Are we fooling ourselves about the whole "green " thing?
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I spent extra for the cocktail model. Now if I could just figure out how to get it not to burn the popcorn.
btuser said:
Perfect example of the conundrum of our economy being based on a model of constant growth while we are smacking hard against the boundaries of a finite planet.
We need to figure out how to prosper without growth. It makes economists heads hurt but it's pretty obviously true.
We won't, and as discussed in other posts an increase in efficiency won't lead to a decrease but rather an increase in use. So when I drop my heating oil consumption by 40% am I doing the irresponsible thing?
Part of me doesn't really believe that in regards to oil, because I don't think it could really get any cheaper than it is right now. However we use roughly 75% of what we burn just to get around, and a hell of a lot of that is one person in one car sitting in a long line of traffic. Remember when gas went to $1.50 right after we spent $700,000,000,000.00 on a bank bailout? Now we're coming to find out we made a bundle on that, almost enough to pay for all those new highways my state is getting, so one person in one car doesn't get upset about sitting in quite so long a line of traffic.
Part of me doesn't really believe that in regards to oil, because I don't think it could really get any cheaper than it is right now. However we use roughly 75% of what we burn just to get around, and a hell of a lot of that is one person in one car sitting in a long line of traffic. Remember when gas went to $1.50 right after we spent $700,000,000,000.00 on a bank bailout? Now we're coming to find out we made a bundle on that, almost enough to pay for all those new highways my state is getting, so one person in one car doesn't get upset about sitting in quite so long a line of traffic.
btuser said:
How can an economy that is 70% deoendent on consumer spending be sustainable. Can we consume our way to prosperity?Only as long as we keep borrowing money to do it i guess. How long can we survive selling each other foreign made goods? Something tells me things are going to get pretty ugly when we have to come to grips that the party is over and its time to clean up the mess and pay back all the borrowed money.
midwestcoast said:
One of my pet peeves also. I've never understood why everyone things growth is always good. I and many others I'm sure would be perfectly happy with steady state conditions and a high quality and sustainable lifestyle.
Growth is good for two types of people.
1.) People who depend on the velocity of money. This group is government and financial. When I look at taxes and interest payments as being the same thing, it explains why the banks and my government want me to be in debt.
2.) People who know they're leaving a mess behind. Keep building/growing and you never have to turn around and fix what you left behind, or live with the people you just screwed.
My town has a very anti-growth attitude about it. I love it.
1.) People who depend on the velocity of money. This group is government and financial. When I look at taxes and interest payments as being the same thing, it explains why the banks and my government want me to be in debt.
2.) People who know they're leaving a mess behind. Keep building/growing and you never have to turn around and fix what you left behind, or live with the people you just screwed.
My town has a very anti-growth attitude about it. I love it.
Unfortunately my town is plagued with poverty, crime, unemployment, infrastructure erosion and near bankruptcy because population and employment (mainly industrial) here have been in decline for decades. I've written to my political Rep's (local & federal) asking about economic plans & they mostly talk about supporting the steel mills.... Right, like those jobs are ever coming back. They give lip service to "Hi-tech" & "Green" jobs, but there's no pool of skilled workers, education system is a disaster & there's no money to fix it because the tax base is gone.btuser said:
I'd love to see a big effort to transform the economies of rust-belt cities that could be used as a model for the country. Alas that stuff costs $$$$$$.
Oh well, darn, Karma got me this past weekend. All that wind we had caused the big weeping willow to fall over on my camper. I had to go buy some tires, and hire the handy man to change them, and next weekend I will have to tow it to the camper dealer so that they can assess it and fix it. New roof for sure. That should help the economy, and keep the insurance company clerks doing a little paperwork...
The bad news is that weeping willows make bad firewood.
The bad news is that weeping willows make bad firewood.
midwestcoast said:
The problem is when population is in decline the politicians dont know how to downsize municipal budgets and services to match. The recession and falling housing prices has not affected my town much cuz there never was boom cycle here.Its always some variation of famine and never feast ever since all the Manufacturing left the country. The teachers want raises every year(and they get them) the Police and all the Govt employees want raises every year and guaranteed taxpayer funded pension plans at the same time every one else s income and hours are falling. If the Govt goes broke were in a world of hurt here as 1/2 the population is getting some sort of Govt checks,be it disability ,SS SSI, unemployment,pension,welfare,ect ect.
Hey, I don't need any handouts! Just give me my medicaid, medicard, food stamps, social security, section 8 housing, subsidized mass transit, earned income credit, and I don't need no help from nobody!
We've been poor for a long time, but now we're running out of credit. Green Jobs sound great but my experience with what is expected when it comes to an "educated" work force is sales/marketing to sell to people that have money. There's no shortage of labor in this country, just a shortage of people willing to work for less and less every year. I talked to an 20+yr master electrician who applied for work at a solar company, but was offered $14/hr as a foreman.
We've been poor for a long time, but now we're running out of credit. Green Jobs sound great but my experience with what is expected when it comes to an "educated" work force is sales/marketing to sell to people that have money. There's no shortage of labor in this country, just a shortage of people willing to work for less and less every year. I talked to an 20+yr master electrician who applied for work at a solar company, but was offered $14/hr as a foreman.
btuser said:
The public employees here in Pa seem to live in a different world. In 2001 the state legislature enacted massive pension hikes for themselves (50% increase) and included teachers, judges and state employees at a lesser rate just so they could get some support from them for it before the meltdown with the story that the stock market would fund it,well we know what happened to that,problem is taxpayers may be on the hook for all this money that really does not exist. They are floating plans to increase the taxpayer contribution from 4% to over 30% because of the stock market decline. The plan was 30 Billion in the hole in 2009.No one in govt is talking about rolling back these pensions to the former levels just where to get the Billions to pay for it all. Now they just just did some more trickery to push the bill for it down the road a few more years. Worst economic climate in my 50 year lifetime and the bozos in Pa Govt voting themselves 50% increases,its thievery at its finest.
[quote author="Semipro" date="1288669851That brought back some memories. I actually remember that from 35+ years ago.[/quote]
My point exactly. Things really are better. What him say?
My point exactly. Things really are better. What him say?
The employees have been contributing the same amount or more for the past 50 years. Its the states that have been seduced by Wall Street that easy and safe returns of 9% were possible, so that weak government could fake a balanced budget, and give away tax breaks to folks who don't pay their fair share (poor and rich alike). GOVERNMENT IS AN UN-PAID EMPLOYEE OF THE POWERFULL. So now we've run out of clever ideas and ways to kick the can. Now its going to hurt a lot worse than it did in the 1970s when we should've fixed all this.
BTUser
I try not to dwell on all this otherwise ill turn into an angry old man(if im not already) By the way ,ever buy that cabin on the lake(for cheap)?
I try not to dwell on all this otherwise ill turn into an angry old man(if im not already) By the way ,ever buy that cabin on the lake(for cheap)?
trump said:
Yep, local gov'ts are generally incapable of effectively managing decline. I beleive that is because the whole concept is totally foreign to our "system". None of them had courses in their MBA programs on how to prosper with shrinking sales... always about how to grow.
If the possibility of decline was ever entertained in the planning stages of budgets & service provision, perhaps we could have ready-made plans for how to scale gov't down to match the size of a jurisdiction.
I dunno about you, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to change paychecks with a teacher in this area! Nor change jobs. If they were making bank I'd resent the raises during a recession.
I don't begrudge anyone their pension after a lifetime of service, wish I could look forward to the same. I do begrudge the mayors' nephew pulling in $30-something-grand to video-tape some gov't meetings and the user-fees from outsourcing to private companies, services that tax $ used to pay for WITHOUT laying off any public employees who used to do the work and a whole bunch of other crap that goes on around here. but none of that has to do with population, just coruption
midwestcoast said:
The average teacher salary here is 45-50 G a year making them the highest paid in the area after doctors and lawyers.What is a lifetime of service? it seems for Govt employees its 20 years,for the rest of us its 50 years if you count from HS grad at 17 until 67 In the case of teachers its 30 years if 60 or 35 years service at any age.
Friend of mine just retired from the state police at 42. Now the state has to pay his retirement for the next 40 years plus the cost of his replacement,and his replacements replacement in another 20 years. Seems excessive to me.
Dune said:
Yea this should probably jump to the ash can section.
How much trouble was it to build that splitter? I got a 16 hp side shaft engine i was thinking about taking a stab at it. Cant really see payin a grand+ for one as i dont use it too often.
trump said:
Depends on a few things. If you have free steel, free time, most of the hydraulics (it is always worth buying a splitter valve), good welding skills and equipment, it might be worth it. If you have to buy much of the stuff, a grand might seem cheap. One good source that I have used for decades is https://www.surpluscenter.com/home.asp. High quality stuff, fair prices.
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