quote:

ORIGINAL: corysub

.....going to raise taxes on any family earning over $250,000 a year in the name of "making the wealthy pay their share"...but, God forbid, tax the real wealth held by billionairs or those worth over $100,000,000 like the Kennedy's, the Kerry's, the Pelosi's..et al.
You, my friend, pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffet who earned $46 million...unless of course all of your income also is derived from muni bonds and capital gains.

quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

quote:

ORIGINAL: corysub

.....going to raise taxes on any family earning over $250,000 a year in the name of "making the wealthy pay their share"...but, God forbid, tax the real wealth held by billionairs or those worth over $100,000,000 like the Kennedy's, the Kerry's, the Pelosi's..et al.
You, my friend, pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffet who earned $46 million...unless of course all of your income also is derived from muni bonds and capital gains.

If you recall, I posted about Buffet and how little tax he pays, yesterday.

You'll also recall he was the one saying he supported Obama's tax plan because he felt he was under-taxed.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Owner59

I`m ok with making corporate America pay their full taxes,making it illegal to off-shore, under penalty of imprisonment.

Put some teeth into it.

The poor middle class has to make up the difference by paying a higher tax burden.

quote:

ORIGINAL: samboct

Cory

Remember that one of the first things that Reagan did in office was to pull down the solar panels on the White House?  In the early 1980s- the US was the undisputed leader in solar and wind technology- and the algorithms used to design current wind turbines were developed by NASA back then.  Consider if we'd continued on the path of energy independence back in the 80s- do you think we'd be spending so much money on imported oil now?  How about some savings in defense since we could let the Mideast go to hell in a handbasket?

I agree.  If the United States had continued on the path of energy independence that we were on back in the 1970's-1980's we would be independent of the need for foreign oil.  Do you recall the furor over the pipeline on the North Slope...how it would be the end of the "moose"!  We also saw Congress go hog wild in regulations that prohibited the building of new grass roots refineries in the country and none has been built in 30 years!  The only increase in refinery capacity has come from expanding the capacity of existing facilities. It is as much, if not more, tight refinery capacity that drove and will again drive gasoline prices higher. 

We were also the "inventor" of the nuclear reactor and it was France who grabbed hold and starting with a Westinghouse reactor, stayed with that one design,  gradually improved upon, and today has almost 60 nuclear power plants providing about 80% of their energy requirments.  The development of nuclear plants was virtually halted in this country because of fears generated by the "green" movement and it's democrat drones in Congress.  We would be totally independent of the need for foreign oil if plants were constructed as planned.  Not only were plants not able to get licensed to be built...totally complete plants, ready to go on line were forced to be "dismantled" because of the political storm!  And this with an alternative energy source that is totally free of carbon emissions.

Also by the 1970s- domestic oil production at peaked- see Hupert's Peak- a guy who's been calling oil production pretty accurately.  In other words, we were going to have to pay more for oil back then- either sending money overseas or spending more on domestic production. 
Why has oil production peaked.

The calls for increased offshore drilling leave me puzzled.  We're running out of the stuff- why spend money on diminishing returns?  Even the heads of Shell, Chevron and other major oil companies acknowledge that the era of cheap oil is over.  Please don't give me the nonsense that oil is back down to $40 a barrel- we all know that the price of oil over time is only going to increase- it may just be a bit of a jagged line getting there.  When is it time to go to an alternative which will be cheaper in the long run?  Don't have to pay anybody for wind or sunlight, and biofuels can look mighty attractive when done correctly.  (not corn to ethanol)
 
Excuse me Sam..but we are not "running out of the stuff"!  The cost of finding has gone up significantly and the need to drill deeper, more expensive wells has increased the cost/bbl of new reserves.  However, the "average life" of U.S. petroleum reserves is running about 11 years...identical to what it was in 1975.  What people writing the nonsense about our country running out of reserves don't say is that new discoveries are replacing depleted wells.  In addition, there have been significant technological advances in drilling and infil drilling is now able to produce more oil from existing reserves. Senator Mukowski has introduced legislation to allow high tech "slant drilling" into the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve that could add reserves equal to Prudoe Bay. The United States is THE leader in seismic and major new formations have been defined what potentially could add tremendous new reserves to the total...if this President and Congress would allow drilling. 
 
As far as this President and dysfunctional Congress headlong march into the wind like Don Quixote, you do know, of course, that windmills aren't always turning.  It seems the wind often stops blowing and is not a reliable source of constant energy. So..guess what ya have to do!  You have to build backup generating plants that have to run about 60-70% of capacity to kick in immediately should there be a power drop in a slack wind...not a good thing to happen if your running sophisticated computers and other high tech instruments that require a reliable and steady flow of current.

And sorry- but the arguments that acid rain don't exist are on par with the idea that global climate change isn't occurring- the science is against you- you're arguing with physics.  Note- you can certainly debate policy- i.e. what to do-, but the facts are now clear- there is no real debate in the science community.

As far as "global climate change" gimme a break!  The climate has been changing for 4,000,000,000 years!  The odds are that where you are reading this now was probably under water or part of the African continent at one time.  Don't tell me that my spray can of PAM is moving continents and reducing the thickness of the ice pack!  As far as "all of science agreeing"..I don't know where you get that from and would love to see it documented.  There are numerous world class scientists, climatologists, and member of the Untied Nations organization that were not quoted in the agenda driven release from that morally bankrupt organization, that disagree.  We might be able to change the temperature of the planet 0.1% in fifty years and it will cost us our economy.  President Bush has been beaten up in the media and by "green" democrats over his refusal to sign the joke called the Kyoto Protocal, signed by 181 nations.  Well, guess who the biggest pollutor in the world are..China is number one.... the U.S. #2 with its huge industrial base, along with the European Union, Russia, Japan, India, and South Korea..all these being signers of Kyoto.

We in the United States will probably be joining Kyoto with the numbnuts in charge of running our country today...and we WILL spend hundreds of billions of dollars to "clean up our environment" and create jobs for someone.  It's such a wonderful issue for politicans who will be able to garner even more power over our lives, and don't have to be concerned about an annual report card, or any report card for ten or 15 years! And we will borrow the money from the Chinese if they would be so nice as to lend it to us. I can see a day when "green shirted" bands of young hoodlums with black armbands featuring a picture of a "windmill" roaming the streets, analysing the carbon emission from every fireplace and taking people out to the trucks heading for "rehabilitation centers'".  George Orwell..where are you!!!  The crazy rants of a neocon...maybe..but that's what people said as they laughed at the silly guys in their brown shirts and flags marschieren auf und ab die Straßen, in denen sie lebten.

OK..so lets get real.  We will be in need of oil in this country for the rest of our lives and our childrens children.  The question is when are we going to set the industry free to drill, when are we going to cut the red tape and build nuclear plants, when are we going to put as much into coal research as we are in "biomass".  No..instead this incompetent idiot we have in the Oval Office is proposing a "carbon cap" tax that his budget director estimates will raise over $600 billion in new tax revenues in 2010.  This outrageous budget item will kill any new building of generators, significantly increase the price of your electric bill...and everything else you and I buy that is manufactured by a company with a chimney. 
                                                                              cory

Sam

quote:

ORIGINAL: samboct
Remember that one of the first things that Reagan did in office was to pull down the solar panels on the White House? 

quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

quote:

ORIGINAL: samboct
Remember that one of the first things that Reagan did in office was to pull down the solar panels on the White House? 

He did, really?! Why?!

quote:

ORIGINAL: samboct

Cory

I've debated climate change with folks ad nauseam on this board- feel free to do a little digging.  I'm kind of sick of it.

In terms of drilling for oil- it takes a number of years to bring new wells on line- and we should be investing in new and better technologies instead.

1)  People like electric cars.  Back in the 80s' GM's EV1 proved to be quite popular with customers- even with the lousy lead acid batteries they had to use.
2)  We've spent very little money developing energy storage technologies.  Options include batteries, flywheels and supercapacitors- all of which are not far from being commercially viable.
3)  Wind turbines can supply 20% of electricity if correctly sited to take advantage of prevailing winds.  Sailing ships used to be able to keep to a schedule based on wind, there's no reason that wind turbines can't be quite efficient in regions such as Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas etc.  Plus they work fine on agricultural land-no problem with dual use.  Furthermore- if energy storage technologies come online- then the amount of energy derived from wind power is not limited to 20%.  Wind power is already economical by the way- and efficient.  It's a reasonably mature and reliable technology.
4)  If we're making "get real" predictions- I think we'll be off oil in less than 20 years.  It's obsolete, inefficient, and expensive technology.  The dirty little secret of "green" alternatives is that they'll probably be cheaper than fossil fuels when developed.
5)  Much as I hate GE- the gas turbine plants they've been pushing work pretty well for on demand power, rather than baseline which is nuclear's forte.  (and if you believe that nuclear is cheap- let me show you to a bridge in Brooklyn.)
6)  Clean coal isn't.  Sick joke-the best, long term, and least expensive carbon sequestration method is to leave the damn stuff in the ground as coal.  Nobody has any idea of what happens if the CO2 stored underground burps- and guess who gets to insure that one?  The ever screwed US taxpayer- just like we insure nuclear plants and pay for waste disposal.
7)  If you want to compare an administration to the Nazis- try the previous one instead.  We had torture, censorship, secrecy and great support by the wealthy of this country.  When Dewey called Truman a communist- his response was he called Republicans the secret cabal bent on subverting the constitution.  You can rant like a neocon- or grab an oar and start trying to get this leaky lifeboat headed towards land.  Your choice.....


Sam

quote:

ORIGINAL: Owner59

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20081215_falling_fortunes_rising_hopes_and_price_oil



Oil prices have now dipped — albeit only briefly — below US$40 a barrel, a precipitous plunge from their highs of more than US$147 a barrel in July. Just as high oil prices reworked the international economic order, low oil prices are now doing the same. Such a sudden onset of low prices impacts the international system just as severely as recent record highs
 
 
What the consumer and the suppliers want,is stability.Not a berserk roller coaster ride of pricing or paradisaical commodity speculator manipulation, artificially driving up the cost of energy,like Enron did.

quote:

ORIGINAL: corysub

Thank God oil came down and ethanol plants are closing.  We have seen a tremendous drop in the price of corn which makes it a little easier for Americans feeling pain these days. 

quote:

ORIGINAL: MichiganHeadmast

The rule is, if a corporation makes a profit of 5% or so, that is theft.  If government takes 38% of your income, that isn't theft.  Because, you know, they buy you ponies and stuff.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Owner59

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2009-01-28-iraqecon_N.htm
'

I bet if a neo-con said we had to have high oil prices or Iraq would be weakened and the "terrorists would win",you be agreeing. l
Better yet,I`ll neo-con up on cory and ask,

Hey cory,what "if" low oil prices meant that our ally in the fight against terror Iraq,would be weakened by those low oil prices and that let the terrorists win?

Would you be for lower prices, then?