have landed a technical engineering position that paid enough for me to 1)cover my rent, 2) pay tuition, 3) transport myself to school and work, and 4) save enough in U.S. Savings Bonds to buy my first housal unit before graduating. What do you suppose the likelihood of this happening to a Sac State history major today, huh?
Along with an inflated Dow, we have inflated medical expenses, too. In 1995 I didn't even carry medical insurance; I was young enough, healthy enough...or so I thought. Exactly sixteen years ago today I joined the rolls of the medically insured and I've easily easily! sucked off at least 45 times more than I've paid in premiums through numerous surgeries and insulin. In 1995, a box of syringes and two vials of insulin ran $45 a month. Now, in 2011, with an insulin pump and its associated infusion tubing and reservoirs along with $130 vials of insulin, I draw $1350 a month from a $200 premium, a 3000% increase in the monthly cost of treatment and 6.75 times more than I am asked to pay. This doesn't even yet consider the upcoming costs of cancer drugs like the $93,000-a-year Provenge we're soon to consume.
Along with an inflated Dow, we still have inflated housal unit prices, too. Look at the Case-Shiller index, and even though unit prices have dropped since their hallucinated peak in 2007, they are still well above historical norms. I'd like to say that it was good fortune that allowed me to pay off my mortgage this month, but good fortune played no role -- it was simply hard fucking work to defer paying for that $45k Yukon with the $6k tires/rims and paying down debt first. Nonetheless, I did have the good fortune to have bought in 1997, just before the exponential and unsustainable increase in unit prices, just before DiTech Miracle Loans and 125% loan-to-values and cash-out re-fi's. I remember sitting in the backyard in the summer of 2000, wondering how could I possibly buy my own house if I had to. The answer: I wouldn't have. I couldn't, not based on my income. But what someone shouldn't do and what they do do are two totally different things, and a few tens of millions of us did buy between 2000 and 2006 for some reason or another, thinking it was either going to only keep going up ad infinitium or they wanted to use it as their personal ATM, and today either they've lost it, cashed-out re-fi'ed it above current market value, or otherwise owe more than they've started with or what it's worth.
Along with an inflated Dow, we have inflated energy prices, too. I had the exceptional good fortune to have understood the dynamics of energy early-on, as I work in the electric industry, and I have set myself up to (possibly) live in a constrained energy future. This is no small feat. I hear the constant, incessant yammering from co-workers and acquaintances bitching about gas prices and about how they'd conserve energy if they had to, but it takes a hell of a lot more than yammering to mount a bicycle 3-4 days a week instead of the Land Cruiser -- it takes a mental attitude above all else. Immigrants from low-energy intensive nations will continue to drive here regardless of price, until gas is simply not available; they didn't immigrate to America to ride a fucking bike. White suburban women will argue successfully to their husbands that it's simply too dangerous for their kids to walk to school, lest the child rapist drags them into the bushes, or that they themselves cannot take the transit bus to work lest the nasty black man drag her under the bus for a raping, too. They, too, will drive until gas is simply not available. They didn't move to suburbia to ride a fucking bus. Our national identity and our values hinge around private automobiling, and we will continue to do so regardless of cost. I have the exceptional good fortune to know how to ride a bike in bad weather and alongside bad Elk Grovian drivers. I also know how to ride a bus. These require a mental setpoint above and beyond the vast majority of Elk Grovians who cannot think past their three-car garages.
I do consider myself fortunate, yes. Going forward I intend on continuing to ride the bicycle, even though I have all the disposable income I need to hire someone to drive me if I so wanted. I intend on saving money, having a reserve, owning things to barter, owning tools and materials to work with my hands for myself or others as necessary. I intend on becoming closer to true energy independence, with the ability to take the full jump if absolutely necessary with some carefully planned arrangements.
Nonetheless, following these modest preparations, I'm still a member of the most wasteful, arrogant nation on earth, and I will continue to act like an American for as long as possible. I will recreationally burn oil for the rest of my life, regardless of cost. I will hop in my private vehicle to eat lobster in Stockton if I feel like it. I will perhaps jet-set across the globe on the smallest of whims someday. I'm amazed at my good fortune...
Along with an inflated Dow, we have inflated educational costs, too. I'm amazed at my good fortune to have graduated college in 1995, just before the "education industry" discovered how to graduate students with $90,000 in debt, how tuition has risen three times faster than the rate of inflation to ostensibly cover the costs of state education where 2/3rds used to be covered by the state of California but now only covers 1/5th. I had the good fortune to have landed a technical engineering position that paid enough for me to 1)cover my rent, 2) pay tuition, 3) transport myself to school and work, and 4) save enough in U.S. Savings Bonds to buy my first housal unit before graduating. What do you suppose the likelihood of this happening to a Sac State history major today, huh?
Along with an inflated Dow, we have inflated medical expenses, too. In 1995 I didn't even carry medical insurance; I was young enough, healthy enough...or so I thought. Exactly sixteen years ago today I joined the rolls of the medically insured and I've easily easily! sucked off at least 45 times more than I've paid in premiums through numerous surgeries and insulin. In 1995, a box of syringes and two vials of insulin ran $45 a month. Now, in 2011, with an insulin pump and its associated infusion tubing and reservoirs along with $130 vials of insulin, I draw $1350 a month from a $200 premium, a 3000% increase in the monthly cost of treatment and 6.75 times more than I am asked to pay. This doesn't even yet consider the upcoming costs of cancer drugs like the $93,000-a-year Provenge we're soon to consume.
Along with an inflated Dow, we still have inflated housal unit prices, too. Look at the Case-Shiller index, and even though unit prices have dropped since their hallucinated peak in 2007, they are still well above historical norms. I'd like to say that it was good fortune that allowed me to pay off my mortgage this month, but good fortune played no role -- it was simply hard fucking work to defer paying for that $45k Yukon with the $6k tires/rims and paying down debt first. Nonetheless, I did have the good fortune to have bought in 1997, just before the exponential and unsustainable increase in unit prices, just before DiTech Miracle Loans and 125% loan-to-values and cash-out re-fi's. I remember sitting in the backyard in the summer of 2000, wondering how could I possibly buy my own house if I had to. The answer: I wouldn't have. I couldn't, not based on my income. But what someone shouldn't do and what they do do are two totally different things, and a few tens of millions of us did buy between 2000 and 2006 for some reason or another, thinking it was either going to only keep going up ad infinitium or they wanted to use it as their personal ATM, and today either they've lost it, cashed-out re-fi'ed it above current market value, or otherwise owe more than they've started with or what it's worth.
Along with an inflated Dow, we have inflated energy prices, too. I had the exceptional good fortune to have understood the dynamics of energy early-on, as I work in the electric industry, and I have set myself up to (possibly) live in a constrained energy future. This is no small feat. I hear the constant, incessant yammering from co-workers and acquaintances bitching about gas prices and about how they'd conserve energy if they had to, but it takes a hell of a lot more than yammering to mount a bicycle 3-4 days a week instead of the Land Cruiser -- it takes a mental attitude above all else. Immigrants from low-energy intensive nations will continue to drive here regardless of price, until gas is simply not available; they didn't immigrate to America to ride a fucking bike. White suburban women will argue successfully to their husbands that it's simply too dangerous for their kids to walk to school, lest the child rapist drags them into the bushes, or that they themselves cannot take the transit bus to work lest the nasty black man drag her under the bus for a raping, too. They, too, will drive until gas is simply not available. They didn't move to suburbia to ride a fucking bus. Our national identity and our values hinge around private automobiling, and we will continue to do so regardless of cost. I have the exceptional good fortune to know how to ride a bike in bad weather and alongside bad Elk Grovian drivers. I also know how to ride a bus. These require a mental setpoint above and beyond the vast majority of Elk Grovians who cannot think past their three-car garages.
I do consider myself fortunate, yes. Going forward I intend on continuing to ride the bicycle, even though I have all the disposable income I need to hire someone to drive me if I so wanted. I intend on saving money, having a reserve, owning things to barter, owning tools and materials to work with my hands for myself or others as necessary. I intend on becoming closer to true energy independence, with the ability to take the full jump if absolutely necessary with some carefully planned arrangements.
Nonetheless, following these modest preparations, I'm still a member of the most wasteful, arrogant nation on earth, and I will continue to act like an American for as long as possible. I will recreationally burn oil for the rest of my life, regardless of cost. I will hop in my private vehicle to eat lobster in Stockton if I feel like it. I will perhaps jet-set across the globe on the smallest of whims someday. I'm amazed at my good fortune...
Monday, April 11, 2011
I Hate Democracy
NBC news this evening began its broadcast with the awful, hideous, painful, budget-busting, economy-sapping news that gasoline is approaching four dollars a gallon.
I particularly enjoy the 1.5-2.0 second clips from motorists at fill stations. I always do. Why? Because the reporting is fake; it always is. Assume for a moment you are the reporter looking for these clips -- you're gonna ask for and then edit for those people who decry prices, who think it's "ridiculous." What, you think they'd possibly broadcast an opinion like mine that would argue for $8 gas? Not in my lifetime.
As the Fed-engineered bailout and Americans love affair with deficits both lead to a declining dollar and as oil is priced in dollars, oil producers want something for their product so they are asking for a few dollars more.
Remember, you're getting screwed out of any interest you would have gotten on your savings because we bailed out the financial industry, the titans of our "new economy" that produce nothing of value. Bailing out our financial industry was done at the expense of millions of savers who now get next to nothing in interest. Bailing out our financial industry was done at the expense of everyone who buys imported gasoline as we've eroded the value of our dollar against other currencies. These are the consequences of those past actions and now we don't like it.
I really, really like to hear reporting about whining Americans at their local gasoline stations. It makes me feel good about being a member of their ranks; a privileged people who should not have to suffer the consequences from the democratization of North Africa. Do you think NBC news could possibly broadcast a 1.5 second soundbite of a bitter, overweight, middle-class woman in Aurora, CO, filling her SUV with $3.89 gasoline while muttering "I hate democracy" as she watches the pump register $72 for a tank?
I don't think so.
This is the real America.
I particularly enjoy the 1.5-2.0 second clips from motorists at fill stations. I always do. Why? Because the reporting is fake; it always is. Assume for a moment you are the reporter looking for these clips -- you're gonna ask for and then edit for those people who decry prices, who think it's "ridiculous." What, you think they'd possibly broadcast an opinion like mine that would argue for $8 gas? Not in my lifetime.
As the Fed-engineered bailout and Americans love affair with deficits both lead to a declining dollar and as oil is priced in dollars, oil producers want something for their product so they are asking for a few dollars more.
Remember, you're getting screwed out of any interest you would have gotten on your savings because we bailed out the financial industry, the titans of our "new economy" that produce nothing of value. Bailing out our financial industry was done at the expense of millions of savers who now get next to nothing in interest. Bailing out our financial industry was done at the expense of everyone who buys imported gasoline as we've eroded the value of our dollar against other currencies. These are the consequences of those past actions and now we don't like it.
I really, really like to hear reporting about whining Americans at their local gasoline stations. It makes me feel good about being a member of their ranks; a privileged people who should not have to suffer the consequences from the democratization of North Africa. Do you think NBC news could possibly broadcast a 1.5 second soundbite of a bitter, overweight, middle-class woman in Aurora, CO, filling her SUV with $3.89 gasoline while muttering "I hate democracy" as she watches the pump register $72 for a tank?
I don't think so.
This is the real America.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Wrong Way Feldman
I jogged three miles yesterday afternoon but more importantly (at least to me) I then hopped on the bike for nearly three miles, the longest attempt yet since crotch surgery.
I am really looking forward to commuting by bicycle again, even though it will mean riding side by side with several hundred cars again, too. It's too bad I can't run to work... But no, the bus has provided a good ride, and indeed for a few months there I hardly ever took it I was riding the bike so often.
Interestingly, the buses are crowded, yes -- the entire aisle is usually chock-a-block with people -- yet these are all the same people as when gas was $3.00 a gallon. Not anyone new that I could tell.
My larger concern, however, isn't with having to stand on a bus but rather having to face wrong-way bicyclists on Franklin Blvd. They are dangerous, would cause a serious accident if engaged (crashing together at 30+ mph), and they know it's illegal...but they do it anyway. I spoke with one of these assholes at my cousin's house a few weeks ago; a pretty nice guy overall, yes, but even after successfully arguing all my points he simply refused to accept the idea that riding with traffic is safer. He said "I hear ya, but I'm still going to see them coming at me."
Here's my standard talking points against someone riding the wrong way:
This is just like religion -- you can't argue reason against faith...even if faith in this case will most likely get you killed. "I hear you, but I'm still gonna ride facing traffic."
Sigh...
I am really looking forward to commuting by bicycle again, even though it will mean riding side by side with several hundred cars again, too. It's too bad I can't run to work... But no, the bus has provided a good ride, and indeed for a few months there I hardly ever took it I was riding the bike so often.
Interestingly, the buses are crowded, yes -- the entire aisle is usually chock-a-block with people -- yet these are all the same people as when gas was $3.00 a gallon. Not anyone new that I could tell.
My larger concern, however, isn't with having to stand on a bus but rather having to face wrong-way bicyclists on Franklin Blvd. They are dangerous, would cause a serious accident if engaged (crashing together at 30+ mph), and they know it's illegal...but they do it anyway. I spoke with one of these assholes at my cousin's house a few weeks ago; a pretty nice guy overall, yes, but even after successfully arguing all my points he simply refused to accept the idea that riding with traffic is safer. He said "I hear ya, but I'm still going to see them coming at me."
Here's my standard talking points against someone riding the wrong way:
- Closing speed between you and a car doubles, increasing four times your likelihood of getting killed if you do get hit, as the energy of a crash is not linearly related to speed;
- If a car has to slow down to not hit you, it has to slow down to zero mph instead of just your bicycle speed (say 14 mph). This gives a motorist much less time to react, who likely isn't reacting to a bicyclist anyway.
- A crash between you and another bicyclist going the opposite direction is going to happen; it will someday happen.
- Cars entering the road do not look against traffic before pulling out into the street.
- Furthermore, cars turning left off the road do not look against traffic before turning from the turn or traffic lane.
- You put at risk the right-way bicyclist who invariably is the one who gets to enter the traffic lane to avoid you.
- You absolutely increase your chances for an crossing accident with a car, which occur 15 times more often (45%) than getting hit from behind (3%).
- The white arrow on the road tells you, and you know, that you are going the wrong fucking way.
- It's illegal.
This is just like religion -- you can't argue reason against faith...even if faith in this case will most likely get you killed. "I hear you, but I'm still gonna ride facing traffic."
Sigh...
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Robo Signers
Today again, as it was 18 months ago, the Elk Grove Citizen newspaper chalked up 7 pages of default notices; another 30+ Elk Grovian familial units are about to be foreclosed upon.
Last weekend's 60 Minutes show made mention of another one million foreclosures scheduled to occur in 2011, on top of the one million that occurred in 2010. This on the heels of the reporting of $10 an hour robo-signers signing the name Linda Green to a few hundred thousand documents each month -- big burly guys and little Asian women whose job it was to sign the name Linda Green as fast as they could on documents intended to foreclose upon hundreds upon hundreds of thousands...most certainly to include a few Elk Grovians.
I just pulled out the documents from the foreclosure on my first housal unit that I sold in 2006 -- the name signed was Bethany Hood, assistant secretary for Deutsche Bank Nation Trust Company. Not surprisingly, the signature of Bethany Hood on the form has no resemblance whatsoever to the spelling of Bethany Hood. I'd wager that it was indeed a bunch of $10 an hour people in a warehouse in Patterson, NJ signing off these things as fast as possible. Indeed, you can Google search "Bethany Hood Robo Signer" and you'll find a dozen references to mortgage fraud, and you'll find a .gif file with her signature that doesn't at all match the one on the document I have here at home. Indeed, on this one, she's VP for MERS, not Deutsche.
Fascinating. This in our land of the free.
I had a disposed installment note due to this bank's foreclosure on a property I sold five years ago that arguably was fraudulently signed, yet I filed my 2010 income taxes taking a $17k reduction in ordinary income based on it. This in our land of the free. I took the deduction and I already received my income tax refund, all based on a fraudulent loan doc. Not that I did it, but of course Deutsche Bank will never, never! be held accountable for this or a coupla hundred thousand other fake loans. I got a massive refund this year because of the disposition of this note. Knowing how Deutsche bank made a profit selling this property at auction and how the federal government is both complicit through failure to prosecute said banks for fraud and how taxpayer monies are and will be continued to be used to bail them out, I think that I'm going to file the same goddamn disposition each and every year from here on out on my tax returns and take my chances at getting caught.
Here's what I'll do:
I willforge create a new substitution of trustee document every April with Bethany Hood's name on it -- each year she'll be the Vice President of a different bank, just like today! as she's the VP of 7 different banks including Deutsche Bank National Trust Company and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. That is, she will have effectively defaulted on the same property year after year, just like she's doing today!, only that I will have a different junior installment obligation that's extinguished each time her new bank defaults. Each year I will claim that as my note becomes unenforceable due to the default, I will write down ordinary income against the basis of my note.
I will leave it to the IRS to prove that the default didn't occur. Good luck with that. I will have a new default notice every year. I have my original installment note that I can continue to use as proof that I have an extinguished obligation. I will offset an awful lot of taxable income this way. As we fail to prosecute robo signers for fraud, I will join them and become one myself.
Remember, this sorta thing is what passes for an economy.
Last weekend's 60 Minutes show made mention of another one million foreclosures scheduled to occur in 2011, on top of the one million that occurred in 2010. This on the heels of the reporting of $10 an hour robo-signers signing the name Linda Green to a few hundred thousand documents each month -- big burly guys and little Asian women whose job it was to sign the name Linda Green as fast as they could on documents intended to foreclose upon hundreds upon hundreds of thousands...most certainly to include a few Elk Grovians.
I just pulled out the documents from the foreclosure on my first housal unit that I sold in 2006 -- the name signed was Bethany Hood, assistant secretary for Deutsche Bank Nation Trust Company. Not surprisingly, the signature of Bethany Hood on the form has no resemblance whatsoever to the spelling of Bethany Hood. I'd wager that it was indeed a bunch of $10 an hour people in a warehouse in Patterson, NJ signing off these things as fast as possible. Indeed, you can Google search "Bethany Hood Robo Signer" and you'll find a dozen references to mortgage fraud, and you'll find a .gif file with her signature that doesn't at all match the one on the document I have here at home. Indeed, on this one, she's VP for MERS, not Deutsche.
Fascinating. This in our land of the free.
I had a disposed installment note due to this bank's foreclosure on a property I sold five years ago that arguably was fraudulently signed, yet I filed my 2010 income taxes taking a $17k reduction in ordinary income based on it. This in our land of the free. I took the deduction and I already received my income tax refund, all based on a fraudulent loan doc. Not that I did it, but of course Deutsche Bank will never, never! be held accountable for this or a coupla hundred thousand other fake loans. I got a massive refund this year because of the disposition of this note. Knowing how Deutsche bank made a profit selling this property at auction and how the federal government is both complicit through failure to prosecute said banks for fraud and how taxpayer monies are and will be continued to be used to bail them out, I think that I'm going to file the same goddamn disposition each and every year from here on out on my tax returns and take my chances at getting caught.
Here's what I'll do:
I will
I will leave it to the IRS to prove that the default didn't occur. Good luck with that. I will have a new default notice every year. I have my original installment note that I can continue to use as proof that I have an extinguished obligation. I will offset an awful lot of taxable income this way. As we fail to prosecute robo signers for fraud, I will join them and become one myself.
Remember, this sorta thing is what passes for an economy.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Cheaters
As gasoline continues its relentless, remorseless march towards four whole dollars per gallon, I'm even more bummed that I can't mount the bicycle yet. Still trying to recover from a crotch surgery less than a month ago, that's left me hanging.
I've been reading how many environmentalists "cheat" -- they throw up a few solar panels, recycle a little plastic but then believe that these actions offset excessive leisure driving, or that they "did good here so I'll take a little there." Like this is some sorta game.
So long as it's treated like a game it will never reach into the realm of relevance. We have such a high degree of affluence and technology in this nation, two multipliers of population (PxAxT), that really, the contributions from a PV array or eating kale from a local farm once a week pales relative to the overall human impact we have.
I've been driving a lot more than I'd like in part due to the surgery, but also in part due to the inconvenience of the bus. It takes effort to ride the bus; it takes virtually none to jump into the car. I'd have to stop blogging right now to clean myself up for work so as to make it on the last bus...or I just continue blogging and drive mysel
I've been reading how many environmentalists "cheat" -- they throw up a few solar panels, recycle a little plastic but then believe that these actions offset excessive leisure driving, or that they "did good here so I'll take a little there." Like this is some sorta game.
So long as it's treated like a game it will never reach into the realm of relevance. We have such a high degree of affluence and technology in this nation, two multipliers of population (PxAxT), that really, the contributions from a PV array or eating kale from a local farm once a week pales relative to the overall human impact we have.
I've been driving a lot more than I'd like in part due to the surgery, but also in part due to the inconvenience of the bus. It takes effort to ride the bus; it takes virtually none to jump into the car. I'd have to stop blogging right now to clean myself up for work so as to make it on the last bus...or I just continue blogging and drive mysel
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