2012 Economic Indicator Forecast

In 2011, over several weeks, I posted a model for each of the most vital economic indicators: GDP, Unemployment, Inflation, federal budget, federal debt, federal spending, trade deficit, consumer spending, tax receipts, state deficits, state social benefit spending, personal income, and federal social benefit spending. From these models I am predicting the 2012 end of year results for these variables to be as follows (2010 results are in parenthesis):

Federal Social Benefits – 2.5 trillion dollars (2.3)

Personal Income – 12.9 trillion dollars (12.5)

State Social Benefits – 615 billion dollars (540)

State Deficits – 87 billion dollars (50)

Consumer Spending – 11 trillion dollars (10.5)

Trade Deficit – 560 billion dollars (520)

Budget – 3.7 trillion dollars (3.7)

Government Spending – 5.1 trillion dollars (5.3)

Tax Receipts – 3.7 trillion dollars (3.9)

Federal Debt – 16.4 trillion dollars (13.3)

Inflation – 2% (1)

Unemployment – 7.5% (9.6)

GDP – 15.5 trillion dollars (14.2)

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History's Frigid View of Coolidge (Part II)

It is important to remember that recessions are cyclical and can hit in any administration regardless of their policies. However, the length and magnitude of a recession can be indicative of presidential policy. In 1929, when the Great Depression started, it was for the first year merely a common recession. It was therefore, Hoover policies of pro regulation and anti-laissez-faire that turned the recession into a Depression. Remember, Hoover was trained in the Woodrow Wilson administration and had been greatly influenced by the policies leading to the reconstruction of Europe after World War I.

Hoover’s initial reaction to deal with the recession was to promote volunteering efforts. This policy should sound familiar; it is a policy that President Obama has been preaching. Obama wants to reward volunteers with government subsidies and entitlements to carry out his ideology. Obviously, this Hoover policy was misguided and flawed at best. After all, even a strong community volunteer effort alone would not rescue the United States from a full blown recession.

In 1930, Hoover had some bad luck that made the current recession worse. That year, the Midwest was hit with a massive drought that destroyed the agriculture business sector. Once the agriculture business sector collapsed, it began to have a ripple effect on the entire economy. Hence, the recession got worse and Hoover began to realize that he had to act.

Hoover’s first mistake was passing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 which placed a tax on over 20,000 goods imported by the United States. The act’s intent was a form of “protectionism policy” to force American citizens to buy American made products. Of course, our global trade partners around the world retaliated and placed higher tariffs on American products they imported. Hoover’s action only resulted in higher prices for goods and services around the world and therefore, made the recession not only worse in the United States, but around the globe. Hoover’s second mistake was passing the “Estate Tax” and the “Check Tax”. The Estate Tax doubled taxes on estates and the Check Tax placed a 2 cent tax on every check drafted. The Check Tax is partly to blame for the 5000 banks that failed during the depression. By this time, the United State and the world were no longer in a recession, but a depression. And let’s not forget the negative impact of the Federal Reserve (Fed) on the depression. The Fed was created in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson to protect the American economy. However, first, the Fed failed to prevent the 1929 recession and secondly, it failed to mitigate the recession once it started. During the Great Depression the Federal Reserve tightened money supplies because it feared inflation. Thus, it was nearly impossible for anyone to receive a loan. As money dried up, the recession got worse.

By 1932, Hoover was desperate because all of his policies had failed miserably and the economy continued to get worse. As federal government revenues fell dramatically and U.S. debt got worse, Hoover proposed the Revenue Act of 1932. This act raised the taxes on wealthy Americans from 25% to 63% and corporate taxes were increased as much as 15%. Obviously, this policy limited consumer spending and led to even further unemployment. To make matters worse, Hoover passed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act. This act put aside expenditures to start public work projects. Many believe the New Deal started under FDR, they are wrong. The New Deal started with this act under Hoover, FDR only expanded Hoover’s policy. After all, it is called the Hoover Damn, not the FDR Damn.

During the 1932 election campaign season FDR attacked Hoover for spending and taxing too much. FDR’s running mate even had the audacity to claim that Hoover policies are leading us down the road to socialism. Once elected, FDR would increase taxes and spending on public work projects. Needless to say, the American economy never fully recovered from the 1929 recession until full employment ensued during World War II.

Historians can blame Coolidge for the Great Depression, but anyone who looks at the facts knows they are misguided. I have lived my life believing and practicing Coolidge philosophies of fiscal constraint and personal responsibility. It has worked for me; as it worked for Americans during the Roaring 20s.

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History's Frigid View of Coolidge (Part I)

History classes pass over the presidency of Calvin Coolidge by saying he accomplished nothing, but was hugely responsible for the Great Depression. In fact, my history teacher told our class he was a “no good drunk”. I have never found any documentation that Coolidge drank let alone abused alcohol. So how is it that the man who presided over arguably the most prosperous time in American history (Roaring 20s) accomplished nothing? And why do historians place most of the blame of Great Depression on Coolidge? Two words – Laissez-Faire. Since Coolidge believed in a small government and had a “hands off” approach of the federal government’s role in society, he must have accomplished nothing and therefore, did nothing to prevent the Great Depression. This is a very weak argument at best.

In fact, this could not be further from the truth. Coolidge became president after Warren Harding died in office in 1923. Coolidge quickly made it a point to clean up the corruption and scandals that riddled the Harding presidency. Coolidge worked hard over his 6 year presidency to reduce taxes and cut federal government spending. In 1927, only the top 2% of the wealthiest Americans paid income taxes. That meant 98% of all Americans paid no income taxes! This coupled with extremely low unemployment and no inflation led to prosperous times. American citizens had more money than ever before. Interestingly, despite cutting taxes and cutting federal spending the Coolidge economic approach still increased federal revenues. The 20s were also a time that saw more and more technology introduced into society. The radio, automobile, and electric appliances made people’s lives easier and therefore, they had more spare time. Coolidge pushed for civil rights legislation, but it derailed by Southern Democrats. He removed the influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the federal government. Coolidge was ahead of his time in terms of civil rights for not only African-Americans, but for Native Americans and women.

Although he was extremely popular, Coolidge decided not to run for reelection in 1928. He said he would be setting a bad precedent by serving more than 8 years (if he won, he would have served as President more than 10 years). This exemplifies why Coolidge was a great president. He was a modest man with a small ego. He was not gung ho on pushing his ideology and did not worry about his legacy and how history would judge him. Coolidge simply was not consumed with power like all other presidents.

Instead, Herbert Hoover won the 1928 election. Hoover, like Coolidge was a Republican, but this can be very misleading. Hoover was a progressive no different than Woodrow Wilson or Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). In fact, Wilson and FDR wanted Hoover to run for president in 1920 as a Democrat. Hoover served in Coolidge’s administration as his Secretary of Commerce. Coolidge stated that he was most advised by Hoover, but he did not agree with any of the pro labor policies he proposed. Hoover believed that a technical solution existed to all social and economic problems, thus he was a believer in government intervention – not laissez-faire. Hoover, like Wilson and FDR, was the antithesis of Coolidge. Most historians do not agree that Hoover’s political ideology was similar to that of Wilson and FDR. But since a small number of historians have linked Hoover in the same category as FDR and Wilson, it is for this reason; progressive historians blame Coolidge for the Great Depression. After all, if they blamed Hoover, they would be admitting that FDR and Wilson policies are also flawed.

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Defying the Forces of Nature (Part II)

Progressives will argue that the large portion of Americans (Tea Party members) pushing back against ObamaCare and other Obama policies are doing so because they are racists. This is absurd. The people of Missouri supported a referendum to oppose the ObamaCare mandate to purchase healthcare insurance by over 40 points. This means a large portion of Democrats oppose this controversial provision of the ObamaCare law. This is not racism, but Americans concerned over the future of their healthcare quality and the costs associated with it.

The same analogy of forces can be applied to other Obama policies including the Recovery Act (stimulus), corporate bailouts, and Financial Reform. The Recovery Act added a massive downward force to our debt, but at the same time it has failed in its objective to create jobs. Thus, many people are opposed to this pork riddled legislation and this is therefore, creating a strong frictional (resistant) force opposed to the policy. The bailout of auto and financial corporations had the same negative effect on the American public and to our growing national debt. Financial Reform has also created a massive downward force to our financial markets by creating new bureaucracies in charge of enforcing new mandates, restrictions, and regulations on Wall Street institutions.

There is a reason why our founding fathers made it difficult to amend the Constitution – popularity results in both less downward gravitational and horizontal frictional (resistance) forces. It takes two-thirds of a majority in both legislative houses of our federal government and three-fourth of all state governments to approve the law before it can be amended to the Constitution. This ensures the law is popular and will not be controversial so that a large majority of American citizens will oppose (resist) it to create unnecessary frictional forces. Popular laws also reduce downward gravitational forces working to push the law out of equilibrium. This is true because popular laws are bipartisan and therefore, not overly complicated to add massive amounts of bureaucracies and or costs to the law. This is why laws such as healthcare reform should be decided in the same fashion proposed by our founding fathers - by amending the Constitution. Healthcare reform should not be decided by slim majorities in Congress without any state government approval. And healthcare reform should not be decided by the courts. Although the supremacy clause of the Constitution can trump state referendums, courts and Washington politicians would be wise to heed to the wishes of the American people. After all, our government is elected to represent the will of the people and not to satisfy the political agenda or ideology of egomaniac Washington politicians.

In summary, popular laws amended to the Constitution would avoid and eliminate unnecessary forces that defy nature by making laws bureaucratic, wasteful, expensive, and unpopular.

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Defying the Forces of Nature (Part I)

We all know how hard it is to defy the forces of nature, but this is what Obama and his progressive policies are attempting to do. To understand this concept, we must first understand the natural forces of nature. It is second grade physics to understand that a box sitting on a table will have both a gravitational force downward (equal to the mass [weight] of the box times the acceleration of gravity [9.8m/s^2] and an equal and opposite upward normal force to keep the box in equilibrium. When a force is applied to push the box horizontally across the table there is still both a downward gravitational and an upward normal force on the box. However, a frictional force also exists that is in the opposite direction of the horizontal pushing force. These are the basics laws of how forces work in nature.

Let’s assume, for instance, that the box on the table is our healthcare system. Now consider how the weight or mass of the healthcare system is altered by adding the ObamaCare healthcare reform legislation to it. The mass is obviously going to get bigger. After all, there will be more people added to our healthcare system and there will also be more administrative bureaucrats added to the system. This is true because ObamaCare creates hundreds of new agencies and departments and many entities such as the IRS will become bigger to enforce the mandated provisions of the policy. In effect, the ObamaCare legislation adds a tremendous amount of weight and stress to our healthcare system. ObamaCare also creates more frictional (resistance) forces to our healthcare system because it will affect each person in the system with higher taxes and or higher premiums. At the same time, frictional forces are increased because many people are concerned about other risks that may accompany ObamaCare such as companies dropping their employee healthcare policies or rationed care to name a few. Thus, both the downward gravitational and horizontal frictional forces applied to our healthcare system are becoming much larger. If the downward force becomes too great, equilibrium in the system can collapse if the weight becomes too much for the economy (table) to support in terms of debt and healthcare costs. Our healthcare system is not static, it is very dynamic and must be put in motion to implement and enforce its provisions. Thus, frictional forces and barriers such as lawsuits and its unpopularity are keeping the law static and preventing it from being put into motion. Hence, it is becoming harder and harder to push the healthcare box across the table, not only because the downward force is becoming too great, but because the force of friction is becoming greater. Large portions of the American population oppose many aspects of the ObamaCare legislation and are therefore, pushing back to resist the law. This is only natural; nobody likes being told what to do, so they push back.

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Mind Games (Part II)

Personally, I set very big goals and then set up intermediate goals to attain the big goals. For instance, I set a goal when I graduated college that I would retire when I was 40; and I set a goal to climb the highest mountain in all 50 states; and I set a goal to climb all 55 fourteen thousand foot peaks in Colorado; and I set a goal to attain distinguished member of the technical staff at work. Over the course of years and decades I had to complete dozens of intermediate goals to achieve these main goals I set for myself. Sure, life will throw some curveballs at us and force us to change direction, but we can adjust – especially if it is going to take decades to accomplish some of the main objectives. If, for example, I never planned ahead I would have been in no position to help an ailing family member. But since I was planning in advance I was able to put in place risk mitigation plans in case of emergencies – and there will always be emergencies. Injuries and some weird ailments have hindered some of my climbing goals, but there is nothing wrong with modifying those goals to be realistic. The point, at which an individual stops visualizing the future, by continuously setting goals, is the time at which they have become a failure. Unfortunately, this point, for some, comes very early in life (grade school). What exactly is an individual living for if they have no goals and or future ambitions?

Visualization is the key to obtaining a positive attitude in not only education, but also in life. It is the best way to program the brain for success. I constantly find myself awake at nights trying to visualize some algorithm or the moves I need to make to successfully climb that 5.10c wall that I have failed time and time again to conquer. The bottom line is that individuals must be thinking about the future to both solve and achieve short and long term goals.

At home and in the classroom students must have a positive mindset or they will not succeed and fail to meet their full potential. Yes, teachers and parents have a responsibility to make sure each child and student is focused on visualizing the future and setting both long term and short term goals. It is essential to get students to start thinking forward instead of what is going on today or what happened in the past. The difficulty of this task is what motivates each student is unique. Thus, it is imperative that families and teachers must find out what makes each student tick and that information has to be passed on to their future teachers. Unfortunately, teachers are forced to teach to standardized tests and are therefore; not focused on what is best for each child, but what is important to the government and bureaucrats. Schools that are cutting special education classes such as physical education, music, and art will fail to find the strengths of students. Unfortunately, these are missed opportunities to identify potential future goals for students. It is essential that parents work with teachers and educators to ensure the strengths of their children are being focused on in their studies. This is the best way to motivate students. For instance, if a child likes sports, it is easy to incorporate this into reading assignments and math problems.

Liberal policies, without question, hinder students. Is a child who grows up on welfare learning about how to excel in life? Of course not, chances are this child is going to be a burden on society and never accomplish anything positive towards society let alone for themselves or their children. Are unions that support failing teachers building an educational system that fosters success? Of course not!

The bottom line is we need to stop promoting an educational system that is governed from the top down with bureaucrats (and unions) forcing their standards on individual students. Education needs to start with the focus on the individual student by implementing their aspirations into the classroom without any bureaucratic interference. Let’s face it; education and life are both a mental game and those with the strongest mental state are the more likely candidates to succeed.

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Mind Games (Part I)

The news and political conversations revolve around education reform almost constantly. The Obama administration has started his vision for education “The Race to the Top”. When Bush was President he passed “No Child Left Behind”. The U.S. already spends more per capita on education (nearly 12,000 dollars per student annually) than any other nation in the world, but this certainly has not correlated to success in the classroom. According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), out of 65 industrialized nations the United States ranks 30^th in math, 18^th in reading, 23^nd in science, and 29^th in problem solving when testing a sample of 15 to 16 year old students. This does not bode well for the United States who currently has the largest economy in the world (by far). The United States is on the decline and throwing more money at education has not solved the high dropout rate and it has done nothing to bolster academic achievement. How can this be, it makes little sense, right? Wrong, the U.S. government is not thinking about this problem in the correct context.

It does not matter how much money the government throws at education, if the curriculum and teachers are bad then the students will suffer. Money is just one variable out of hundreds that can determine a good or poor education. But the single most important variable in the equation for a successful education is the student followed closely by the family. This is where education starts and finishes. If a student and his or her family have a poor attitude towards education then it really does not matter how much money is thrown at these students because they will fail. Education does fail students, but students also fail education. The combination of these two things has led to disastrous results. I have harped about, in the past, how education fails students. Today, I am going to talk about how students fail education. Students and children (along with their families) who have the right mind set and a positive attitude can succeed even in poor educational environments.

What is needed for kids to have the right attitude? They need to stop thinking about today, and start thinking about the future and where they want to be in the next 5, 10, 20, or 50 years. To have the right attitude they need to visualize the future and understand the consequences of the actions they take today. It is all about putting mind over matter to succeed.

I have been very critical of both political and corporate leadership. One reason for this is because our leaders lack strategic vision and the ability to visualize the consequences their actions and policies will have on future generations. This is particularly true when talking about the future fiscal ramifications of policies and actions. Many leaders make decisions based on what is best for them as influenced by special interests. Still, many leaders are just unable to visualize the future. If they could, then politicians would not have passed ObamaCare or the Recovery Act which have already had major negative fiscal ramifications on our nation. Corporate leaders enacting diversity quotas do not see how that is making them less competitive. Sure, corporate and political leaders set fiscal goals, but they are not the ones that have to do the work to attain those goals. A monkey can set goals they do not have to achieve. The bottom line is that we do not want our future leaders falling into the same trap as this current generation of leaders – lacking the ability to visualize the future.

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Teaching (Part II)

I have always had a lot of respect for teachers mainly because I know I could not do the job. I simply do not have the patience to work with underperforming and behavioral problem kids. My wife is a teacher and I have come to respect the job she is doing every year. I hate it when people claim teaching is a safe job protected by unions and easy work because they are off 3 months out of the year. This is not entirely true. Most teachers do not belong to a union and most good teachers work many weeks out of the summer writing curriculum or even doing other jobs because they are so grossly underpaid and underappreciated. During the school year my wife leaves for work before 7am (5 minute bike ride) and does not get home to 6pm. She spends at least 3 to 4 hours every night grading papers and does the same on the weekends.

The past few years I started to volunteer in her classroom and tutor a few of her more advanced kids in math and science. It was at this point I realized how effective of a teacher she was and how dramatically teaching had changed since I was in second grade. I remember being restricted to my chair in all my classes. This is no longer the case. She keeps her kids on the move to keep them alert. Kids work on the floor and use the entire classroom. The key word here is work. As long as students work all the kids are allowed to have special assigned areas other than their desk.

In all my years of education I never remember being allowed to eat a snack or chew gum in the classroom. Her kids eat small snacks they bring in throughout the day. Again, this keeps them alert throughout the day. Kids that have attention deficit disorder can chew gum to help them concentrate. And I never remember having three recesses per day. The school gives each class three 15 minute breaks to go outside and blow off steam. Once again this helps to keep them alert throughout the day so they can retain information.

Back in my day kids with behavioral or learning issues were seldom removed from the class for any of length of time. Today, my wife works hard to get kids with learning and behavioral problems diagnosed to make sure they get the necessary care they need from specialists. She has dozens of volunteers working her classroom weekly to help give advanced and underachieving kids the special attention they need to improve. In other words, she gets families and the community involved in the educational process.

I have never seen anything like it, but she can keep an entire class of 22 students attentive all day long. It is simply amazing. And the end result is that all of her kids move to the next grade level having met or exceeded all curriculum expectations.

So how is it that our educational system is failing thousands of kids each year? Is my wife one of the few teachers that cares and reaches out to each individual kid to make sure they succeed? I don’t know, but she is grossly underpaid for what she does and this may force the better teachers out of the industry. Still, the one glaring thing that sticks out why schools are failing kids is standardized testing. Once that stops, kids will once again be able to succeed. They will learn other subjects, they will be graded on their entire year of work instead of on one day, they will retain more information, they will enjoy school more, advanced kids will not be bored and held back, underachieving kids will be identified and given the proper assistance, and so forth.

It should be pointed out the past few years my wife has been teaching in a rural school district. And she admits that the bureaucracy and red tape is not nearly as restrictive as her previous 22 years of teaching in a large city school district. In other words, teachers and kids are more likely to succeed in a rural environment. For instance, the rural school district places an equal emphasis on trade education and everyone in the school district from janitor to cafeteria staff to teachers to superintendent are treated as an equally important part of the educational system.

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Teaching (Part I)

There are many variables involved in the teaching of school children and teachers are arguably the most important variable. Good teachers can partially compensate for poor funding, poor parenting, and even poor curriculum. The U.S. spends nearly double what other developed nations spend per child on education. Despite this the U.S. drop in education performance over the past 30 years has been cataclysmic. During this period the U.S. has dropped from number one in high school and college graduation rates to 18^th. During the same period the U.S. has gone from a leader in math, science, reading, and problem solving to 25^th, 21^st, 15^th, and 24^th respectively. And what’s worse is that socioeconomically challenged kids and minorities fare much worse. So it begs to reason that teachers are coming under much more scrutiny these days.

Recent studies have indicated the obvious – two teachers teaching the same grade in the same school can produce widely different results regardless of the socioeconomic status of students. The same study concluded that by replacing the worst performing teachers (bottom 10%) it can turn the educational downward trend in the U.S. around. However, this is easier said than done since teacher shortages are brought about because of low pay and unions bend over backwards to protect bad teachers.

What makes a good teacher? A good teacher sets high goals for their kids and has a strong work ethic to meet their goals. A good teacher is continuously working to become a better teacher through higher education and training to keep up with all the latest concepts, ideas, and technology. A good teacher not only gets parents (the community) involved but holds them accountable for the progress of their children.

The big question that remains is how to measure teacher effectiveness. Unfortunately, the only answer that bureaucrats have is to grade teachers based on how their students perform on standardized tests. There is just too much of an emphasis on standardized testing in our educational system and under the Obama administrations “Race to the Top Program” it is going to get worse. This narrow view of grading teachers and students will lead to teachers “teaching the test”, fraudulent reporting of test scores, less focus on developing other curriculum based subjects, it holds back overachieving students, and it fails to identify children with learning disabilities in a timely fashion.

Obama’s “Race to the Top” program wants to mimic schools that use programs such as “At the Knowledge of Power Program” (KIPP). Most of the schools using KIPP are located in socioeconomically depressed areas and have shown dramatic improvement in student test scores. KIPP schools start at 7:30 am and run to 5 pm while teachers must be available for questions to 9 pm at night. Good teachers already work these schedules, but there are three important conclusions that one may draw from KIPP programs. First, parents are failing to perform their role in the educational process (but we want to blame and place the entire onus of educational success on teachers). Secondly, increasing teacher’s workload without pay increases is not going to attract top teachers. Thirdly, more is not necessarily better. Just because KIPP programs are successful in minority and poor school districts, it does not mean the success will translate to wealthier school districts. Kids can only retain so much information on a daily basis and trying to increase information flow usually results in more information being forgotten.

The bottom line is that the onus of education starts at home with family and education does not need longer days and education does not need more government intervention. Finally, education should cover much more than the narrow scope of standardized testing.

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Math and Science (Part II)

It takes commonsense to derive useful statistical models unless of course an individual’s objective is to mislead, brainwash, and to indoctrinate unaware Americans. For instance, with some simple commonsense in the infant mortality and life expectancy example one could conclude that comparing the wellness amongst private insurance owners, Medicaid owners, and those without insurance would be more accurate and beneficial than comparing these statistics against those of other nations. If liberals did this they would also conclude that those on Medicaid and those without insurance have comparable infant mortality and life expectancy rates. Thus, the lack of health insurance is not causing high infant mortality or lower life expectancies - education is the problem. It is commonsense to surmise that a great healthcare system does not mean individuals within the system will be responsible and healthy. It also makes sense to analyze the Massachusetts healthcare model to prognosticate the effects of socialized healthcare in the U.S. than using data from foreign healthcare systems. Why? Because Massachusetts demographics and other variables (poverty rate, insurance rate, obesity etc.) will more closely emulate U.S. national statistics than say Denmark. This is the type of commonsense that eludes people who want to trick uninformed Americans to create an illusion that socialized medicine is great.

Having knowledge of scientific theories and theorems is also helpful to solve complex problems. For instance, an FBI profiler can use history to draw a profile of a predator, but there is no substitute for forensic science to detain and convict criminals. For example, one could easily conclude that the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere are always going to go up from understanding Thermodynamics second law on entropy which states the entropy of the universe is always increasing. Entropy measures the inefficiency or disorder of a system. And every system and life form has imperfections leading to carbon emissions. Thus, carbon dioxide is always increasing in our atmosphere.

For many reasons I delve into political issues from a scientific and mathematical perspective. First, it is not as hard and complicated as many may suspect. Data is readily available from numerous government sources and therefore, models are easily constructed. Secondly, creating models enables individuals to better understand how variables affect complicated issues. This perspective enables people to offer better solutions to problems by thinking out of the box. Third, it is hard for individuals to refute model claims because they do not understand them. Thus, math and science is a much more effective way to argue with idiots (as Beck would put it). Interestingly, my experience is that most individuals who are math and science illiterates are still “know it alls” and will ignorantly argue any model results that contradict their beliefs. Fourth, and most importantly, complex problems need to be reviewed analytically.

What are some conclusions that can be drawn from some of the models I have created? What are some of the effects of moving 20 million uninsured Americans into a government run Medicaid program? Most would not be surprised to find out there will be a doctor and nurse shortage, health insurance premiums will go up, life expectancies will go down, and healthcare costs will continue to spiral out of control. What is the effect of reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and increasing our usage of renewable energies? Carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere will continue to go up, energy consumption will go down, and energy costs will skyrocket. What is the effect of raising the taxes on the wealthiest Americans from 35% to 40%? The federal government will collect about 200 billion dollars more in revenue annually, consumer spending will decrease by 700 billion dollars annually, the federal deficit will continue to grow, and entitlement spending will rise uncontrollably. These are some of the model analysis that I will post on my blog over the next several months.

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Math and Science (Part I)

Glenn Beck wrote a book entitled: Arguing with Idiots. I did not read the book but from what I can gather it provides a historical overview of certain national problems and issues. In other words, people with a strong understanding of history can effectively argue political issues. This may be true, but there is a much more effective tool to argue political issues with adversaries: math and science. It seems we have become a nation of mathematical illiterates. This is sad, because many of the political issues we are debating today are math and science problems. Unfortunately, Americans take sides on many of these subjects without any remote understanding of the math and science behind these problems and issues. This only reinforces that American society is becoming more and more narcissistic since everyone is a know it all.

So what are some of the mathematical and scientific political problems facing Americans? Climate change is a classic example. Americans are polarized over this issue despite the fact that less than 1% of Americans have the scientific and mathematical background to understand basic statistical concepts and models. It is unfortunate because most Americans could understand these fairly simple statistical models if they really wanted since they are not that complex. Most national political debates are math problems. For instance, Americans and politicians are divided over the question as to whether or not the government should raise taxes on the wealthiest earners. This is a math problem and once again less than 1% of Americans have the capacity to formulate models to calculate the significance of this problem. Other math problems include understanding the benefits and consequences of adding 20 million uninsured Americans into government run Medicaid programs or the result of moving America away from fossil fuel energy sources to renewable energies. Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about all these topics, but in actuality most people with opinions are ill informed and these subjects.

Most Americans solely read and watch pundits and sources that reinforce their beliefs. And since many political issues are mathematical in nature, one can conclude Americans cannot decipher or comprehend if the information they rely on is biased or not. For instance, many liberals feel award winning economist Paul Krugman is King when it comes to economic issues. However, Krugman, like many Americans, is a mathematical illiterate. Krugman can only draw conclusions on data he can solely decipher with his eyes. He does not have the basic knowledge to generate models to compare dozens of variables to draw conclusions. Hence, Krugman’s analysis of problems consists of eye balling a few variables. The Krugman analysis is commonly used by most Americans and it is hardly mathematical or scientific. One of my favorite examples of this behavior is how the left insists that the American healthcare system is flawed because its infant mortality and life expectancy rates are much worse than other developed nations who have socialized systems and spend less on healthcare. The bottom line is it is wrong to assume that medical expenditures and wellbeing in one country is directly proportional to the same statistics in other nations because each nation has unique healthcare systems with much different rules and regulations. However, it is easier to show that the link between a nation’s wellbeing is not related healthcare expenditures, but education. The U.S. has much lower literacy rates, high school education rates, and a higher dependence on entitlement handouts than other developed nations. A simple analysis shows that by increasing literacy and high school education rates and lowering our dependence on entitlements correlates to lower infant mortality and higher life expectancy rates. It is impossible to draw these conclusions without being able to formulate and analyze models based on a multitude of variables and data. But it seems everyone is an expert these days.

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

Diversity Policy Failure: Title IX (Part II)

Another side effect of Title IX is that many elite high school male athletes are opting out of college and going directly into the Olympic training center in Colorado. Henry Cejudo did not go to college and won an Olympic freestyle wrestling gold medal in the 2008 summer games. Cejudo was ranked as the top high school wrestler coming out of college in 2004, but passed on scholarships and went directly into the Olympic training center. Cejudo understood that competition at the college level is dwindling (and college wrestling rules are much different than international wrestling rules). But for every Cejudo success story there are hundreds of more stories that end in failure. Many athletes that pass on a college education to train for Olympic events fail to meet both their Olympic and educational goals. Is this what Title IX should be accomplishing? Shouldn’t the law be promoting excellence and encouraging athletes to get an education? Yes, but this is not happening when political correctness and judges meddle in college athletics and education.

To combat Title IX, many schools have created athletic programs that used to be male only sports. For example, the number of schools with women’s hockey teams or wresting squads has been going up. This is a positive outcome of Title IX and should be one purpose of the law. But let’s face facts; there will never be an equal number of women competing in hockey and wrestling nationally. Another thing that has worked against men’s programs is football. Most college football rosters have around 100 participants and there are no women’s football teams to offset this participation. Hence, this means a university or college must cut some men’s sports and gymnastics, rugby, wrestling, hockey, and volleyball are easy targets. Why, simply because these sporting events earn very little revenue for the school. Thus, these sports will always play second fiddle to big revenue raising sports such as football or basketball.

Let’s logically think about the consequences of Title IX. It has decreased opportunities for males. Is that really what the Title IX law wants to accomplish? Doesn’t it make sense to create more opportunities for both males and females? It does, but this is not what is happening. Title IX, like most diversity policies, promote mediocrity, not excellence. These laws overcompensate and in effect reverse discriminate against one group of people to create so called equality. It is a moronic policy to knock down one group of people to create equality. It is idiotic to lower standards for one group of people to create equality. It simply does not make sense to create a law that promotes fewer opportunities and lower standards. After all, what does this really accomplish? It creates mediocrity and it simply makes very little sense.

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

Diversity Policy Failure: Title IX (Part I)

Title IX was a federal statute that passed in 1973 and it states the following:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...

—United States Code Section 20

Title IX, like most laws, makes sense on the surface. In fact, in this day and age, it is sad that a law like Title IX is still being enforced. And like most laws the implementation and enforcement of Title IX has been a major issue. Although there is no mention of sports in the law, Title IX has been most influential in defining both high school and college athletics. Federal judges and school administrators have interpreted Title IX to mean that the number of male and female athletes competing in high school and college sports must be equal. Otherwise, they concluded, the school is discriminating against female athletes. This is not only absurd, but it is ridiculous.

Today, many male athletic teams are becoming obsolete at both the high school and college level. For instance, rugby, gymnastics, wrestling, water polo, and volleyball have seen their Division I representation dwindle each year. There are merely 15 Division I rugby teams in college and 16 men’s gymnastics squads (there are nearly 350 Division I basketball teams). In the past several decades the number of Division I men’s volleyball and wrestling teams have decreased substantially. The end result is there is less opportunity for high school boys in athletics and therefore, fewer opportunities for them to attend college. Title IX means fewer scholarships and therefore; fewer academic opportunities for males. And the end result is that United States Olympic performance in these events has also seen a dramatic decline. The U.S. was once a powerhouse in volleyball and wrestling, but this is no longer true. Is this fair? Is this law really making males and females equal in terms of athletic participation? No, it is another bad attempt by bureaucrats to level the playing field between men and women.

What’s worse is that the Title IX law has nothing to do with money. Even if male athletic teams raised the money to compete, Title IX will not let them. And if that is not bad enough, judges have ruled that women cheerleaders do not count as female athletes under Title IX. What judges and administrators claim is that all men and women’s sporting events are equally challenging. This is not true; men’s gymnastics are much different than women’s gymnastics. Women compete in four events, meanwhile men compete in 6 events and only two events overlap. Men’s wrestling matches are longer than women’s matches. Men’s baseball games are 2 innings longer than women’s softball games. This is not equality under Title IX; in fact, most men’s athletic games are much more demanding.

Because of Title IX, many Division I college participants in particular sporting events are vastly different. For instance, Division I wrestling schools include many universities that are Division II in other sports (Lock Haven, Clarion, Bloomsburg, Edinboro, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Northern Colorado, Campbell, Gardner Webb, Liberty, Lehigh, Bucknell, Binghamton, Hofstra, Sacred Heart, and Utah Valley to name a few). Not one Southeastern Conference school has a wrestling team. This is true in most men sports that are in jeopardy of becoming absolute due to Title IX. For instance, Rutgers-Newark is one of the few Division I men’s volleyball teams. A major university, such as Tennessee, cannot support Division I wrestling and volleyball teams and still comply with Title IX interpretations even though Tennessee has the resources to support these teams.

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Occupy Wall Street and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse represent the destructive and chaotic forces which include war, pestilence, famine, and death. According to the bible these forces are unleashed by Satan, but history has shown that this kind of evil can be unleashed by individuals and nations. War can alter perceptions and make people see enemies where none exist, pestilence can create and transport human diseases, famine can affect human urges and addictions, and death is the ultimate outcome when war, famine, and pestilence are combined.

The war according the Occupy Wall Street movement is against the wealthy and Wall Street. They call it class warfare, a battle between the rich and poor. This has been the rallying call of both the liberal and media propaganda machines for decades. They have brainwashed the naïve masses into believing there is a war where none exists. The progressive message has been heard and the masses have mobilized and set up battlefields across the country to fight for their Holy Grail: the illusion they can freeload off the wealth of others. In fact, the war is not over class warfare, but it is a battle over responsibility versus irresponsibility; over accountability versus unaccountability; over productive versus unproductive; and over greed versus charity. In reality, the battle pits local businesses, police, and citizens against the Occupy Wall Street movement. In fact, each of the Occupy Movement venues across the country is beginning to resemble a war zone. Yet, most of the Occupiers claim they are peaceful and they are against any form of war. They are truly hypocrites.

It has taken only four to six weeks for pestilence and disease outbreaks to show its ugly face in most Occupied venues. This is exactly what happens when people live in close proximity and they live like animals. Trash has piled up, mold has formed on wet cardboard signs and shanties, public urination has soiled the grounds, portable toilets are overflowing with feces, wastewater from portable showers has soiled the grounds, and poor food storage and handling has tainted the food supply and have turned these grounds into a petri dish of disease bacteria. The grass and trees in many park venues have started to die. This has led to a tuberculosis outbreak in Atlanta. Poor food storage and handling led to a rat infestation in Oakland. Hypothermia has developed in Denver. Respiratory illnesses are rampant in New York – called Zuccotti lung. Organizers of the movement were obviously oblivious to sanitation and weather effects of prolonged protests (i.e. they started the movement just before the winter months which is obviously not the best time to start a war).

Famine, in terms of a food shortage has yet to stricken those of the Occupy Wall Street movement because organizers are well funded. In fact, many homeless have joined the ranks of the movement solely to get free food, which has caused internal conflicts and a splintering among the rank and file of the movement. Apparently, as irony would have it, Occupy protestors have taken issue with food freeloaders. But illness will continue to stricken the protestors as increased unsanitary conditions continue to taint both the water and food supply. This may be the most common and effective way to transport illness and disease such as gastritis or botulism. In fact, many of the occupiers will spread diseases through the sharing of addictive vices or substances, such as sex, cigarettes, marijuana, hypodermic needles, and alcoholic beverages.

Death and violent crimes have started to takes its toll. First, over a dozen rapes and assaults have taken place at various locations across the country. Local businesses have been robbed, defaced, and destroyed with Molotov cocktails. Now, death is becoming a commonplace for Occupiers with three just this past week alone in Burlington Vermont, Salt Lake City Utah, and Oakland California where the violence has been the worst. Many city Mayors (Portland, Burbank, Oakland, and Salt Lake City) have seen enough and are ordering protests to end.

Yes, Lucifer is showing his ugly face with the Occupy Wall Street Movement. This is exactly what evil looks like.

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

Law Enforcement Failed Abused Youths, Not Penn State

The Penn State scandal hits home for two reasons, first I graduated from Penn State. And for the first time in my life I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit that I went to the institution. The whole situation makes me sick to my stomach and leaves a bitter pill to swallow. I have no issue with how the Board of Trustees acted by firing anyone who knew of the sex abuse. A university, like a corporation, must rebrand itself and eliminate any links to a scandal – even if the judicial process has not played out. Otherwise the media will constantly place Penn State under a microscope during the entire judicial process further tainting and ruining their image. I was a proud Penn State alum and most proud of the fact that ethics and education came first. Up to this point in time, Penn State is the only Division I program to have never received an NCAA sanction against it for ANY sport. This is quite an accomplishment, but when a scandal occurs which hurts children, there is public outrage and rightfully so. Joe Paterno is and was a good man. Unfortunately, this sex scandal will overshadow all the good Joe did in his lifetime dedicated to college football and education (the media coverers more stories that are bad in nature than good ones). Joe’s legacy was not about having the most college wins in NCAA history, it was about ethics and doing what was right. His salary was modest, but his donations back to the university and charities were massive. Joe made a costly mistake and it will tarnish him forever. It is an unfortunate situation for everyone involved.

The second reason the Penn State scandal hits home is because I too was abused. But I was lucky, I was merely physically abused and I will take the broken bones over even the thought of being sexually abused. My mother would call for my help when my stepfather was abusing her, but when the dust settled and authorities showed up – my mother and the police would take the side of the inebriated man who was twice my size. Times have changed and authorities are not always that quick to take the side of the adult, but in many aspects society remains unchanged when it comes to child abuse, especially when it comes to law enforcement. Nothing angered me more about the Penn State story than when Pennsylvania law enforcement workers such as the Attorney General and police officials publically stated that Joe Paterno and those involved “did not do enough”. How’s that for irony, Joe Paterno followed the law and the people who write and enforce the laws were not satisfied. What’s worse, these same law enforcement officials have done nothing to lobby for stricter and better laws to help protect our youth. If law enforcement does not like the law, change it! Instead, law enforcement decided to blame their shortcomings on someone who merely followed the laws they wrote. Hence, Pennsylvania law enforcement is where the blame lies; not Joe Paterno – he is merely a scapegoat. Law enforcement is the entity that “is not doing enough!” when it comes to child abuse.

The accused, Jerry Sandusky, has already come out saying he too was abused as a youth. I believe him; many abused youths turn into the monsters that abused them. I, like my stepfather, became an angry alcoholic who frequently went to bars looking for fights. I never hit women or youths, but I did hit innocent people. I feared I was becoming my stepfather, and finally turned my life around. Once I quit drinking the anger and violent tendencies subsided. I am still angry, but I do not act on that anger. This is another major fundamental issue with the laws of our society, we are more focused on rehabilitating monsters but we do very little to help rehabilitate victims of crimes. And what’s worse, our court system is designed to help protect child predators. Judges hand out lenient sentences and allow for defenses that protect predators by making them look like the victims. Sandusky will probably plead some sort of mental anguish, but what happen to him during his youth does not give him any right to be a predator and hurt children.

Predators that attack women and children are very common. There is most likely one of these predators within a stone’s throw from your home. What have you done to stop this? Have you lobbied for tougher laws against predators? Probably not, which means you are just culpable as Joe Paterno. You, like Joe, did not break the law, but turned a blind eye to the situation. However, I solely place the blame of the Penn State situation on our law enforcement system because laws and sentences are much too lenient for child and spousal predators. This needs to change, not finding innocent scapegoats who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

A Commonsense Solution to CO2 (Part IV)

After 3 blogs about commonsense ways to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere, it is time to breakdown how much CO2 each individual contributes to the air we breathe. No, I do not believe manmade CO2 is the cause for warmer temperatures, but I do believe too much CO2 can be a health risk.

Today, our atmospheric CO2 saturation level is at 391 parts per million (ppm) – this is measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. That means the saturation level is at about 0.04% in the air we breathe. Carbon Dioxide is lethal, but that does not happen until levels go over 5%. At a 1% saturation level many individuals can start to feel the effects of CO2 such as lightheadedness. Carbon Dioxide concentration levels have gone up from around 310 ppm in 1960 to our current level of 390 ppm over a 50 year time period. Thus, the concentration of CO2 has on average increased by 1.6 ppm per year. Over the past 10 years the concentration level of CO2 has gone up by about 2.1 ppm every year. This makes sense because global population numbers and CO2 concentration levels are directly proportional.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has an online calculator so each individual can compute their CO2 emissions. In other words, this calculator reveals your carbon footprint. This site is located at: http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html. Here is breakdown of CO2 emissions that each individual is capable of releasing into the atmosphere each year:

• The energy to produce one Kilowatt-Hour of electricity equates to 2 pounds (lbs.) of CO2 emissions.
• The energy to produce one Thousand Cubic Foot of natural gas equates to 12 lbs. of CO2 emissions.
• One gallon of propane equates to 12 lbs. of CO2 emissions.
• One gallon of oil or gas equates to 20 lbs. of CO2 emissions.
• The average human emits about 2 lbs. of CO2 per day.

The EPA assumes that the average driver will use about 12 gallons of gas per month and; they will spend 35 dollars a month on natural gas and or; 70 dollars per month on electricity and or; 45 dollars per month on oil and or; 40 dollars per month on propane to heat and cool their homes. The EPA calculator will give individuals credit for recycling their garbage. When all of this is summed up each person will spew about 20,775 lbs. of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. This does include the amount of CO2 each person emits by simply breathing. Breathing amounts to about 5% of the total CO2 we emit each year. My wife and I (combined) emit a total of 15,000 lbs. of CO2 yearly. That is about 75% of what an average person would emit.

Remember, there are 6.6 billion people in the world, and although people around the globe emit much less than the average American, this means there are literally trillions of tons of CO2 being emitting yearly into the air we breathe. These are staggering numbers.

So what is the point of all these statistics? Even if the industrialized world met its climate change objectives by reducing CO2 emissions by 75% by 2050, it still means there will be trillions of tons of CO2 being released into our atmosphere. Even if the world was 100% green by 2050, the 8 billion people (not including animals that also emit CO2) would still emit trillions of tons of CO2 into our atmosphere. This is why cap and trade and liberal energy policies will never solve the CO2 problem. It may slow the increase of CO2 concentration levels in our atmosphere, but this figure will always be on the rise. This is why we need to embrace commonsense techniques being implemented by Lackner and Keith.

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

A Commonsense Solution to CO2 (Part III)

There is reason to be hopeful because Klaus Lackner is not the only person who is investigating a commonsense solution to carbon dioxide emissions (CO2). University of Calgary climate change scientist, David Keith, is also working on his version of a CO2 scrubber. Keith has built a small model of his CO2 scrubber that has shown it is possible to remove trace amounts of CO2 from the air any time and at any place on the planet.

Keith defines the difference between carbon capture and storage (CCS) and his approach that is called air capture. CCS is the method being implemented at coal refineries to make clean coal energy. A CCS system is installed at a coal refinery that captures CO2 and then pumps the CO2 underground where it can be stored. An air capture system on the other hand can be used anywhere, not just at a coal refinery. In other words, CO2 can be filtered in areas with both large and small densities of CO2 in the air.

Keith’s method can capture a ton of CO2 emissions using a mere 100 kilowatt hours of electricity. They were able to remove 20 tons of CO2 using a mere meter of scrubbing material in one year. This is more than enough to offset the CO2 produced by one person. Keith’s method is both cost and energy effective. The challenge will be making a larger commercial version of his model that can remove billions of tons of CO2. This is down the road, and he admits it will not be easy, but it is feasible.

Years ago, I envisioned a biodegradable CO2 scrubber that can be dropped from a plane and absorb massive amounts of CO2 before falling harmlessly to the ground as a hydrocarbon. At this point, the biodegradable scrubber would be naturally recycled into our lands and waters. My plan included using a charcoal type material. Charcoal is a carbon based material that is very porous and therefore, has a lot of surface area to absorb waste. One gram of charcoal has a surface area equivalent to one tenth the size of a football field! Using a heat process, base compounds such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH – baking soda), potassium hydroxide (KOH), and lithium hydroxide (LiOH) can be attached to the charcoal material. Another common base that can be used to filter CO2 is soda lime (75%- Ca(OH)2; 20% - H2O; 3% - NaOH; 2% - KOH). Here are typical reactions when CO2 encounters these bases:

2LiOH + CO2 => Li2CO3 + H2O (The reaction of 2 lithium hydroxide molecules with one carbon dioxide yields lithium carbonate plus water)

2NaOH + CO2 => Na2CO3 + H2O (The reaction of 2 sodium hydroxide molecules with one carbon dioxide yields sodium carbonate plus water)

2KOH + CO2 => K2CO3 + H2O (The reaction of 2 potassium hydroxide molecules with one carbon dioxide yields potassium carbonate plus water)

Ca(OH)2 + CO2 => CaCO3 + H2O (The reaction of soda lime with carbon dioxide yields calcium carbonate plus water)

Maybe I was misguided because there are some flaws with my proposal. First, this method requires a lot of energy to create the filter and secondly, there is no guarantee when the charcoal compound disintegrates that it would not spew the CO2 back into the atmosphere. But it took this type of thinking for me to search for logical solutions to reduce CO2 in our atmosphere - solutions that would destroy our economy and our way of living. This led directly to me finding the innovative work of both Lackner and Keith. Here are links to their studies:

http://www.physorg.com/news141915261.html

http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/articles/view/2523

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

A Commonsense Solution to CO2 (Part II)

I have been preaching for years that the solution to cut CO2 emissions should not to disturb the current global economy. This requires innovative and creative outside the box thinking, which politicians and most energy scientists obviously lack. Even if CO2 is not causing climate change, we can all agree it is a pollutant that is harmful to our health. After all, CO2 is a deadly gas. After years of scanning for a solution, I have finally come across a person who has the right idea when it comes to solving the CO2 problem in our atmosphere. Physicist, Klaus Lackner, at Columbia University is creating a way to “Suck CO2” out of the air using “CO2 scrubber” technology. A CO2 scrubber filters CO2 directly out of the air we breathe. The theory using CO2 scrubbers already exists and has been incorporated in submarine and space shuttle technology. Anyone who has seen “Apollo 13” understands the importance of CO2 scrubbers in space. However, the trick is developing a CO2 scrubber that is not cost prohibitive. In fact, large CO2 scrubbing stations could consume a large amount of power and therefore, should be powered by low cost renewable energy such as hydropower. The key to Lackner’s technology is that he has developed a plastic sponge that absorbs CO2 rapidly, but at the same time, the CO2 is easily cleaned from the filter using water in a vacuum chamber. Hence, Lackner’s CO2 scrubber uses much less power to absorb and clean the CO2 from the filter than earlier forms of the technology. The next step in the process is the hardest to implement – how to dispose of the extracted CO2? The most likely solution is to keep the CO2 in a liquid form and pump under the earth’s surface where the CO2 can be absorbed by rocks. This is the same technology being investigated by “clean coal” power plants. They too want to capture harmful CO2 and then dispose of it deep into the earth’s crust. But there is still plenty of concern as to whether or not the CO2 will remain underground without eventually leaking back into the earth’s atmosphere. Another option is to add hydrogen to the CO2 and convert it back to liquid hydrocarbons. Here is some information on Klaus Lackner: http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/articles/view/2523 A CO2 scrubbing station would consist of a motor to push wind through the filter. Once the filter is saturated with CO2, it is lowered into a vacuum and rinsed with water. The filter then returns to its operating state, meanwhile the CO2 is separated from the water, compressed into a liquid and pumped underground. The genius of the Lackner solution to filter and dispose of CO2 emissions is it does not require a change to our lifestyles or to our economy. We can continue to use less expensive coal and fossil fuel sources of energy until renewable energies can be produced at an acceptable cost level. And Lackner’s CO2 scrubber will also remove CO2 emissions generated from hydrocarbon life forms (humans and animals). And better yet, Lackner’s CO2 scrubber will eliminate CO2 emissions that currently exist in our atmosphere from nearly two centuries of industrial pollution. Thus, the use of CO2 scrubbers could theoretically lower the current level (390 parts per million) of CO2 in our atmosphere. This is something the liberal green energy agenda not only fails to accomplish; they do not want Lackner’s idea to ruin their plan of progressive power and wealth. My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

A Commonsense Solution to CO2 (Part I)

The Democrats and Obama want to pass their “green” energy plan for America. It consists of many phases including spending billions to upgrade the national power grid infrastructure to be a “smart” power grid. Some “smart” grid updates are indeed needed to protect the power grid from natural and manmade disasters. However, the “smart” grid upgrade includes spending billions to expand our grid to accommodate renewable energy power stations. This is an expensive task because renewable energy power plants are generally located far away from the current power grid infrastructure. After all, wind corridors and deserts are not generally in highly populated areas. The other aspect of the progressive green energy plan includes taxing businesses for their carbon emissions (CO2). Let’s make no bones about the Democrats green energy plan agenda – its sole purpose is to combat climate change and not to make energy more abundant and affordable or even to make our power grid safer. The result of the liberal “green” energy plan for America: Energy costs will at least double (most likely triple or go even higher) for every individual and corporation in America. Renewable energies such as solar and wind are 3 to 5 times more expensive to manufacture one kilowatt-hour of energy than coal, nuclear, or fossil fuel based energies. And obviously, taxing corporate carbon emissions will raise the costs for businesses to manufacture products. This combination of changes in the liberal green energy plan will have a cataclysmic effect on the U.S. economy. It will force corporations to cut jobs or send them overseas. It will cut consumer spending by 3 percent and therefore, shrink the economy by the same amount. Yes, there will be new green jobs created, but if the U.S. plan mimics the Spain green energy plan then 2 jobs will leave the economy for every green job that is created. Finally, a green energy plan will also create a 5 trillion dollar financial bubble, which will eventually burst, like every financial bubble. The result will be another devastating recession. However, the left would do anything to strengthen the monetary value of individuals, groups, and corporations that support the green movement. For instance, this will make Al Gore and progressive leaning corporations such as General Electric billions in profits. Of course a good percentage of those profits will line the wallets of liberal politician. The liberal green energy plan displays not only a lack of simple commonsense, but it is vastly destructive at the same time. The fundamental flaw with misguided global warming alarmists answer to our CO2 problem is that there is not enough money on the planet to convert all current energy sources around the globe to a carbon free footprint. Besides, there is no such thing as a carbon free footprint as long as carbon emitting life forms exist on our planet. Therefore, the Democrats plan will never completely combat carbon emissions, but it will destroy our economy. In fact, the Democrats green energy plan fails to reduce the level of CO2 in our atmosphere; it only attempts to slow the growth of CO2. For example, today it is estimated the atmosphere is saturated with 390 parts per million of CO2. Under the Democrats plan, this number will still continue to grow, but hopefully at a slower rate. My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

Blackout (Part II)

Another problem with weather produced energy, many wind and solar power plants are built in secluded areas, far away from the power grid. Think about it; the best place to build a solar power station is in the desert and the most efficient wind farms are in secluded West Texas. Hydropower, on the other hand, is generally located in close proximity to power grids. This makes sense since most communities are generally built near lakes and rivers. Thus, expensive infrastructure projects are needed to connect the power grid to isolated wind and solar power plants. And let’s not forget that weather patterns change over time and those consequences can be devastating and render renewable power plants useless. For instance, a volcanic eruption can reduce the output from a solar power plant significantly over a long stretch of time. For this reason, renewable energies are both expensive and unreliable. Only hydro power is comparable in the cost to produce a kilowatt hour of electricity with coal, gas (natural), and nuclear. The cost to produce a kilowatt hour of electricity from wind or solar power plants is on average 3 times more expensive than coal, gas, and nuclear sources. This explains why energy costs in California are so high. Twenty percent of their energy is mandated to come from renewable sources. Besides, California must import most of its power because of these same restrictions. Thus, it makes more sense to build nuclear power plants within a close proximity to power grids instead of building isolated wind and solar power plants. This would be a smart power grid, but unfortunately, that is not the Obama or progressive plan. Renewable power plants should be built and added to the grid once the energy is cost effective. Finally, a smart power grid consists of having smart meters tied to every home and business. A smart meter allows individuals and corporation to obtain much more statistical data about their power usage. It would reward people and corporations with lower energy prices for using power at non-peak hours. It would give electric companies the power to control the electricity usage of home owners with their permission. But is it really cost efficient to upgrade every home with a 300 to 500 dollar smart meter? This will cost energy companies billions and of course that cost will be passed on to the user. And statistics indicate that 90% of all Americans will not use any of the new information obtained from a smart meter to lower their energy consumption. If people were conscience about saving energy they could do it with or without a smart meter. First of all, anyone with a first grade education can read any current analog electricity meter to monitor their daily consumption. Secondly, people can buy smart electronic devices if they want to conserve energy. Smart devices use less power and can be programmed to run more efficiently. And this can be done without the federal government trying to control our daily lives. Really, the only people that need a smart meter are those residences that create their own power and want to sell any reserves back to the power company. Current projects to upgrade our power grid are going to be costly and this cost will be passed on to the consumer. Obama’s plan for a smart power grid is convoluted and discombobulated at best. The administration is attacking this problem backwards. For instance, the first thing they are doing in various regions is upgrading the old analog meters on all homes with smart meters. This should be the last step of this arduous process to upgrade our power grid. After all, what good are meters if you do not have enough power to supply homes because the grid is exposed to natural and manmade disasters? And the Obama plan to force the usage of more renewable energies sounds admirable on the surface, but this will result in higher energy prices. And what’s worse, energy prices will double if Obama gets his way and begins to tax carbon emissions. The Obama energy plan will be disastrous to the economy. Higher energy costs to produce products will force more jobs overseas. The same thing happened in Spain who tried to create a green jobs environment. For every green job they created over 1.5 jobs left the economy. And let’s not forget, if the U.S. becomes completely green and does not emit one ounce of carbon emissions to produce energy, its effect on the global environment and climate change will be infinitesimal. If other populous and industrial growing nations such as China and India do not go green, it does not matter what the U.S. does. My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

Blackout (Part I)

There has been a lot of talk about the United States moving to a smart power grid to transport energy to households and businesses across the country. The nation’s power grid is equivalent to the human body’s nervous system. The grid is a maze of thousands of miles of power lines throughout the country. The Obama administration is throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at various projects to modernize the grid by making it “smart”. But what exactly is a smart grid and is the cost to update our power grid worth it? And will it make our energy costs lower or will it raise our costs? These are the questions that need to be explored. Yes, without question, updates are needed to modernize our power grid, but many of the proposed updates are not needed or being done in the most proficient manner. First and foremost, the power grid must be updated handle more power for future population expansion. Secondly, the grid must be designed so it is protected from any natural disasters or terrorist attacks. This should be the initial focus. The command station for the Northeast grid is already protected from potential disasters because it is located deep under the earth’s surface. To protect our grid, it is important to bury the most critical power lines in our grid system. This will protect power lines from any foreseen disasters. It will not only protect the power lines from a terrorist attack, it will protect them from icy conditions where sagging power lines short out in trees. Overloaded power lines will also sag and can therefore, short in trees causing a blackout. The final upgrade should include changing critical power lines from handling alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC). Direct current has less power loss across the grid system. This is an easy way to save megawatts of energy in the power grid. Once the power grid is updated to handle more power, only then can new power plants be built to supply the additional power to the grid. To many, a smart grid is one updated to handle renewable energies. This should be the case, if and only if, it is cost efficient. The problem with renewable energies is that they are weather dependent. The best solar and wind power stations produce energy well under 50% of the time. And what’s worse, there is no efficient way to store renewable power. It would take a lithium battery the size of a football field to store power for a small community. The ingenious (sarcasm) plan of the smart power grid is to store power in the batteries of electric cars. Once batteries of electric cars are fully charged, any excess energy can be sold back to the energy company. This only works if millions of people have electric cars. But face it; electric cars are expensive and inefficient (they travel at best 80 to 100 miles before recharging). Thus, either nuclear energy, natural gas, or a carbon emitting energy power plant is needed to back up wind and solar energy plants since they are inefficient. Hydropower is the most efficient of the renewable energies, since many hydropower plants have a means to store power. Efficient hydropower plants pump water back up the reservoir at night when energy is cheaper. Thus, the water reflows through the damn when energy is most needed during peak business hours. Obviously, this methodology is not a completely efficient means to store power, but it is far better than the solar and wind power plants. My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

Global Warming for Dummies (Part II)

Evaluation of the data from yesterday’s post reveals that CO2 is continuously going up annually, and it never declines. This makes sense, and I usually relate carbon emissions generated since the inception of the industrial revolution to entropy. Entropy is a measure of the disorder of system or the inefficiency of a system. Thermodynamics second law states the entropy in the universe is constantly going up. Well, CO2 is a byproduct (exhaust due to inefficiencies of a system) of any product built since the industrial revolution. Most powered operated items emit CO2 because they are not efficient systems (cars, boats, trucks, planes, lawnmowers, etc. – i.e. all emit exhaust). Let’s evaluate another example – what if we wanted to build a plate? Heat and power are needed to make a plate and subsequently CO2 exhaust is released into our atmosphere. Thus, it is easy to see how CO2 is constantly going up just – analogous to entropy - since energy is needed to build every product we use. However, if we look at the Temp data column, global temperatures may be higher than those averages posted in 1980, but each subsequent year is not necessarily hotter than the previous one. For instance, 1999 was 0.27 degrees cooler than 1998. If CO2 and Temp were directly related, Temp would have to go up each year by an equivalent percentage of CO2 increases. But this is not happening! What gimmick can a scientist use to try to make the data correlate with the hypothesis that global warming is manmade? Yearly averaging! This is why the NOAA created the Temp5 variable. By taking a running average of 5 consecutive years, it makes the trend or correlation between Temp5 and CO2 stronger. In other words, CO2 and Temp5 correlate closer than CO2 and Temp. But even still, the Temp5 variable does decrease some years (most recently between 2007 and 2008, but only by .03 degrees). If CO2 is related to global temperatures then why don’t they track? If CO2 goes up each year than one would suspect that Temp and Temp5 would go up by an equal percentage or more, but this is not happening. There is no question that the NOAA data illustrates there is a trend that global temperatures are going up and there is global warming, but the data does not prove it is manmade due to carbon emissions. In order to show there is some relationship between CO2 and Temp or Temp5 scientists would have to generate other variables in a model to prove this trend. But what are these variables and their corresponding data? This is a mystery and is anyone’s guess. We even do not know where, when, and the accuracy of the temperature readings used to produce the data in the above table. One area that is often scrutinized by global warming alarmists are both the North and South poles – they point out that the polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate and this trend is endangering species. But anyone with a basic knowledge of gravity and who has ever tried to climb Mount McKinley, in Alaska, would understand that the Earth cannot be treated as one entity for global warming. It begs to reason that regions that are industrialized or areas that are near the Equator should be more susceptible to global warming. Unlike (Ohms Law) voltage, current, and resistance; global warming results would be different in different areas. Why? Barometric pressures at the Earth’s poles are significantly lower than at the Equator. Thus, there is much less oxygen at the poles and this explains why the summit of Mount McKinley may feel as if it is at 23,000 feet instead of 20,000 feet. This is because the Earth’s gravitational pull is stronger at the Equator and subsequently attracts more oxygen molecules. Hence, it begs to reason that since the Earth’s poles are less industrialized and there is less CO2 because of the Earth’s gravitational pull that polar regions would be affected less by global warming. Then why are the effects of global warming more apparent at the poles then say in Colorado? Remember, CO2 measurements taken in Hawaii are from the southernmost portion of the U.S., further south than the Florida Keys (closer to the Equator). Also, remember when the Obama’s Department of Energy Chief wanted to cool the earth by painting roofs white to reflect heat? Yes, this can work, especially in large industrialized cities. Cities have gotten proportionally warmer as they have been built up with heat conducting asphalt and steel (building, cars, etc.). But, how can this work, if CO2 and pollution is the blame for global warming? We can lower the temperature of the earth without reducing the effects of CO2? Yes, because temperature and CO2 are not directly related. In other words, trying to show there is a correlation between CO2 and temperature is a hard problem to prove. Last year the NOAA said it was the warmest year on the planet, but it was the coldest year on record for the small little town I live in. If annual CO2 measurements are higher everywhere on the planet, then why are some areas hotter while other regions are colder? The bottom line is I severely doubt that any global warming model has been tested in various regions around the globe. Will the global warming model yield credible results in Reno, Nevada; Nice, France; Cairo, Egypt; Nagasaki, Japan; Auckland, New Zealand; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil? The answer to this is no because climates and even CO2 concentration levels in the atmosphere are vastly different than what is in the global model. Thus, the CO2 and temperature relationship is nothing like Ohms Law because it so much more complex – to show correlation exists scientists must be using numerous undefined variables and data and they are ignoring different climate temperatures and CO2 concentrations at specific locations around the globe (they are merely taking global averages). My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

The Occupy Wall Street Manifesto for EXCEPTionalism

• The OWS movement is against all individual and corporate greed EXCEPT when it is beneficial to the movement in the form of free healthcare, free education, free food, and of course free housing. Local, state, and federal government greed in the form of high taxes is also acceptable. • The OWS movement is against all government bailouts EXCEPT when it is beneficial to the movement such as auto bailouts, locality bailouts, state bailouts, and bailouts to green companies. • The OWS is against all religions and companies EXCEPT those that make charitable contributions to this movement. • The OWS movement is against all farming EXCEPT organic farming. • The OWS movement is against all forms of mining EXCEPT for those materials needed for electric cars or gadgets (lithium, cobalt, etc. to make batteries). • The OWS movement is against all pollution and for protecting the environment EXCEPT when those unsanitary conditions and pollution is caused by the movement’s protestors. • The OWS movement is against all crime, violence, and unlawful behavior EXCEPT when it is carried out by individuals within this movement. • The OWS movement is against all lobbying EXCEPT those lobbyists who advocate for the items contained within this manifesto. • The OWS movement is against energy production EXCEPT renewable energies and those “dirty” sources that are needed for the people within this movement. • The OWS movement is against all corporations (capitalism) EXCEPT those that make products used by this movement. • The OWS movement is against all government spending EXCEPT entitlements and monies that would be used to fund this movement. • The OWS movement is for all lands to be confiscated by the government and be designated as public for everyone to use EXCEPT hunters. • The OWS movement is against the generation of wealth EXCEPT for wealth that is spread to this movement. • The OWS movement is for capping and equally distributing workers’ salaries for ALL professions EXCEPT those who work for unions and of course this movement. • The OWS movement is for legalizing all drugs, no EXCEPTION. • The OWS movement is for anything “free” including all handouts, no EXCEPTION. • The OWS movement represents all people who make fewer than 50 thousand dollars annually including those who do not want to work and those who do not want to be productive in our society. All slackers, loafers, and people who want income they did not earn or deserve are welcome to join this movement. • The OWS movement represents all genders, ethnicities, and organizations EXCEPT those tied to conservative beliefs, especially religious groups that emphasize hard work, responsibility, accountability, and a strong family unit. • The OWS movement is for granting amnesty to all illegal aliens, no EXCEPTION. • The OWS movement only believes in “proven science”: evolution, climate change, Keynesian economics, and so forth – even if the people within the movement are not experts in these fields (brainwashing the followers of this movement is the key to its success). • The OWS movement is for innovation EXCEPT when the outcome is profit and capitalism. • The OWS movement is against all forms of authority (CEOs, police, military, etc.). This and all other items within this manifesto were decided solely by the supreme leader of the OWS movement - ME. What EXCEPTionalism (contradictions, hypocrisies, or whatever you want to call it) do you see behind the OWS Movement? My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

Global Warming for Dummies (Part I)

Why should we question the findings that global warming is being caused by manmade carbon emissions? Simple, the math does not add up! For this to be true there has to be a direct relationship between carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and global temperatures. For instance, in electronics, Ohms law is defined by the formula: V=IR. This means the voltage (V) at any circuit node is directly related to the amount of current (I) times the amount of resistance (R). Current follows the path of least resistance, thus as the resistance goes up the current goes down and vice versa. Ohms Law can be applied to any circuit at any time at any place in the world. To prove carbon dioxide and global temperatures are directly related we would need to generate an equation (Like Ohms Law) or model to prove this fact. The simplest equation (one equation, one unknown) would be T=xC; where T is the global temperature, C is the global carbon emissions in our atmosphere, and x is a number, that when multiplied by C would equal the global temperature. The below table is a tabulation of annual global temperatures and carbon emission data. Temp is the annual average temperature above 1980 averages. Temp5 is the average temperature of the past 5 years above 1980 averages. CO2 is the annual carbon dioxide measured in our atmosphere at the Mona Kea observatory in Hawaii in parts per million. This data was taken directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) web page. This is data they use to say that the Earth is not only getting warmer, but it caused by manmade CO2 emissions. Year Temp Temp5 CO2 1984 0.13 0.16 344.42 1985 0.12 0.22 345.9 1986 0.18 0.24 347.15 1987 0.34 0.26 348.93 1988 0.41 0.33 351.48 1989 0.27 0.38 352.91 1990 0.47 0.34 354.19 1991 0.42 0.29 355.59 1992 0.14 0.3 356.37 1993 0.17 0.29 357.04 1994 0.3 0.28 358.88 1995 0.44 0.33 360.88 1996 0.36 0.43 362.84 1997 0.38 0.46 363.76 1998 0.7 0.45 366.63 1999 0.43 0.49 368.31 2000 0.41 0.55 369.48 2001 0.56 0.55 371.02 2002 0.68 0.58 373.1 2003 0.65 0.65 375.64 2004 0.59 0.67 377.38 2005 0.77 0.68 379.97 2006 0.65 0.66 381.88 2007 0.75 0.68 384 2008 0.55 0.65 387 My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

The Electric Car Fantasy

The Recovery Act (the 862 billion dollar stimulus) was supposed to be a jobs bill. However, the stimulus was more of a platform to promote the progressive fantasy of having a green America. The stimulus provides 90 billion to upgrade our power grid, weatherize homes and businesses, and to improve both renewable energy costs and production. One such fantasy getting billions of dollars of stimulus funding is the electric car. The stimulus is also silently promoting other government power grabs such as their education program (A Race to the Top), making broadband available in rural areas, and digitizing medical records. Over the next few weeks, I will post a dozen blogs exposing the problems with stimulus projects including the high speed rail, the power grid, The Race to the Top, and renewable energy. Research and production of the electric car is getting billions of dollars from the stimulus. By 2012, there will be 30 manufacturers in the U.S. making batteries for electric cars. The U.S. market share for electric car batteries is expected to cut into China’s dominate monopoly – the goal is for it to go from 1 to 20%. The White House hopes to cut the cost of the electric car battery by 50% so the cost of the electric car can be priced competitively to similar gasoline powered vehicles. The electric battery is the key behind the success of the electric car. These batteries are large and expensive and the best rated batteries allow a vehicle to travel up to a maximum of 200 miles between charges. And what’s worse, a battery can lose up to half of its charge in cold weather. For this reason, the stimulus contains billions of dollars to open charging stations throughout the country. Electric batteries are also seen as being pivotal to store energy produced by solar and wind renewable energy sources. This is the only way to ensure renewable energy power plants can provide energy when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining. Today, a multi-billion dollar battery the size of a football field is needed to supply power to a small town for a single day. This is obviously not acceptable. The most important problem with the electric car is the myth that it is cleaner than comparable gasoline powered cars. A study done by a MIT research unit claims that electric cars charged using energy produced by a coal or fossil fuel energy plant is in fact worse for the environment. The electric car can produce nearly 50% more in carbon emission pollutants than gasoline powered vehicles. This is the primary reason that the stimulus is trying to increase production of renewable energy sources. However, the current problem with renewable energy is it is 3 to 5 times more expensive than coal and fossil fuel energy sources. Another problem with renewable energy is that their power plants are located in remote areas - far away from the power grid. This is why billions of stimulus dollars are needed to connect remote wind and solar power plants to the power grid. The bottom line for the electric car to become a reality, the following needs to be accomplished: The battery needs to be made smaller, cheaper, while at same time increasing its mileage output by at least two fold; the power grid has to be expanded to accommodate remote renewable energy power plants; renewable energy costs must be reduced three fold; renewable energy production must be increased 10 fold; and finally, a minimum of a million charging stations need to be built throughout the United States. When this happens, maybe, just maybe, the electric car will be a cleaner and more practical option to replace the gasoline vehicle. Is it worth a 1 trillion dollar investment to make the electric viable? No, there are too many variables involved in making electric car a success. Thus, there are too many risks and unknowns in the electric car industry making it cost prohibited. There are wiser ways to spend money that will have a bigger impact on the environment with less risk and cost. Stay tuned for more practical solutions to carbon emissions. My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

The Green Construction Police

There is a new sheriff in town when it comes to building new homes and office buildings: the council for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). LEED is responsible for developing green criteria and guidelines for new homes and office buildings. LEED will certify homes that meet their criteria. If a dwelling meets 26 of 69 criteria points (40%) it is LEED certified. If a building meets 33 of 69 criteria it is certified as silver; if it meets 39 criteria points it is certified gold; and if it is meets 52 points it is certified platinum. This all sounds great, but the criteria point system is flagrantly flawed. First, only 17 of the 69 criteria directly relate to energy savings. Thus, any new dwelling can be certified LEED platinum and actually not save on any energy costs. Secondly, LEED certified homes and buildings are expensive. Data indicates that LEED certified dwellings can cost anywhere from 1.5 to 3 times more than conventional homes and buildings. Thirdly, each criteria point is weighted equally. Hence, a business building can install an expensive energy efficient heating and cooling system and receive one point, which is the same score another business would get for installing a 100 dollar bike rack outside its lobby. Fourth, the LEED council brags that the average certified business and home is 25 to 30% more energy efficient than non-LEED certified dwellings. This sounds great, but let’s remember LEED certified buildings are 1.5 to 3 times more expensive to construct. Therefore; the cost to energy savings breakeven point for LEED certified dwellings needs to be 50 to 200% more energy efficient than non-LEED certified buildings and homes. In other words, the return on investment for LEED energy efficient homes is not very good. Fifth, much of the cost to subsidize these expensive buildings, especially government buildings, will be placed on the taxpayer. While liberals in Washington have been unsuccessful, to this point, to make LEED standards the law of the land, it has not stopped states and municipalities from adopting LEED guidelines. To date some 43 states and 400 cities have incorporated LEED standards into their laws. Liberals who favor LEED mandates claim without these LEED guidelines green conscience homes and office buildings will not be constructed. This is nonsense, because all individuals and employers are dollar conscience and do not want to pay high prices for energy. As energy prices go up, so will the need for more energy efficient homes. But these homes will need to be cost efficient as well. What’s worse is many LEED guidelines are theories that have not been proven to save energy. For instance, LEED has published guidelines for not only homes and businesses, but for the design and construction of entire communities. LEED proposes, for instance, to eliminate cul-de-sacs. They believe cul-de-sacs lead to more traffic congestion. Is this true? There is no study or evidence that more cul-de-sacs create more traffic congestion. LEED also proposes having businesses built near mass transit stops. This sounds great, but just because there is a mass transit stop outside a business it doesn’t mean it is easier for people to use mass transit to get to work. LEED communities and neighborhoods will be bike and pedestrian friendly. LEED communities will mix businesses and homes. LEED communities will build homes on small lots close together to save space and the energy costs (and water) to maintain yards. Are all these proposals energy efficient that will cut carbon emissions? No one knows, but people are going to spend millions to find out if this works. At best, the government and citizens will invest billions for a negligible effect on climate change (maybe one billionth of one percent fewer CO2 emissions). This is another example of how the government is using fear mongering (climate change) to force not only unproven theories, but unnecessary and costly changes. My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)

The Hypocrisy of the Forced Green Movement

The problem with the green movement is it is not naturally evolving but instead; it is being forced on the public by absent minded liberals. This means that American citizens have very little choice in the matter are therefore, paying a high price for energy products which may also be hazardous to their wellbeing. The new energy efficient light bulbs are now our only choice for lighting as incandescent light bulbs have been obsoleted. The new light bulbs not only contain heavy metals such as mercury, but they can emit toxins. Green hysteria is forcing us to use products that are not only a health hazard for humans, but for our environment. Electric car batteries can weigh up to 500 pounds, cost about 10 thousand dollars to replace, and have a life span of about 7 to 10 years. If they are disposed of improperly after they expire, it could undo years of carbonless driving. In fact, emergency services such as the police and fire department consider all electric batteries toxic and have a procedure to deal with auto accidents – once again putting people in danger. Although electric batteries may be considered less toxic than carbon emitting car batteries made from lead, electric car batteries are literally a massive issue because of their size. The Department of Energy is pouring billions of taxpayer money into companies such as Toxco to expand capabilities to recycle these types of batteries. This recycling method is costly both in dollars and energy usage. One approach to extend the life of electric car batteries a few extra years is for utility companies to use them. Utility companies can store energy produced by renewable energy sources during off peak hours in old electric car batteries that no longer work in cars. Remember, when a car battery dies, it still retains about 75% of its usefulness. But still, the green hysteria movement is far too impatient to wait for safer, smaller, more efficient, and cost effective batteries to be invented and / or developed. What is even more troubling is that we can spend taxpayer money to fund the recycling of batteries, but we refuse to spend the money to build new nuclear power plants where spent fuel is recycled similarly to those power plants used in the United Kingdom and France. While environmentalists argue the Fukusima plant accident, in Japan, is reason to end nuclear power, but instead, it should be a reminder that we need to update and or build modern nuclear plants. Most nuclear power plants in the U.S. are approaching 50 years of age and they are obviously outdated and should be updated with the latest safety features including the recycling of spent fuel. One aspect of coal energy that environmentalists despise, other than its carbon emitting dirty label, is the fact the environment is harmed through the mining of this resource. But electric car batteries are made from nickel, lithium, cobalt, and manganese, which also must be mined from our planet. And let’s not forget that one car battery can use several hundred pounds of these metals. Why is acceptable to destroy the earth to mine lithium, but not coal? Why is it acceptable to fund and develop ways to recycle electric car batteries, but not nuclear fuel (even though the technology exists)? Why is it acceptable to obsolete products that are safe and replace them with hazardous products just because they are arguably more energy efficient? Why is it acceptable for the public to pay more for energy usage by forcing them to use expensive renewables when less expensive energy sources exist? These are the hypocritical actions of the progressives to force the green energy movement onto the masses. The bottom line is that conservatives are correct since they are open-minded to the use and development of all energy sources. My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)