realitybiter

Permits to spew carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere fell by $3.30 between the first day of the Copenhagen climate summit and the day after its disappointing conclusion. The decline suggests that despite years of diplomatic efforts, the real world still operates as if people can spew carbon more or less at will.

I think it would be more effective to target Oxygen consumption and tax the users of oxygen. Also, sunlight, an incredibly valuable commodity also should be taxed. It is not fair. Then there is gravity. This is mechanical energy which even rocks benefit from. Weight of everything needs to be taxed to compensate the earth's gravity.

Taxing carbon will be as productive as reducing risk with credit default swaps. You can't.

Energy Impoverishment: Heading Back to Coal?

Why was I quoted nearly $40k for my home to powered by solar if solar is so cheap? Sure, with subsidies it is less to me, but it is still money spent....What am I missing?
Also, my State, Oregon spent $1.3 million just two years ago on a solar panel that is producing 112,000 kwhr with a total capacity of 104kw...that is 13,000 per kw. This is not theoretical, but actual. Which is exactly the point. If your numbers soon will be correct, why did we just piss away a million bucks? It makes sense when the numbers pencil. We would have been far ahead if we had waited.

BTW, new nuclear is $3800 a kw and passively safe (no human error possible)


On Dec 03 09:43 AM jerrydd wrote:

>
> You are looking at this from the wrong direction. From a cost standpoint
> most RE now or will soon cost less than coal.
>
> For instance CSP units are simple 3hp steam/heat/Rankine motors that
> solar powered are under $3k/kw plus 3kwhrs of heat bonus in the US
> and lower in developing countries. This is less than coal units cost
> new and the fuel is free! And they can use heat storage or biomass
> for 24/7 power/heat.
>
> Of wind is now under $1.5k/kw including the grid tie inverter and
> 1/2 that in DC's. They can be made most anywhere for under $300/kw
> in parts. magnets4less.com
>
> PV can now be bought for under $2k/kw in the US, again lower than
> new coal. sunelec.com
>
> DC's understand now that coal kills from it's pollution like China.
>
>
> Much more river/tidal kinetic hydro is doable at 1/2 what coal costs.
> Even a simple paddlewheel generator is under $1k/kw and it's base
> load.
>
> These are home size units which is where the future is vs you are
> looking at just large units which are going down in the near future.
>
>
> Also NG is far more widely spread and will continue to bite into
> coal's share here and around the world as the bridge fuel to RE.
>
>
> Another factor is far more eff buildings, transport mean less energy
> is needed.
>
> Batteries are dropping fast in price too. Under $100/kwhr for lead
> with sodium, lithium dropping like a rock, soon to be the same price.
>
>
> The only reason these have not taken over are the huge subsidies
> oil, coal get. Once their real, full cost is in them then RE will
> be far cheaper.

Energy Impoverishment: Heading Back to Coal?

Preachin' to the choir!

I have long said that the mistake of making global warming the number one issue, was that it mispriced risk. We can NEVER price carbon based on hyperbole created disaster. This is as silly as the pricing mistakes created by CDS' and SIV's. You end up making risky loans that are "theoretically" riskless.

We need to make new energy the risk, based on the analysis of peak oil. The flaw with pursuing global warming is that it forces you to overprice the benefit of your "clean energy". Case in point: My lovely local government gushes about the great clean solar highway that they are creating. Never mind that it makes no economic sense. We spent $1.3m to create $6,000 a year of electricity from solar panels that may last 20 years. That is idiotic!

To your point, if we don't have the technology available today that pencils, then we should create it. Rather than deploy solutions which don't make economic sense, lets bank that money, invest in R&D and deploy the technology when it makes sense.

Instead, what we have done, is overpriced the value of carbon at the expense of our seed capital. And this is the point that the global warming skeptics have made all along. We have squandered our capital to solve a problem which is fictitious, based on drama, false data, and an agenda that is rife with corrupt players. You know their names. Gore is Madoff.

We need to grow up and realize this stuff cost real money. I fear that you are right, and by the time we figure it out, folks will be so broke that they well be living under highway solar panels for basic shelter...

maybe they will call them "Gorevilles."

catchy.

24 States Borrow Money to Pay Unemployment Benefits

Folks need to park their hearts at the door and start thinking:

Can government create sustainable jobs? No. There is no proof of this.

Can employers make the Country more prosperous, sustainably, by manufacturing offshore? Some say yes, but you are seeing the affect of this right now. The answer is no.

Can employers make the Country more prosperous by hiring illegal immigrants at discount wages? No, the social cost far outweighs the benefit.

Therefore, we need to implement policies which encourage local manufacturing, local employment, no illegal immigrant labor, and encourage manufacturing in the USA. I know all the big corporations hate this, but deal with it. You get our consumers, you can't shirk your socioeconomic responsibility. It just won't work otherwise.

Will this happen? Of course not. Look who BO has on his economic advisory team. ("Oooooooh, but he is SOOO smart!" That, too, will evaporate from the adoring masses) What will happen is that the dollar will get so pummeled that outsourcing will no longer make sense. Unemployed will grow to despise illegal immigrants. You can't fool mother nature.

Obama will rise and fall with the dollar: The electorate is only as happy as the value of the greenbacks in their pockets.

People will be real happy ---- like the communist Russians were with crappy bread, govt controlled information, and massive poverty. Govt never has ever made people that are governed happy. Ever. Free people with real property rights make themselves happy.


On Nov 26 08:56 AM The Geoffster wrote:

> Obama is a socialist. He will redistribute dollars and his people
> will be happy.

Obama will rise and fall with the dollar: The electorate is only as happy as the value of the greenbacks in their pockets.

True enough. If you are trying to correlate political careers, there is nothing remotely similar between RR and BO. RR had high rates of interest to stop monetary abuse coupled with decrease in taxrates. BO is doing exactly the opposite. RR's failure was not bringing in debt. BO is making every mistake possible. Holf interest rates low and raise taxes....blow up govt spending....We will see a much lower dollar, unemployment that is through the roof, but reaches an asymptote around 20% as reported, and chronic deficits. Spend your old dollars while they still have value on something that has value.


On Nov 26 04:49 AM bbro wrote:

> Remember Reagan's approval rating in January 1983 was 35%...the<br/>peak
> of the umemployment rate....

After a sensible call for a jobs summit, "President Obama’s Herbert Hoover-like alter ego has re-emerged again to warn us again about the evils of government deficit spending." An argument why deficit terrorism isn't the answer.

Hope and change, hope and change. Sure looks like business as usual in Washington, to me.

The point above about got spending ROI is the point. Most of our spending is on stupid stuff which makes folks feel good, that pays little benefit over time. Seriously. Where are the visionary projects? We are screwing around with healthcare that we will lament in 10 years. Remember Pelosi's stammering speech about the very first stimulus two years ago: "The three t's....targeted, temporary, and timely" How about terminally brain dead??? The money was peed away like a dollar to a drunk. It is gone forever, only piled on to more debt.

Anybody notice the electrical generation dividend still being paid by the Hoover dam? It is the Hoover dam not the Roosevelt dam, BTW (that little Hoover bad, FDR mantra, is trite and incorrect). Cost $49m to build in 1931-6 and it produces the equivalent of $240m per year of 6cent a kwh electricity today. Yet, my local govt thinks they get fantastic ROI spending $1.3m to produce $6000 a year of electricity on solar panels that will be defunct in one generation (20 yrs).

Seems to me that all of these brainiacs, BO included, somehow got their college guidance counselors to sign off on substituting sociology for advanced math. It is really basic math. Seems we have a perpetual "cash for clunkers" program with lobbyist giving corporate cash to our clunker politicians. Taxpayer screwed.

Clearwire (CLWR): Q3 EPS of -$0.43. OIBDA of -$198.8M. Revenue of $69M (+13%) vs. $67M. Revenue comparison to Sprint's WiMAX business in prior year. Shares -1.5% AH. (PR)

Maybe if their service wasn't so lousy they would figure out a way to really grow revenue and make money.

While Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein understands that "people are pissed off" with bankers, he says everybody should be happy: "Companies are looking to grow again and raise money. That's where we come in. The financial system may have led us into the crisis but it will lead us out."

And what will be the backlash to the Blankfeins of this world when the rank and file Mainstreeter figures it out? I doubt they will be satisfied with just crappy taxpayer paid for healthcare. When they realize that their children have been effectively robbed, lives lost because the Blankfein's stole it, history says that the perps will be punished far beyond what is moral or reasonable. Immoral bankers have been immorally punished severely by the angry mob throughout history.

Blankfein should have studied (and comprehended) more history than just Keynesian economics.

That said,

If he is so confident that their good banking works will soon manifest general economic growth maybe the bailout should have been structured as follows:

1) All stock in GS is halted and effectively privatized until unemployment reaches 6%, at which time it will freely trade.

2) No bonuses will be paid until unemployment reaches 6%.

3) No salaries can exceed 50 times the lowest paid employee at any firm that receives bailout or receives any payment from any company that received a bailout (AIG passthrough).

Don't like the terms? Go raise your own capital to cover your stupid, irresponsible bets.


On Nov 08 10:42 AM Archman Investor wrote:

> I just read all the comments.
> What is telling? Not a single negative thumbs down.
> The commentators all know, unlike average Americans the real truth
> of what went on during the past 18 months.
> Which is:
> The largest tax payer heist in history was successfully accomplished
> with the help of the FED, Treasury, Congress, all to enrich a select
> few at the expense of the many.
>
> For instance here is what really happened with Goldman Sachs:
>
> They knew like many others they were in deep trouble. Paulson knew
> it, so did the Treasury. But GS wanted more. They knew that if they
> converted to a "bank" they could be saved, but they also knew that
> because of their HFT abilities, connections to Washington, etc, they
> could in essence use tax payer money, to become "to big to fail".
> Also and more importantly, make hundreds of billions of dollars using
> taxpayer money (as play money) to trade day and night and enrich
> themselves. This is exactly what happened. They were so successful
> at it (like many other firms who could suddenly, in a matter of months,
> pay back the gov't) they not only paid the gov't back but also made
> incredible amounts of money for themselves which will get paid back
> as bonuses. That and being able to "buy" H1N1 vaccines for all their
> employees.
>
> What should have happened was: GS pays back all the taxpayer money
> they were lent, and as a taxpayer thank you for just allowing them
> to survive, any monies made beyond base salaries for the employees
> of these companies who created this entire mess, should have been
> given back to the general population.
> Period.
> Instead we now have almost 20% real unemployment in this country.
>
> Another 20% already on welfare in this country.
> A country where about 15% of our children go to bed hungry each night.
>
> And we have the likes of GS, BAC, C, AIG, et al, receiving hundreds
> of billions and their executives and employees enjoying a life fewer
> than 10% of all Americans will ever enjoy.
> Not to mention of course our incredibly corrupt government who is
> in the process of mortgaging the next 3 generations wealth away all
> for their own personal gain.
>
> We are now living in what I consider to be one of the lowest points
> in American history. Where corruption even at the highest levels
> of government is accepted and welcomed, and where those people in
> government are willing to do anything of the price is right regardless
> of the consequences. You couple that with a complacent population
> who are dumbed down to levels i personally thought could never be
> achieved and you truly have the seeds planted for the slow decay
> of our nation, just like the Roman empire 2000 years ago.
>
> History does repeat itself, though most would disagree. Why agree
> when you can have more fun with your I-phones and watch American
> Idol?

While Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein understands that "people are pissed off" with bankers, he says everybody should be happy: "Companies are looking to grow again and raise money. That's where we come in. The financial system may have led us into the crisis but it will lead us out."

Who are you going to believe? This selfish, self-serving clown or I don't know, maybe some really thoughtful cat like, hmmmm, okay, Thomas Jefferson:
+++++++++++++++++
The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.

++++++++++

Feeling deprived of your property yet? How many cheaper dollars do you have? How is your home equity? What day will you wake up and realize we needed to listen to TJ?

Wake up. Reject the bankers. Embrace the nuts that propose to "End the Fed" (and those that profit by its theft - GS)

The Fed and Fannie Mae: Throwing Money Down a Black Hole

Maybe Maxine Waters wants to rescind her accolades for the "highly esteeemed Franklin Raines"

Maybe Franklin would like to give back some of his hundred plus million dollars that he essentially stole from us, via Fannie Mae.

Before you jump on me about the word "stole" consider that Fannie cooked their books and used those numbers to produce Franklin's bonus. I believe there are dotcom CEOs who had to answer to judges for similar crimes. Who severed the long arm of the law?

Financial Greed and Christianity

How about the freakin' Jubilee?

I'm no theologian, but I believe the bible clearly states that every 7 of 7 years (49 -50?) the lenders should forgive the debt of the debtors. It says absolutely nothing about forgiving the debt of the bankers and making them whole on their stupid bets.. This is old testament stuff and pretty amazing that Ben Shalom Bernanke chose to ignore it.

God will give us justice.

STEC (STEC -31%) takes a beating despite a better than expected Q3 bottom line, after the flash memory storage products maker warned its top customer, EMC (EMC), would carry its 2009 inventory into 2010. Still, with 50% short interest and the stock more than halved from its peak, some smell a buying opportunity.

Wow. "Some smell a buying opportunity." More than halved?

Try down nearly 70%. Hard to be half full when you are two-thirds empty. I suspect these fellas find their reversion to historical mean.

6. Probably overshoot lower. Not one company ever in the history of semiconductor memory has been able to rise above the fray. Not one. Too much bad business, competition, foreign govt lenders. You think this was the first memory revolution?

Gold Is Not in a Bull Market

I challenge everybody to do their own homework, including Nadler.

I shouldn't let Nadler get under my skin, but alas, he does. Here is a homework problem: What if you had spent the last 20 years, accumulating two different asset classes, year in year out, averaging equal amounts every year. One was gold, one was growth stock, like those in the nasdaq. Okay, we'll use the nasdaq index as our metric for growth stock. (Think of how many times your friends would have rolled their eyes when you told them they were silly for buying Lucent, CMGI, of JDSU..."gold freak!") Result? Your average price for the nasdaq was 1,850. Your average price for your gold purchase was $440. Lets see...nasdaq is 2055 today AFTER the mother of all rallies the last 9 months...meaning you would have made more money in an interest bearing checking account!! Your gold, you do the math. (well over twice your average purchase prices).

I own it and the miners, and of course I am biased. But I am trying to communicate facts here, not opinion. Will it go higher? Maybe.

Does it make sense that the trend will continue? I would say, like all bull markets, this one will not end until it reaches the mania level and folks currently bashing gold, decide that selling their $15 Cisco stock for $4000 an ounce gold is a smart decision. Probably several years from now. Likely, they will be making the wrong decision at that moment, and it is gold's Spring of 2000...(when folks were selling $300 gold for $80 cisco stock).

Gold Is Not in a Bull Market

I'd buy them both. If you look at the last bull market, the miners lagged the metal during the last five years of the bull. The miners lead the metal all the way up during the first phase....every market is different...what scares me about miners is the Congress of the US. You really think that Nancy Pelosi would not rationalize nationalizing a US miner? Or maybe they just tax the bejeezus out of them. Either way, we will see higher prices. The GDX:GLD ratio peaked in the Spring of 2003! Gold has outperformed the miners since....which is pretty amazing. Miners are stocks, and when the market tanks, they will at best go nowhere....while the metal may rise.


On Nov 02 09:23 AM tipalia wrote:

> a lot of people get out of their shell when we talk about gold .
> What I really get from this article is don t buy gold but instead
> buy the miners
> since that with gold at 800$ they still make a lot of money. Instead
> of buying GLD buy GDX is the conclusion of this interview . Now
> it s up to each individual to do his/her homework and decide what
> they want to do . We can agree or disagree with the author(s) but
> at the end it s your money and only you can decide what you want
> to do with it .