Kodi

Private Prisons: A Reliable American Growth Industry

What about the victims lives ruined by those in prison? The US laws are lenient and overly legalistic in order to prevent an innocent person from being wrongly convicted. If you ever become a victim involved with the criminal justice system you will understand. And for those victims where the offender gets off with a slap on the wrist, the victim is the one who's life is ruined.


On Aug 21 03:52 PM User 381785 wrote:

> This article is horrible and ignores all ethics. Don't invest in
> corporations that operate prisons. Research at MIT has shown that
> private prisoners cut costs by giving prisoners cheaper substitutes
> and/or outright denials for the medicines they have been prescribed.
> Why would you try to make money by investing in institutions that
> ruin peoples lives?

Cash for Clunkers: A Wildly Expensive Way to Cut Emissions

Let's face it, CFC is an expensive vote buying program that should have been applied to electric or alternative energy vehicles. Don't forget, that to produce a new vehicle, there are environmental costs as well. Add up the carbon footprint required to produce a new car in steel production, petroleum based plastics, electrical components, tires, paint, commuting workers, shipment of a new vehicle, visiting showrooms, waste produced, etc. It appears that no one considered all the ancillary activities associated with the production of a new product. This whole thing stinks of political pandering that those of us who did not participate, get stuck with the tab.

Additionally, my guess is that those who could truly afford a new car loan, are not the needy, but likely the son or daughter driving the old clunker back and forth to college or work. I see a lot of truly poor people still driving clunkers who are unable to purchase even a worthy used vehicle. So what does our government do, increase personal debt load to satiate a chosen few and increase the prices in the used car market.

My understanding is that pick up trucks have been the major purchase through this program. What kind of incremental improvement is that? It seems to me to truly make an improvement in the environment, the minimum mpg for a new vehicle should be set at 32 mpg.

The Truth About Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy (Part II)

Fossil fuels are ancient solar energy, let's not forget that. Eons ago, plants and animals utilized solar energy to assimilate the CO2 in their atmosphere to grow and prosper and eventually become entrapped in what we now use as energy. Had their "carbon footprint" not been sequestered, the earth's atmosphere would have already compensated for their carbon release through decay, rather than being released eons later.

It is similar to the arguement about whether a pile of brush releases more carbon dioxide by burning or by rotting over time. In either case, they release the same. Burning accomplishes this in hours, decomposition takes decades.

The obvious difference is that we are releasing massive amounts of CO2 on a yearly basis, but let's not forget that a single volcanic eruption far surpasses what mankind contributes.

My guess is that the ecosystem of the earth has far more compensatory mechanisms than we realize. We just haven't realized this yet.

Robert Shiller on Charlie Rose

Professor Shiller et al appear to endorse a philosophy of economic "un-natural selection" whereby citizens bent on personal survival and prosperity will subsidize the dependent segment of society at an increasing level to minimize socioeconomic inequality. Those motivated to leverage their future by investing in education, working multiple jobs and forgoing frivolous purchases will be required to share more of their hard-earned bounty with the dependency class. It doesn't take a Yale professor to see that entitlement begets entitlement. American society is replete with examples where subsidizing slothfulness for the sake of economic equality resulted in greater dependency, not greater inovation and productivity. Professor Shiller advocates capitalism while encouraging socialism.

UAW Pricing Itself Out of the Auto Market

A union is a business within a business that redirects employee alliegiance towards itself at the expense of the primary business. This is parasitism. And when the parasite becomes too big, it kills it's host. That is what is happening to the automakers. Shame on them for allowing the unions to grow so powerful. There again, strikes and sabotage were used to extort the unions position to which the companys capitulated.