JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
Excellent post Jamie. I too was surprised and disappointed that the LNG plant wasn't sited. It seemed like it was primarily stupidity and knee-jerk not in my backyardisms that shut it down. I now get a better read on what you were suggesting upthread. I didn't know the depths of government interventionist problems on this issue until you posted some of them. In many ways, discussing our energy usage on a thread like this does the complexity and multiple issues a dis-service. Thank you for adding some great substance to the thread.

Regards:

Bill
 
We are all part of this problem but to leave it to the future to figure it out is escapism.

I expected more from you.

Will

Honestly I don't feel there is really any other choice, I feel that no one is capable of doing anything other than paying lip service to the problem or using this as an excuse to profit, but I honestly see absolutely nothing being done, nor nothing that can be done short of exterminating humans and I find that to not be a sane option.

Again I feel my best bet is to live my life as I always have and I've always been minimalist so I feel I don't need to change.

My son said to me long ago in a simple logic that only a kid is capable of, "Dad if oil is running out the carbon problem will fix itself".
 
Excellent post Jamie. I too was surprised and disappointed that the LNG plant wasn't sited. It seemed like it was primarily stupidity and knee-jerk not in my backyardisms that shut it down. I now get a better read on what you were suggesting upthread. I didn't know the depths of government interventionist problems on this issue until you posted some of them. In many ways, discussing our energy usage on a thread like this does the complexity and multiple issues a dis-service. Thank you for adding some great substance to the thread.
Regards: Bill

Thank you Bill.
Now imagine a situation where the press was honest. One where they weren't trying to attract viewers by spouting green/preservationist propaganda.
One where politicians met our current challenges head on instead of making attempts at "fundamentally changing" the country wholesale.
Where they didn't feed the knee-jerk NIMBYs artificial feel-good stories or horror-story lies about these issues.
You know, the so-called "facts" that offer no solutions other than austerity measures that placate the greenie's need to assuage their guilt.

What a country eh?
 
Thank you Jamie6.5 for your excellent post #59.
Very well reasoned, and it paints the perfect picture, for those who do better with pictures, of what is going on. I always enjoy reading your posts, and this was one of the most substantive posts on this thread. I like the solution you offer alot better than the solution of "park your big SUV and ride a bike".
 
You must have missed the last two major battles here in Oregon over natural gas facilities/infrastructure.
One over the port to land LNG ships in the Columbia.
One over the CNG pipeline.
The greenies/preservationist hollered the loudest.

<snip>

They're still laughing, and demonizing. But yet their minions watch their standard of living drop to a fraction of that their grandfathers enjoyed.
And keep swallowing the kool-aide from servers that tell them they are smarter and better off than ever,... Because they get to watch American Idol on their "smart" phone.

+3.4 trillion
 
National interest/security dictates that some regulations are side stepped, and some legal immunities instituted every year. We could do that with NG infrastructure, and let the companies that build and operate these things expand, free from legal harassment and stifling green regulations.
In this instance the benefit would be huge in terms of economics, air quality, oil usage etc.
But there are a couple of problems.
A: It perpetuates the independence of the American driver, keeping him/her off of mass transit. The socialist's answer to all transportation issues.
B: The same people that are the #1 target of the greenie's ire, the oil companies, are the suppliers of NG at the source.
There is no single entity more demonized in pop-green culture than the oil companies. Many here are proof of that.
And the media plays on it, candidates make it part of their platform, whole political parties sway votes with it.
Look back at this thread and realize that this true statement (and my response to it) by JustJim launched much of this debate:
In reality, there is no debate. Jim's statement is 100% true, and will be for years, and maybe decades, to come.
Until the realists among this country's leadership are given a voice, and truths like the one Jim spoke are embraced, we will stumble.
If allowed to stumble long enough, we will fall. Playing a green fiddle while the country goes down in flames.
I have been an advocate for CNG as a motor fuel for almost 35 years. The last presidential election cycle one candidate brought it up, expounded on it's benefits and the FACT that we have more BTUs of NG reserves than the rest of the world has in oil.
This candidate even initiated/oversaw negotiations for a deal to run a NG pipeline through a foreign country.
And we all saw what pop-culture, their icons, and the mainstream media did.

They're still laughing, and demonizing. But yet their minions watch their standard of living drop to a fraction of that their grandfathers enjoyed.
And keep swallowing the kool-aide from servers that tell them they are smarter and better off than ever,... Because they get to watch American Idol on their "smart" phone.

A good post, but I think the premise is bass ackwards. Say you had a ranch. Your water was supplied by a stream filling a water tank. The tank and all the fittings were rusting out and leaking. Your spring can't keep up with the demands of the farm. What's the first thing to do? Pipe water in from another county, or fix the damn tank?
The potential energy savings in this country is immense, but we're ransacking the planet looking for supply. It's good to have supply as a reserve, but we need to 'fix the tank'.
 
I already told you a good way to start "fixing the damn tank" Mike. But you say the spring's output can't keep up with the farm/ranch's demand,...
How does fixing the tank change the spring's output? Your analogy is the perfect explanation of how the socialist's mind doesn't grasp the problem. The issue is the spring's output, NOT the tank's storage capacity.
You have come up with a non-solution to the problem, and as a socialist, you no doubt want the taxpayer to pay for the tank's patch, that does little or nothing for the herd. You see, like all beings, they're thirsty. So the water doesn't have time to drain away before they drink it.

While NG may only cover 20%, it buys us time and and keeps expenses off the taxpayer's back while we make the adjustments, and allow our economy to recover. NG is also one of the best ways to produce hydrogen, for those that insist on water for exhaust. Although, I believe that on a large scale, water vapor may be worse for the climate.

So, expanding on your ranch analogy Mike, your spring/well is able to produce, but the government arbitrarily won't let you run power to it, and install a decent pump. They insist you stay with an old fashioned windmill. You have enough land to double your herd, and therefore make more money, drill another well, and feed more people, by keeping the cost of beef down,... If you just had access to more water,...
Do you ask/pay neighbors from all over the county to truck you some water? Do you insist the government pay the trucking costs?

Or advocate for better/smarter government representatives that will remove the ridiculous regulation that requires the antiquated windmill?

Then what do you do about the ridiculous environmental impact statement you must write, and have approved, concerning the meter, and the 3 power poles, and the 300 feet of wire overhead on it's way to the new pump? All on your own property?

And what do you do about the lazy, stupid neighbors that insist the government regulations are best, because they won't be able to keep up with you if you produce more beef cheaper? They are afraid you'll put them out of business with your new, efficient water system.
After all, the socialist government regulations were put in place to "protect" them.


When you find yourself in a hole mike, it's best to stop digging.
But then, you said you are a socialist, so as long as the rest of the country "hauls your dirt away," you're probably fine with that.
 
I already told you a good way to start "fixing the damn tank" Mike. But you say the spring's output can't keep up with the farm/ranch's demand,...
How does fixing the tank change the spring's output? Your analogy is the perfect explanation of how the socialist's mind doesn't grasp the problem. The issue is the spring's output, NOT the tank's storage capacity.
You have come up with a non-solution to the problem, and as a socialist, you no doubt want the taxpayer to pay for the tank's patch, that does little or nothing for the herd. You see, like all beings, they're thirsty. So the water doesn't have time to drain away before they drink it.

While NG may only cover 20%, it buys us time and and keeps expenses off the taxpayer's back while we make the adjustments, and allow our economy to recover. NG is also one of the best ways to produce hydrogen, for those that insist on water for exhaust. Although, I believe that on a large scale, water vapor may be worse for the climate.

So, expanding on your ranch analogy Mike, your spring/well is able to produce, but the government arbitrarily won't let you run power to it, and install a decent pump. They insist you stay with an old fashioned windmill. You have enough land to double your herd, and therefore make more money, drill another well, and feed more people, by keeping the cost of beef down,...
Do you ask/pay neighbors from all over the county to truck you some water? Do you insist the government pay the trucking costs?

Or advocate for better/smarter government representatives that will remove the ridiculous regulation that requires the antiquated windmill?

Then what do you do about the ridiculous environmental impact statement you must write, and have approved, concerning the meter, and the 3 power poles, and the 300 feet of wire overhead on it's way to the new pump? All on your own property?

And what do you do about the lazy, stupid neighbors that insist the government regulations are best, because they won't be able to keep up with you if you produce more beef cheaper? They are afraid you'll put them out of business with your new, efficient water system.
After all, the socialist government regulations were put in place to "protect" them.


When you find yourself in a hole mike, it's best to stop digging.
But then, you said you are a socialist, so as long as the rest of the country "hauls your dirt away," you're probably fine with that.

The water tank/pipes represent the storage and delivery system that allows the water to do its work. The water leaks are system inefficiency. Using what you have more efficiently is a better/cheaper solution than trying to run more supply through an inefficient, leaky system.
Would natural gas/LNG buy us time? I could buy that argument if I saw a coordinated long-term effort to fix energy inefficiency.Is the US government regulatory system ridiculous? Sure, we have the best government money can buy. There are 64 lobbyists for every single congressperson, 138 lobbyists are former congresscritters. The total number of lobbyists in DC doubled between 2000 and 2005 to a total of over 34,000. The regulations that come out of that system over regulate the weak and enable the powerful.
The Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns have all created models we could benefit from looking at. They are free societies, they have a free enterprise system and a socialist sector.They are not perfect. Maybe we would not do anything like them, but we should be imagining something different.
 
Then what do you do about the ridiculous environmental impact statement you must write, and have approved, concerning the meter, and the 3 power poles, and the 300 feet of wire overhead on it's way to the new pump? All on your own property?
Those are there to protect your neighbors from all of the cow poop that you want to generate on your improved farm....They are sadly only required to be produced , not have meaning or factual basis. See the notes on walrus protection in the Environmental Impact statement produced by BP for the Macondo well......It's nice to know that BP was worried about the walrus in the Gulf of Mexico....

I know that we wouldn't have to drill the Gulf if we'd just give big oil the ANWR. Sorry, some things should be protected from the stain of progress.
 
I][/B]

While NG may only cover 20%, it buys us time and and keeps expenses off the taxpayer's back while we make the adjustments, and allow our economy to recover. NG is also one of the best ways to produce hydrogen, for those that insist on water for exhaust. Although, I believe that on a large scale, water vapor may be worse for the climate.
QUOTE]

You're still debating the wrong end of the problem.

First of all, what makes you think that 20% NG, give or take a few points, is going to "buy time" for anything other than, just that...wasting time. Didn't we learn anything from the embargo in the 70s? Once we opened up Pruhoe Bay and the Europeans found some oil in the North Sea, we dropped any alternative energies for the, how do you say it?..."keeping expenses off taxpayers backs, while what!?...we make adjustments?"

I thought that was surely your bottom until I read on..."until our economy recovers!?"

With all due respect, as I personally don't know you...you talk a good game but have completely bought in to what I term, sustaining the unsustainable.

Have you thought about what it would take to transport hydrogen? Regardless of whether NG is a great way to produce it, hydrogen has to be transported under extreme pressure, is 10 times as flammable as petroleum and is lighter weight, to the point that transporting it would take almost as much fuel to deliver as it carried.

And what was the last part? Water vapor may be harmfull to the environment???

Good night lucy, wherever you are.

Will
 
I][/B]

While NG may only cover 20%, it buys us time and and keeps expenses off the taxpayer's back while we make the adjustments, and allow our economy to recover. NG is also one of the best ways to produce hydrogen, for those that insist on water for exhaust. Although, I believe that on a large scale, water vapor may be worse for the climate.
QUOTE]

You're still debating the wrong end of the problem.

First of all, what makes you think that 20% NG, give or take a few points, is going to "buy time" for anything other than, just that...wasting time. Didn't we learn anything from the embargo in the 70s? Once we opened up Pruhoe Bay and the Europeans found some oil in the North Sea, we dropped any alternative energies for the, how do you say it?..."keeping expenses off taxpayers backs, while what!?...we make adjustments?"

I thought that was surely your bottom until I read on..."until our economy recovers!?"

With all due respect, as I personally don't know you...you talk a good game but have completely bought in to what I term, sustaining the unsustainable.

Have you thought about what it would take to transport hydrogen? Regardless of whether NG is a great way to produce it, hydrogen has to be transported under extreme pressure, is 10 times as flammable as petroleum and is lighter weight, to the point that transporting it would take almost as much fuel to deliver as it carried.

And what was the last part? Water vapor may be harmfull to the environment???

Good night lucy, wherever you are.

Will

:s0114::s0114::s0114: Obviously Will you haven't studied history enough to realize the the socialist will have the answer and it will be again called the "final solution". Hope you are around to watch :s0112::s0112:

jj
 
Have you thought about what it would take to transport hydrogen? Regardless of whether NG is a great way to produce it, hydrogen has to be transported under extreme pressure, is 10 times as flammable as petroleum and is lighter weight, to the point that transporting it would take almost as much fuel to deliver as it carried.

And what was the last part? Water vapor may be harmfull to the environment???
Will
Hey Will? Hydrogen isn't my idea. I agree with you. But if you listen to the greenies they will tell you that it is the best hope for green transportation. Why/where do you think the Hydrogen fuel cell came from?
And the water vapor thing? It was global warming alarmists that coined the term "greenhouse effect" many years ago. Water vapor was their culprit, not mine.

Best of luck with that austerity plan.
 
Very poor example as banking isn't really a industry (no products, only a service... sort of). Even worse is you bash private industry but it was government owned Fannie/Freddy Mac that screwed us in your example given. :s0114:

Well, no, Martini. I understand that some folks are pushing the narrative that if Fannie & Freddie just hadn't pushed all those loans to poor people we wouldn't be in this mess. But that's just not the case. Please stay with me, 'cause things are about to get tedious.

It was not just Fannie & Freddie who made subprime loans, not by a long shot. The money was good, 'cause the interest rates could be higher - in the case of an interest only loan, quite a bit higher. Then bankers started to figure out they could make even more money selling these subprime loans to other banks and finance company. Even better to make money on both ends of the deal, right?

Then the other banks and finance companies who bought the subprime paper realized they could in turn sell to yet more banks and finance companies. So you had plenty of folks slinging paper who never made the original loan, and never intended to keep the loans they bought. It was easy money, and that created a demand for more subprime loans. So mortgage brokers started to get 'careless' about things like verifying income, or even employment.

Then some banker somewhere came up with the idea of the mortgage-backed security. You take a few hundred of these subprime loans, stack them up, and sell off pieces of the whole. That let all kinds of other investors in on the act. That in turn created even more demand for subprime loans. The demand was enough to co-opt the rating agencies: if they didn't stamp something AAA+++, they wouldn't get hired to rate the next barrel of snake oil.

Then some other jokers came up with the idea of playing the insurance angle. They sold insurance on the mortgage-backed securities, often knowing they were sure to fail. Then, they sold the insurance policies to others, with the idea they'd take the loss if it came time to pay out on the insurance policies. Oh yeah, and others sold insurance to cover the costs of having to pay out an insurance policy. This is the part that killed AIG.

So, right before the party ended, you had this massive, frenetic feeding frenzy of assorted capitalists all desperately screwing each other eight ways from Sunday for a buck. And even though some constituent parts of that whole might've known things were going to end poorly, not a one of them did anything about it. The money was too fast, and too easy.

And then things went south. When they did, all those capitalists came to Washington DC, hat in hand, and got their bailout money. And after they got their bailout money, they started in on the character assassination of poor old Fannie and Freddie. 'Cause you know, somebody else had to take the fall.

Moving on, I'm unfamiliar with the rule you cite that you can't be a capitalist unless you make something? I believe manufacturing is now less than 30% of our economy, so I guess the majority of business man aren't capitalists? But if you need another example to add to my earlier "very poor" one, consider the auto industry.

Let's start at the end of WWII. The GI's are home, industry is retooling, and we're starting to build the interstate system. Everybody wants a car, right now! The auto industry gives folks what they want - big effing ridiculous eighteen thousand pound chrome-plated finned monsters, one after the other. The Roadmaster! The Road King! The Titan-Astro-Omega-Road Rocket!

Business is good. But not enough people are driving in big cities, 'cause there's too much mass transit available. So car companies bought up and closed down street cars and railroads. In some cases they replaced them with bus companies, but hey Detroit makes buses. In some cases, they got replaced with everybody buying a car.

Flash forward to the first oil shock in the 70's. All of a sudden it's tough to buy enough gas to feed your White Whale, and it looks like it's gonna stay tough for awhile. Then OPEC fractures a bit, and the first shock is done. Rather than consider the first oil shock a warning, Detroit goes back to business as usual.

Then the second oil shock in the 70's came. Same old story. Only this time there are more and more Japanese autos in the US. Small cars, which use less gas, and cost less to boot. Oh, and they were often more reliable too. So, Detroit, realizing the times are a'changing dug deep, paid the R&D boys a lot of overtime and gave us: The Mustang II. Oh, and the Chevette.

Oddly, people didn't flock to the Mustang II, or the Chevette, or the K car, or the Gremlin. Instead, in increasing numbers they bought Japanese cars. Then Chrysler failed, and Detroit got its first bailout. Thanks, Lee.

Time went by, and in the 90's Detroit discovered the untapped market that was the Large American Truck. Dollar a gallon gas meant you could roll that Chevy Compensator all day long for not too much scratch. Pretty soon every American car company was pooting out trucks and SUV's as fast as they could. I mean for Pete's sake, Lincoln was making a pick up truck. And don't get me started on the Cadillac Escalade, that excrable monument to Everything That Is Wrong With This Country Today.

Well, gas went back up. All of a sudden four ton bubblegum boxes weren't selling. And Detroit got more bailouts. They couldn't blame this one on Fannie and Freddie though. Thank goodness for the old reliable trope of blaming the unions. Otherwise they might have some explaining to do.

So there you go, an example involving capitalists who make something, rather than capitalists who screw other capitalists. The details are different, but the paradigm is exactly the same. In each case the capitalists pressed forward, making the same easy money, until they didn't. Then, you and I, and even Jim, had to bail them out.

I'm with Will - the end of the era of easy oil is bigger than politics. Coping with it will take more than straw man talk radio arguments. If you buy into that kind of thinking you are enabling the folks who will come to us with the next bailout request/demand, whatever and whenever it may be. I'm all done bailing out millionaires and billionaires.

You should be too. Instead, and I know this kind of sucks, we should be working together.
 
Hey dirtybird?
Your facts and your timelines are so screwed up they don't even resemble the truth.
For starters, going back to pre-'90s banks and savings and loans that made subprime loans held the paper themselves. Fannie and Freddie wouldn't buy it. This was the norm for years. Until the mid '90s when slick Willie, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and their cronies decided Fannie and Freddie should buy subprime paper. After all, they were/are Government Sponsored Entities, and subject to political oversight. It was the do-gooder social justice types that encouraged (TOLD) banks to write those loans to the "underprivileged." Banks were then allowed to sell that bad paper to F&F, that prior to then, only bought AA and higher paper from the banks.
Then it was F&F that bundled those loans into mortgage backed securities and sold them on the securities market, rating them AA and AAA+ not the other way around.
This has all been hashed out here before and the incriminating facts have been linked.
Do a search.
And Iaccoca and the K car? That came AFTER the Chrysler bailout, and that platform, that included the 1st minivan, is widely credited with saving Chrysler, and helping to get the bailout loans paid back 3 years early.
Jimmy Carter's policies of forcing too many regs on Detroit in too short a time frame is what set American carmakers on their heels. They were so busy retooling for lighter cars to meet overly restrictive CAFE standards, and converting to metric sizes for EVERYTHING, that they had no time to R&D anything. Couple that with the clean air restrictions of the day, and Detroit was lucky to survive at all.
That era in American manufacturing and business is, to this day, still the prime example of how heavy handed government hurts everyone, down to the janitor that sweeps the floors.
Of course ya'll forget him. You're so busy trying to demonize the rich, that you forget they're the ones that pay the middle class.
The next time a welfare recipient hands you your paycheck, you be sure and let us all know about it okay?

You've got a lot of things bass-ackwards there bud.
But hey, it proves you were listening when the socialists gave their talks. You know, the ones you had to listen to to get the free Kool-Aide.
Now you just need to figure out the right person to listen to, so you get the facts. Instead of revisionist history.
 
"So there you go, an example involving capitalists who make something, rather than capitalists who screw other capitalists. The details are different, but the paradigm is exactly the same. In each case the capitalists pressed forward, making the same easy money, until they didn't. Then, you and I, and even Jim, had to bail them out. "

Socialist governments bail people out, with our money. Capitalism doesn't work when socialist rules are applied.

jj
 
Oh yeah, the Swedes, the Finns and the Norwegians have it great!
World tax rates: <broken link removed> <--- LINK

Norwegian tax rates:
Norway
Income Tax Rate 40%

Norway
Corporate Tax Rate 28%

Norway
Sales Tax / VAT Rate 25%
The Finns pay:
Finland
Income Tax Rate 51%

Finland
Corporate Tax Rate 26%

Finland
Sales Tax / VAT Rate 23%
And last but not least, the Swedes:
Sweden
Income Tax Rate 57.77%

Sweden
Corporate Tax Rate 26.3%

Sweden
VAT Rate 25%
I didn't post Denmark, but they're right there with the rest of the Scandinavians.

Keep in mind that a VAT, Value Added Tax is nothing more than a national sales tax.
So on money that you earn and spend on VAT items, you are taxed at (roughly) a rate of:

Norway = 65%
Finland = 74%
Sweden = 82.77%


Oh yeah, that's just great MikeE. A MUCH higher AVERAGE tax than the richest American currently pays.
I don't think you can sell that pile-o-$h17 'round here, but your efforts certainly prove what's wrong with your socialist approach!

Like I said. It's time to put down the shovel.
 
Oh yeah, the Swedes, the Finns and the Norwegians have it great!
World tax rates: <broken link removed> <--- LINK

Norwegian tax rates:

The Finns pay:

And last but not least, the Swedes:

I didn't post Denmark, but they're right there with the rest of the Scandinavians.

Keep in mind that a VAT, Value Added Tax is nothing more than a national sales tax.
So on money that you earn and spend on VAT items, you are taxed at (roughly) a rate of:

Norway = 65%
Finland = 74%
Sweden = 82.77%


Oh yeah, that's just great MikeE. A MUCH higher AVERAGE tax than the richest American currently pays.
I don't think you can sell that pile-o-$h17 'round here, but your efforts certainly prove what's wrong with your socialist approach!

Like I said. It's time to put down the shovel.

On the other hand, they seem to be pretty happy...
 
And you are speculating Mike.
I wonder if you asked them if they could cut their tax obligation by more than 50%, if they would take you up on it,...

I'll bet they would!
 

Upcoming Events

Oregon Arms Collectors March Gun Show
Portland, OR
Tillamook Gun & Knife Show
Tillamook, OR
"The Original" Kalispell Gun Show
Kalispell, MT
Teen Rifle 1 Class
Springfield, OR
Kids Firearm Safety 2 Class
Springfield, OR

New Resource Reviews

New Classified Ads

Back Top