Charles Hugh Smith raises the question of how much of the U.S. economy consists of the actual output of goods and services, versus the friction entailed in producing them. As a small example, he cites a physicians’ group that includes ten doctors — and twelve billing clerks.
The larger and more hierarchical institutions become, and the more centralized the economic system, the larger the total share of production that will go to overhead, administration, waste, and the cost of doing business. The reasons are structural and geometrical.
Are they stupid? Probably not. So this is a simple matter of lacking the integrity to do the homework, tell the truth, and be realistic. In other words, US politics as usual, all illusion and ideology, neither intelligence nor integrity.
Campaign promises they dismiss as either impossible or economically disastrous:
bringing back $2 a gallon gas.
sustained 5% GDP growth
balance the budget with lower tax revenues
returning to the gold standard
a trade war with China
a flat tax
Obama's green jobs initiative (unlikely to create jobs)
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Every 2012 contender attended college. They all graduated. They went to schools like the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Texas A&M, Morehouse, Penn State and Emory.
But decades have passed since these Presidential candidates first stepped onto campus as freshmen. Is it time for an Econ 101 refresher course?
America's Econ 101 professors say yes. In their view, the candidates continue to offer ideas and policies that wouldn't pass muster in their classes — populated by 18 year-old college students.
“There are so many economic ‘misstatements' being made,” said Jonathan Lanning, a professor at Bryn Mawr who is teaching two introductory economics classes this semester. “And it isn't confined to any one candidate.”
How can you help your community build a resilient energy system? One of the first steps is to buy back the energy system from the regional power company by condemning it and then municipalizing it (it can be run as a power co-op or as a standard company … The structure really depends on the community.). This moves provides you with the control of the local grid so that your community can:
Ensure higher levels of maintenance (tree trimming, etc.) and faster response to failure. During the two big power outages on the east coast this summer/fall, power was out for much of the region for nearly a week. In many cases, the municipal power companies get power back on to all of their customers in 1/2 the time of the big regional companies.
Cut rates and change energy mix. As a municipal company, you can select the different types of energy you will use locally.
Add advanced micro-grid features. Everything from community energy markets to local energy backup to power smoothing. Extra benefit of this approach: it will prevent the regional power company from using smart grid tech to snoop on everyone in the community by micro-analyzing energy use (which they will then resell to marketing companies or provide to the government w/o warrant for “signature” sniffing).
All of the benefits listed above will double or treble in importance as the global economy nose dives into depression over the next couple of years. So, it's better to get started early than later.
Here's a few links from the Boulder Colorado effort to condemn and municipalize it's power. A combo of bad service and a low level of renewables use prompted the effort (use whatever hooks you need to get it done, but get it done):
Citizen groups do the hard work. A technical group does the modelling and analysis for a municipal grid. They compare rates, costs, and energy mix Here's an amazingly video of a member of that team, Sam Weaver.
Homer software. The software you need to model a municipal grid from rate analysis to energy mix. The numbers.
NOTE: Great article in the NYTimes today on how the big regional companies are so focused on acquisitions, regulatory gaming, and extractative finance; they are delivering terrible service.
NOTE: Great pushback in the comments on how tough it is to do this. Basically, crony capitalism (revolving door, bribes, etc.) + regulatory capture (same mindset) + gov't granted monopoly = lots of opposition.
he Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) is in panic city over what promises to be cosmetic cutbacks in the growth of the defense budget. The courtiers in Versailles on the Potomac, like the obedient editors of the Washington Post, are dutifully pumping out baloney about how dangerous it will be to cut the defense budget. The fact that the Pentagon cannot even account for all the money it receives is unimportant; after all, cutbacks in social security and medicare will pony up enough money to keep the MICC's party going, while the so-called deficit hawks impose austerity economics on the people (in the name of reducing federal debt — think of this as ‘not letting them eat cake') so the Federal Reserve can continue propping up the toxic private debt of the insolvent financial sector. And besides the Post needs the advertisement money from Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrup-Grumman.
My good buddy Mike Lofgren, who just retired with his sanity intact after working on Capital Hill as a Republican staffer for 28 years — no small achievement I might add — does not think much of whining in the Georgetown salons. Here's why (see CP op-ed below):
Chuck Spinney
BTW … the war between the MICC and Social Security and Medicare that is now being joined has very little to do with the so-called War on Terror — In fact, it is occurring right on schedule, if you doubt this, read this Op-Ed I wrote on this subject, in Sept 2000, one year before 9-11.
The Washington Post Boards the Pentagon Gravy Train
Over the last five years, we’ve spent money on the military – in real, inflation adjusted dollars – at a higher rate than at any other time since World War II. That includes the late 1960s, when the United States simultaneously faced a competitor with 10,000 nuclear weapons and sent a half million troops to Vietnam. The Pentagon is spending recklessly at a time of fiscal crisis when America’s debt has been downgraded for the first time since formal credit ratings began in 1917.
Yet the Washington Post has joined the hucksters of the military-industrial complex in forecasting imminent doom if one cent is cut from Pentagon budgets. Supposedly, the Defense Department has already cut $465 billion from its budget, and further cuts would be ruinous. But those $465 billion in cuts are fake, mostly paper “savings” pocketed by the president from adjustments to unrealistic past projections of the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and from other baseline manipulations.
Monday, November 7, the Washington Post editorial board published its take on the extreme rhetoric the country has been hearing on the defense budget since Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta starting talking about the “doomsday mechanism” that would reduce defense spending. Quoting the newer extreme rhetoric of several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff defending their budget ambitions to the eager-to-listen House Armed services Committee, the Washington Post positioned itself foursquare in favor of hysterics. It was with an editorial titled “Defense on the Rocks: Mandated spending cuts could decimate U.S. military might.” Find it here (although at the web link they toned down the title with the more sympathetic “US Defense on the defensive.”) Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Military Spending versus Competence”
