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TechnoratiThe Senate's 'Drill Drill Drill' Bill Hides Nuke Power Mega-Theft
The McCain/Palin push for endless oil drilling is being used as a smokescreen to gouge a half-trillion or more taxpayer dollars in subsidies and loan guarantees to build new atomic reactors. The mega-theft could be approved by the US Senate this week. Green activists throughout the nation are calling their Senators, as should you.
The atomic power industry can't get private financing to build new reactors. So while Wall Street plummets into catastrophe, it is using the "drill drill drill" mantra to hide this latest raid on the depleted federal treasury.
The new Senate bill authorizes the oil industry to drill for oil virtually anywhere it wants, without meaningful environmental restraint. The enormous profits would stay in the hands of the petro-barons.
Hidden in the bill is a limitless blank check for loan guarantees to build new reactors. A year ago the industry tried to slip $50 billion in guarantees into a bill sponsored by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM), nuke power's chief Congressional pusher. A national grassroots campaign, sparked in part by NukeFree.org and other national green groups, helped beat the bill. Not a single major environmental organization supported the reactor industry.
Now desperate reactor builders have upped the ante, demanding a wide range of financial give-aways and regulatory favors to jump-start a technology defined by fifty years of proven failure. The centerpiece is a loan guarantee plan to stick taxpayers with 100% of the liability for failed reactor construction projects. The GOP McCain/Palin ticket wants at least 45 new reactors for the US, with a price tag that could easily exceed $500 billion, all of which would be guaranteed by this bill.
On Tuesday, September 16, the House passed a bill engineered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that limits new drilling to no less than 50 miles offshore. State approval is required, but all profits would go to a federal fund to promote renewable energy. There are no subsidies for nuke power. George W. Bush has threatened a veto.
Neither existing nor proposed reactors can get private insurance, so taxpayers are already liable for disasters by terror or error. The industry wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license its proposed high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain despite overwhelming opposition from the people of Nevada. Current cost estimates are in the $100 billion range.
Reactor pushers in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and elsewhere are now in the process of forcing ratepayers to fork over billions in higher electric bills to pay for new reactors while they are being built.
But the McCain/Palin blank check in the Senate's "Drill Drill Drill" bill would put hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the line for a new generation of radioactive time bombs, deployed on our soil, guaranteed to fail.
The time to stop this is now. Call your Senator immediately.
45 Comments so far
Show AllPlease indicate the Senate Bill Number so that I can reference it, both for my own research and in conversations with my congress persons.
Leobb,
If it is the PTC legislation that you are referring to, I believe the Senate bill is S3336 (four year extension) or S2821 (ten year extension). In the House its HR6741 (ten year extension) or HR6133 (five year extension).
I am not an expert on searching legislation but these 4 bills (and a couple of others with the phrase "production tax credit") were all referred to their respective ways and means committees and I can't see any joint committee legislation.
I doubt that Congress is going to do anything other than financial crisis stuff until after the election. Personally, my representative is as responsive as a rock unless you are the wise man bearing gold. Good Luck,
Bill
I still don't see it as level.
As I said it is not a level playing field , give green and the rest the same tax break and you would see a huge change in America power output.
HP,
Green power generation has excellent tax breaks (at least once congress gets around to extending the PTC). What the country really needs is disincentives for fossil power generation: either cap and trade or, preferably, a carbon tax.
Bill
So with the billions so far to bail out bad management run banks and loan companies where is this NEW Gov money going to come from? Oh I forgot the Gov prints what ever it needs and who cares about the future.
I wonder how many BJ's the Gov had to give to China, Russia and the rest of the world to please keep investing in America?
bbr:
I was not familiar with the contamination incident you cited.
A criticality accident is when a nuclear reactor is accidently assembled.
Several uranium salts are soluble in water and a lot of uranium is processed in solution. If the uranium has the same enrichment as the ore there is no hazard other than typical industrial risks, such as the contamination incident you cited. If the uranium has been enriched in the U235 isoptope, special controls are required to avoid making a nuclear reactor inadvertantly. Typically, some of the controls might be on the size or shape of the containers and piping involved.
The Tokaimura accident in Japan was caused by using a process procedure that had not been approved by a criticality safety engineer. For more than you would ever want to know see http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf37.html
At this time all of the power generation reactors in the world use solid fuel which is sealed in metal or graphite to contain the fission fragments. This is not the only form of nuclear reactor possible however. One of the possible Gen IV reactors uses a liquid fuel (it is a mixture of salts that must be heated to melt.) One of the beauties of this particular reactor concept is that it can be used to completely destroy plutonium and all of the other transuranic elements.
Bill
The molten salt burning Pt and transuranics would be an answer to the waste problem, especially if it doesn't involve a lot of messy recycling as the sodium cooled fast reactors do. I like the concept where you build the reactor, charge it with a little DU, make electricity or hydrogen, recycle actinide waste on site, and come back in 80 years or so to tear it down and take the Sr-90 to a landfill.
If nuclear and renewables are just competing with fossil for new capacity, we are not improving the GHG situation. I agree its time to initiate a cap and whatever economic or mandated mechanisms to reduce GHG emissions.
A respected British climate change writer has recently stuck his neck out and suggested nuclear as an answer to climate change.
http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2008/09/nuclear-power-lynas-reactors
Bill:
The accident I remember was very minor, but I remember there was some sort of procedural short cut involved, not just a mistake. This short article reports the accident (I think its the one
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=105&sid=1437829
Solution criticality is new to me. Shows the depths of my ignorance. Neutrons destroy your bone marrow, and you puke your guts out until you die. Nasty.
Nathan:
That's easy to say coming from Nebraska. There are more people living within 30 miles of me than in your entire state, not to mention airports, factories, port facilities... Gotta have that grid electricity 24/7, so I wouldn't say "abolished". "Make sustainable" or "cap and reduce" works for me.
BTW, you Huskers stop sending all that reactive nitrogen down the Mississippi into the Gulf! Gasohol is dangerous too.
bbr:
I believe the accident in Japan to which you are referring was more than a contamination incident. It was the most recent 'criticality' accident to occur (in 1999). It was not in a power plant but in the Tokaimura fuel manufacturing plant. Two workers were killed by radiation poisoning. Several other workers received significant but non-lethal doses. No one beyond the boundary of the plant is thought to have received a significant dose.
All unplanned criticalities are dangerous. Essentially all of the criticality accidents since the end of WW2 have been during solution handling of one type or another. A solution criticality such as this one is very dangerous for anyone unshielded within 50 feet.
The nuclear industry has a very good but not a perfect safety record.
OBTW, the navy currently operates slightly more than 100 reactors.
Regards,
Bill
You forgot to mention that nuclear sucks up more water for operation and crude oil for building and maintainance of the reactor buildings themselves. Oh, and having to mine all those ores. Coal and nuclear are both dangerous and must be abolished.
Without naming countries, several up and coming peaceful nuclear powers have much more corruption integrated into their cultures relative to the US, France and Japan, and some have authoritarian rule. What worries me is someone will take a chance on a waste disposal shortcut to make a few bucks, or bribe an inspector, or inspectors and auditors become complacent, or someone in authority may say "We don't have time/money to fix it - just run it (in an unsafe manner) or I'll ruin you!"...
Another worry is "familiarity breeds contempt". Even in Japan, workers were pouring some sort of radioactive solution between open pails instead of following the time consuming standard practice, and got themselves contaminated.
The US Navy has a fine record of operating dozens or even hundreds of reactors (but there was a recent incident with a sub in Japan). I'm thinking there should be a well trained paramilitary corps that operates the world's nuclear reactors. They would be independent of utillites or even governments regarding any unsafe condition, they would be audited 24/7, and any emissions or problems would become public records. Remember, the captain of the Titanic was trying to set speed records in spite of icebergs at the direction of ownership, and the engineers at Chernobyl didn't realize they were getting in over their heads.
We all need to be educated in the risks of nuclear power because NIMBY isn't big enough if there is a serious problem, there probably will be some ongoing pollution, and nuclear power is going to grow abroad if not in the US. I guess I'm "pro-nuke" if its done right. GHG emissions is our greatest threat and nuclear can replace a lot (maybe most) of fossil fuel, but we can't contaminate the environment with long lived x-ray emitters and new heavy elements with unknown effects.
I live some 30 miles east of a nuke in PA. Its a worry sometimes, especially after TMI, but ya gotta love those 2300 GHG free megawatts it dumps into the grid on a hot humid summer afternoon.
HP,
Most of the nuclear R&D has been for military purposes.
First of all for weaponry. Most nuclear R&D continues to address this purpose. A lot of federal money has also been spent cleaning up the environmental messes from the weapons program (Hanford, Rocky Flats, Mound, etc).
Second of all for propulsion. The navy developed the cutting edge pressurized water reactors that form the basis for all US nuclear naval propulsion from 1954 to today. The first semi-commercial nuclear power plant (Shippingsport, PA) was built as a prototype for the navy with government money. Pressurized water reactors are the major type of commercial power reactor today in the US and the world.
Government nuclear R&D today, in addition to weaponry, propulsion and weapons manufacturing cleanup is largely oriented to the (rather poorly executed) licensing of Yucca Mountain and the Gen IV reactors.
For better or worse, in the US, used nuclear fuel is, by law, the responsibility of the federal government. All of the commercial nuclear reactor operators pay a significant fee to the government for them to take possession of and dispose of this material. If the government is responsible for it, it makes sense that government funded R&D figures out what to do with it.
The two types of nuclear power reactors in the US today are pressurized water reactors (PWR) and boiling water reactors (BWR). These have proven to be safe, reliable and inexpensive to operate. Other than marginal improvements in operating costs or efficiencies, there is little incentive for private industry to invest in reactor design research.
In light of the above, if Gen IV reactors need to be built and tried, the government will need to do so. IMHO, there is sufficient promise in the Gen IV designs, particularly in the area of waste reduction and mitigation, that at least some of them should be pursued.
Bill
bbr;
Yes but if you put the zillions$$$$ the nuke industry has been givien over the years and I know you are pro nuke ( Bill?) if that money was put into electric cars, shingles that are solar cells, better windmills that can go on a house or in a park ( that are super quiet now) we could do away with some of the N plants we have that are old or even some of the new plants. I am not saying it will replace N plants or even coal but over time it would. Level the playing field is all we tree huggers ask.
Apparently Robert needs somebody to hold his hand for him.
Crazy when some Cat needs to be validated by his own sentiments.
Its actually a very interesting world in nuclear right now. "Generation III" designs are being built and research is being done on Gen IV designs, some of which will be able to recycle actinide waste. Most of these designs will have "passive" safety systems (if the power fails and everyone dies the reactor doesn't overheat). Research is being done in American universtites and national labs and about a dozen countries are sharing technology in a program called GNEP. There is research into reactors of all shapes, sizes and technologies. Its almost like a world-wide space exploration program would be.
No one denies there are serious challenges. Mostly safely recycling waste for burnup, not letting it into the environment. The fast reactors will have to be perfected some day to extend the fuel supply as well as reduce waste.
Westinghouse has a leading design (AP1000) and may have orders for up to 100 units in China. Its order book is full and sales will bring some dollars back home. (Just so China doesn't start selling radioactive consumer products! They get lead in paint and melamine in food...)
So nuclear is happening, American technology is involved, but it might not be in our back yards.
Ah, the Roman Senate. Caesar's world seeming to be less & less what it seems to more & more people. Caesar & the Roman Senate are going to do what ever they decide to do regardless of any input from the modern day Romans.
As an experiment I had people at another site email their Elected Representatives about their concerns of the destruction of the environment. They wondered why I am not concerned in the least about the destruction of the environment considering my Native heritage. I told them Democrats had taken in the majority in Congress so they might be listened too if they sent an email?
The experiment yielded the results I considered would yield in that they got back emails to the effect of the generic, "Have A Nice Day, But We Don't Need Any Input From You About Anything."
So perhaps now they know why I am not concerned in the least about the destruction of the environment. I post at Native sites where there is a great sorrow among the people about the destruction of the earth. All I could tell them is the truth that the money money money people run this world & they aren't going to quit anytime soon.
I also discuss the prophecies of many Native tribes as well as the prophecies of other peoples that state things will be this way & get far worse near the end of the age.
So there I was living upon a Planet named Earth that was located somewhere in a rather large vast Universe. The Planet made a circular orbit going nowhere & getting nowhere. Most anywhere one traveled there was an invention called the "Cash Register" as human beings had invented a thing they call, "Money."
I had discussed with many various people in my already long lifetime that no matter what their own personal problems are, their family problems are, the problems of their Nation, the world in general, or the problems of the environment that without money they're really screwed in this world.
What I had & have discussed is showing up more & more in the news with more & more homeless camps as well as car camping camps as people are losing their homes, rent for an apartment is high, & if the number they have been assigned to them shows they have what is called "Bad Credit" they will find it difficult in many places to even rent an apt.
Even though they are just on a Planet in Space that just goes around & around getting nowhere & going nowhere.
I have no vested interest in a partisan financial/economics argument here.
The essential, the conceptual and legislative, reduction began under "Ronnie 'Bozo w/raygun' Reagan." In the 28 years since there has been one "Democrat" president for 8 years. He was no more a 'Democrat' than than the Queen of England. He was a man of my generation, as Bush is, whose personality formed without benefit of major generational exposure in literature, the visual arts and, generally, the dialectic of cultural criticism affecting political discourse among generational peers whose motivations were not based on power or money, but both were recognized as essential motivators for political power. The constant referral of the generational environment as 'street knowledge' is the demeaning of our culture richness. It is the equivalent of the tool used in physics to isolate light frequencies to only those with visibility by eye, first.
This 'screen' shapes the individual's perceptions of his generation, his cultural awareness, his politics and his general knowledge of his 'time.' It also reduces the richness of life itself, it's beauty even as it is ugly. That is a reality politics is incapable of ever becoming, let alone controlling.
Remembering that is more important than nuclear energy.
What? a fuel supply based on limited resources? well, I never....
Nobody will invest in nuclear power without massive subsidy and complete liability coverage. No one wants one in their backyard. The waste is a problem and an incident would be potentially catastrophic. The fuel mining and refining requires lots of energy and exposes people to disease and disability and endangers the environment. The fuel supply is based on limited resources. The operational and construction costs are always much higher than estimated. The plants are not flexible enough to respond to varying power demands so are only good for base load. It is a centralized power source that makes an attractive target for terrorists.
Yeah, lets go for it!
To "Republican Troll" (above) who quoted Keats thusly: "The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts."
With a nuclear reactor, it is a question of one human error -just one - leading to a catastrophe making an area the size of Pennsylvania uninhabitable forever (Yes, forever. Plutonium, and alpha emitter, has a half life of 24,400 years and has justly been identified as the most toxic substance on Earth).
When one has chosen the nuclear path, the mind has been made up about "something", and that decision makes for life under a Sword of Damocles.
One human error would not cause the devastation you mentioned. The design of these plants assume human errors and equipment failures, and includes multiple safeguards, backups and redundancies.
To anybody who reads this,
'MiMi..., "One human error would not cause...design of these plants assume human errors..." the rest of the statement includes "equipment failures,...multiple safeguards, backups and redundancies." This is practically a quote from power companies, nuclear proponents, including GE for 45 years. The key word 'assume' used to describe the design of a technology to power a submarine of Navy trained technicians whose only exposure to the physics of nuclear energy is the Navy's simplified version while the rest is merely procedural responses to pre-defined events is ludicrous. That is the model for Nuclear energy in this country. Essentially the same thing, except the powerplant of a sub is 1% the size of a commercial utility plant. In 1969-70 G.E. had a plant in San Jose infrastructure assembled there for most plants. That was moved to Mexico, SE Asia etc. The pay started at $2.35 an hour when G.M. had a plant in Fremont that started at $3.50. I worked at both. I have never bought a G.M. vehicle. And I've seen nuclear energy plants fail, close, have cost overruns and close, and a few operate. Some are on/off based on market speculation prices.
Like now.
Nuclear energy has been invalidated on the basis of inefficiency, cost overruns, ignoring environmental intrusion or unpredictable geological instability, excessive downtime, proven hazards to local populations and corporate utility irresponsible response to cleanup by intentional law suits extending 25 years or longer jamming court logs in states. These costly legal moves alone limit utility commissions ability to control corporate domination of the court and the electorate as a consumer mentality equal to a herd of sheep eating grass.
In cases where courts have disallowed staying tactics of corporate largesse, the electorate has controlled some aspects of 'corporate freedom of speech,' where eventually environmental cleanup is referred to the EPA. That history is notoriously disfunctional since 'RayGun Bozo the Clown,' began the deregulation of the corporate checks that had been preventing what is culminating under the grandson of a convicted traitor in WWII: financial Shock Doctrine (my thanks to Naomi Klein), energy manipulation, privatization of the military, ignoring the rule of law, illegal surveillance/wiretaps, the nationalization of intelligence gathering at the local level, etc.
By now, we all know what's up. If you are one of those who disagree, or don't have the information, you need to find out why you are marginalized by knowledge and stereotypes
of 'elitism' describing the people who have it.
The greater the complexity, the greater the likelyhood of failure.
And, how much taxpayer dollars will that cost? Nuclear requires government subsidization in massive amounts unlike solar and wind. Let's get wind and solar powering and keep government OFF. Nuclear is just a waste of taxpayer money and a waste of resources.
At this point, the way Democrats have acted in a cowardly way in Congress with the GOP is a real sign that we need to replace both parties in Congress with Progressive Independents and we better try it every two years and not just in a presidential election year. If we are to get Nader or a younger one like him into office, he's going to need more pols like him who will say no to Big Nuclear and yes to alternative renewables such as solar, wind, hemp, etc ...
With Nuclear Technology increasing everyday, is Nuclear not part of a solution to Oil dependancy? A Nuclear Engineer friend of mine explained to me the vast achievements in the Nuclear Industry in safety and efficiency. His si the only true educated opinion I have had on this issue, so I would like to hear the downside from some who understands the new Generation IV Very-High-Temperature Reactor.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts."
-- John Keats
Although I agree and am disappointed that Obama has leaned right on many issues such as health care and spying on citizens, Obama has not been zealous in the drive to expand nuclear power corporate welfare like most Republicans and some Democrats have. The fact that he has promoted solar, wind and other renewables when Republicans have not indicates that we will likely see significantly more corporate welfare for nuclear power from McCain than we will from Obama.
As much as I would like to see Kucinich or Nader be president I believe a vote for Obama is a vote for damage control, whereas a the damage inflicted by McCain and his Holy Warrior Earmark Queen (otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the North) will be cataclysmic.
A vote for Obama is merely proof that the Democratic Party where progressive ideas go to die. Here in Minnesota we've got another pro-nuke Democrat (Al Franken), running against Norm Coleman. They're BOTH probably neocons, pro-nuke, etc. It's really hard to distinguish parties, except on wedge issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc. On economic issues, both will prevent single-payer, both support nuclear, both support bailouts to crooked banks, etc. They just use different populist language to appeal to simple-minded voters.
Obama has always been pro-nuclear... all of his visions for the US include many MORE reactors... and yet the Democrats (hello Harry Reid) lead the way in fighting a sane way to address waste and all its killer manifestations and inherent management nightmares.
Obama is NOT the answer... none of them are. Start demanding MORE from people who pretend that they are capable of leading. As part of the true government, it is "we the people" who are wholly responsible for the crap choices that are forced upon us. We are not taking responsibility for our actions. If we were, we would abstain from this charade... errr, deception... err, vote.
The whole country is malfunctioning, not just the oil industry. All our institutions are failing to keep America thriving. The worst part is that some of these institutions don't want to help America get back on track. In fact it's these very institutions that put us on this suicidal track. Individuals are now using these institutions to make profits for themselves and their elite friends. They are putting our troops on the frontlines of their economic battles all over the world. Our current group of politicians should be ashamed of themselves for getting into bed with corporate America. And then making American people pay for their fun at the gas tank. The Senate is the Board of Directors for corporate America. They use our Constitution to legalize their continued destruction of the country. And after all they have stolen they still can’t keep the empire afloat.
Hoa binh
Obama loves nuclear. So does McCain. So do the corporate owned Senate in either party. Yet, while so called progressives like this author decry it, they nevertheless will vote for Obama or the bought and paid for Senator representing their state. The astonishing thing is that the nuclear industry will (thanks to Dems and Repubs) will operate the industry for a profit despite the the fact they will be financed off the public trough. This shit has tilted so far off the honesty grid it has become pathetic. Corporations are now bailed out by the suffering of middle class Americans despite the fact that nothing comes our way. Everything is configured on behalf of the elites. Either way they win and you and I lose.
Vote for Obama for MORE OF THE SAME! Vote McCain MORE OF THE SAME!
The sheeple line up so the shit gets rammed down their throats. You can't make this shit up.
Let's see, OBAMA/MCCAIN MORE OF THE SAME. Okay
And voting for NADER/MCKINNEY won't change anything, that's just MORE OF THE SAME.
Not voting won't change anything, so it's MORE OF THE SAME.
So I guess I'll just vote on the candidate I think will best head up MORE OF THE SAME.
Let's see, Calm Constitutional Scholar or Hot-headed Ex-Military?
Magna Cum Laude at Harvard Law School or 5th from the bottom at the Naval Academy?
Yeah. All things being equal, I'm gonna vote for Obama.
And a large part of the problem is that we don't have a true opposition party in the Democrats. Our true opposition parties have been marginalized - the ones who knew this crisis was looming and were scoffed at, such as Ralph Nader. Once we stop allowing the corporate bribes of politicians we can get these kinds of policies to STOP!
Thank you Harvey. Wholly agree with your analysis. Democrats are traitors and cowards to push this legislation.
500 billion. WOW.
Read this. Someone else here posted this and I just like sending it along.
I don't understand the mindset of the people on the right. Oh, the ones that are part of the machinery I understand, of course they want to maintain the status quo. But the ones who aren't, the ones who drive the old Jeep with the fenders falling off and only being held together by the old "W" bumper sticker, I don't understand. When will they realize that it's an illusion of inclusion? These must be the descendants of the people that never once complained as serfs. There must be some gene that allows this ignorance and willingness to be taken advantage of. It's been suggested to me that some people don't think they have the right to be well off, that religion has beaten this into them.
We have a wind farm not far from where I live, and the NIMBYs are incredible. "As long as a single bird gets killed it's not green" and "They make so much noise" and "If anybody gets killed from an ice throw off of one of them I'll..." and "They're so ugly." I think they're incredibly beautiful, and the most danger they pose to me is being mesmerized by them while I'm driving by. I can't help but wonder at the free energy (ok, one-time investment of front, some maintenance along the way).
What is Obama's stance on Nuclear?
Although I've only seen wind turbines in pictures and videos, I agree that they are beautiful. Obama supports nuclear power, naturally. Hopefully the NIMBY people will be able to prevent any new reactors from being sited and built too.
C'mon quickstepper, ray-gun-ites and neocons have done a fantastic job of managing risk...transfer risk from the corporations to the US taxpayers.
That, combined with the fact that corporations paid 29% of US income tax in 1970, now pay 6%, and will pay 0% ten years from now has created the perfect fascist state where profits are privatized while risks, expenses and losses are socialized.
Is this "our way of life" that we are being admonished to protect ?
As one headline noted yesterday, socializing risk and privatizing profit has been the essence of Reaganomics and whatever you want to call the Bush-Cheney looting of the US economy.
It is not too far fetched to state that the failure to manage risk properly has become a primary characteristic of the US business environment. Trying to avoiding risk is one way of failing to manage it.
Right-wingers often decry the idea of the "nanny state," claiming that protecting individuals from the consequences of their failures makes them weak and dependent and robs them of initiative. "Hypocrisy" is not too strong a word to describe "conservative" eagerness and determination to switch the largesse of the nanny state from people to corporations.
q
catchy, but wrong.
you decree that reganomics and/or bush-cheney looted the economy and have socialized risk and privatized profit. you are blaming a reasonable gov't reaction, not the problem.
the mortgage crisis and the subsequent demise of lehman/agi are the result of the people your great clinton appointed to Fanny and Freddy. their personal profiteering and his push to grant a mortgage to anyone with an SSN resulted in bad debt on a biblical scale. although many companies have bought and sold this bad debt, it is what it is, and now that everyone recognizes that it is bad, someone's going to have to pay or we will suffer far dire consequences.
the administration bailed our a key component of the economy to avoid more significant disaster. it is sad, but clearly a result of clinton-era ask-and-ye-shall-receive policies.
so don't go around here spouting this "hey whatabout the nanny state?" drivel when anyone who is paying attention is clearly 3 or 4 steps ahead of you.
The current crisis is the direct result of legislation slipped into another bill in 1999 by former Texas Senator Phil Gramm to roll back many of the financial safeguards that had existed for decades. Clinton may have signed it (he had been fighting impeachment at the time) but the change would not have happened without the republicans.
Fannie and Freddie are only two of the victims of government failure to protect these folks from themselves.
I suppose that Clinton also appointed the boards and CEOs of AIG, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers.
People who think that they are 3 or 4 steps ahead of others have usually wandered off on the wrong path.
q
no, you are so right. clinton did not appoint the AIG, Merill, Bear, or Lehman boards. thanks for that clarification.
but again, unfortunatley, you are missing the root cause. clinton DID appoint the F/F heads, and they fleeced those organziations for hundreds of millions of dollars and pushed the bad loans to do it. these bad loans are at the core of this financial crisis. (oh, that and the 30-year prohibition on new oil exploration/drilling/refining, but we'll tackle that some other time)
after the mortages were bought and sold, these other companies ended up holding and/or insuring the hot potato and are paying the consequences. not good moves for sure, but not the root of the problem.
oh, and before i forget...isn't one of these FM/FM guys that fleeced the american taxpayer a very-high-up economic advisor in the obama campaign?
regarding being steps ahead or on the wrong path or whatever...sorry if that offended you. it just seems to me that if one does not get any pushback on their ludacris arguments and judgements, they can start to believe their own made-up or cherry-picked partial-truth stories.
Geez man, of course Bill Clinton was a dumbass to play go-along get along with the GEE OH PEE but the least you could do is acknowledge that Phil Gramm was the perpetrator of this mess and is now serving as an economic "advisor" to McFUCKER. You don't sound any less partisan than those you accuse of.
"oh, that and the 30-year prohibition on new oil exploration/drilling/refining, but we'll tackle that some other time"
And you'd be forced to admit that desperate oil drilling wasn't worth the problem. Try hemp for oil instead ! It can replace petroleum 100% and you won't have to go to wars for oil and you can grow up and get a life. And it ain't no marijuana either.
finally back on topic...thankyou, and finally a clear solution: we should power the nation by hemp.
seriously though, i am all for alternative fuels. i think they are the future. i just think they are a much further off than what many are saying...it may not even be in our lifetimes. switching from oil and coal would mean that every single car in our country would need to be replaced or significantly modified, we'd need to build all new power plants, we'd need to retrofit all gas stations to provide the alternative(s). Don't forget we'd need to fill the hills with windmills, triple our corn output and sugar cane (and hemp) output, at the same time we make sure that people can still afford food. i'm pretty sure that forcing this to happen quickly would grind our economy to a halt. particularly if the technologies are not cost effective and need to be supplemented by government funds.
to ignore the long term nature of this path away from fossil fuels is very dangerous. like it or not, we will be a fossil fuel economy for many, many years. you can not change that no matter how hard you try. not exploring/drilling/refining is very noble (and i mean that sincerely), but catastrophic if we want teneble economic conditions for the working class.
"seriously though, i am all for alternative fuels. i think they are the future. i just think they are a much further off than what many are saying...it may not even be in our lifetimes. switching from oil and coal would mean that every single car in our country would need to be replaced or significantly modified, we'd need to build all new power plants, we'd need to retrofit all gas stations to provide the alternative(s). Don't forget we'd need to fill the hills with windmills, triple our corn output and sugar cane (and hemp) output, at the same time we make sure that people can still afford food. i'm pretty sure that forcing this to happen quickly would grind our economy to a halt. particularly if the technologies are not cost effective and need to be supplemented by government funds."
I just did some research on hemp. It is not just any ordinary biofuel. It can completely replace petroleum and it doesn't require much land to yield a lot. Do a google search on it and you'll find out why big oil cooperated with Dupoint, the cotton and timber industries, etc ... Seriously though, demand for fossil fuels can be significantly reduced through other means.
"to ignore the long term nature of this path away from fossil fuels is very dangerous. like it or not, we will be a fossil fuel economy for many, many years. you can not change that no matter how hard you try. not exploring/drilling/refining is very noble (and i mean that sincerely), but catastrophic if we want teneble economic conditions for the working class."
Not if hemp is allowed to compete with fossil fuels.
And don't forget that until 50 years ago, farming did not rely on fossil fuels and there were plenty of small farms until the corporate factory farms took over. To maximize profits, healthy grass-fed meat and diary was replaced with corn-fed type which lost all the nutrients and contained bad fats. Producing corn-fed meat and diary burns more fossil fuels while grass-fed doesn't.
Plus, why not improve fuel efficiency and make room for public transportation improvements and upgrades? When we can waste trillions of dollars in Iraq for oil, we could do better by reducing the costs of living and fuel dependency here at home by investing a fraction of that money towards sustainable public transportation. And for those who can't take the train or bus, why not provide tax breaks for more fuel efficient vehicles instead of awarding tax breaks to gas guzzling SUVs? Our ancestors did great without fossil fuels and so can we.