Saturday, April 9, 2011

Ramblings

On the the national infrastructure:  Any plan to create, repair or improve an infrastructure component must include establishment of an escrow to replace the component after its guaranteed lifetime.

On politics:  We, the People, want politicians to be held accountable for their statements and promises given to us in order to acquire our votes in elections.  To wit, if it is a crime to lie to Congress, it is a crime to lie to the people.

On taxes: The money to run the country is there. It is being given away in the form of complicated deductions and tax breaks. A flat tax of one the myriad types discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax looks to be one of the simplest ways to go.


FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2010

Out of Control

I have searched for the origination of this article without success. It is worth considering.

WHY?
Why do we insert ourselves into middle-eastern affairs when we have no control over the outcome of territorial disputes. Even the potentates, rulers, and governments of the area have no control over their own fanatical elements. We are naïve to believe there is any reason other than big business interests at the center of our reasons for being involved in these conflicts. What reasonable mind would think that a few months, or even years of outside mediation would have any lasting effect on the ingrained genocidal mentality of too many of those involved. Wake up! Those conflicts are centuries old. They don’t want to change. It is no secret that we don’t share the same values. We don’t arrive at the same conclusions about the exact same situations. What if the main trouble is the west’s insistent idea that everyone should be converted to our way of thinking. How many empires that expounded those ideas around the world are no longer empires?
If industry would step back and look at the real world they would realize that it is costing us more to maintain access to the oil than would be expended to convert our power sources to renewable energy. Don’t even bother giving me the argument that “the economy” needs oil to survive. The economy is driven by big business for big business interests. They have a system that works for them and they have the clout to keep things slogging along in the past. Insurance companies don’t want to stand the risks they are being paid to take, banks are charging us to use our money, builders are stuck in the square building mode even though other shapes have been proven less expensive, safer and more efficient, and who even wants to start on the automobile industry that spends more on lobbying to keep building the same gas guzzling internal combustion engine that was invented in nineteen ought what.
As it stands now every man, woman and child in the free world is footing the bill for our efforts to maintain the oil supply when we would be just as well off paying out that same money for more expensive renewable power.