Casual Observation

11 Comments

1. 

   justadood on August 16, 2010 at 2:41 pm

   Kinda like imagining Warp Drive….and almost as impossible, given the present political climate…

   (Feelin’ kinda pessimistic today…)

2. 

   The BBQ Chicken Madness on August 16, 2010 at 2:45 pm

   Still not enough.

   http://apps.asce.org/reportcard/2009/grades.cfm

   According to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the state of our infrastructure in 2009 would require an investment of appox. $2.2 Trillion to get it back up to snuff.  It goes up the longer we wait, too.

3. 

   ask on August 16, 2010 at 3:18 pm

   One trillion dollars is such an insane amount of money that it is hard to imagine how much it really is.
   I wrote an entry about that almost 18 months ago.

   What does a trillion dollars look like? Well, imagine crisp, new 100-dollar bills stacked up neatly. A standard shipping pallet would contain a whopping $100 million (thus, the 8 billion in cash that went missing in Iraq would have been 80 pallets!).
   […]
   And this is what it looks like:
   
   Notice those pallets are double stacked.
   …and remember those are $100 bills.

   You need $100 million ten thousand times to get to a trillion.

   (notice the little fellow on the left)

4. 

   less is more on August 16, 2010 at 3:26 pm

   Imagine what could be accomplished by simply using our military, the unemployed, the unemployable and the economic refugees to start cleaning up the mess that has been made in the USA.

   Changing the military/industrial complex to building the next generation of non carbon based technology.

   Pouring gigantic amounts of money into housing for everyone, medical care for everyone, organic food for everyone.

   Then using the spare change to help other peoples to increase their standard of living so they can buy from us.

   The money was there, it was just wasted. We are at the tipping point where the economy will collapse if we bring back to the US our armies, mercenaries and collaborators from the current wars.

   If all of the contracts for useless planes, useless high tech missiles, useless profits for the war profiteers are canceled, the economy will collapse.

   We only missed being great by a few votes in one federal election.

   Just imagine.

   • 

     justadood on August 16, 2010 at 3:32 pm

     WPA

     pity the Conservatives killed it around the time WWII got going…

5. 

   Brendan Skwire on August 16, 2010 at 3:39 pm

   Sad and hilarious, in the Vonnegut sense:

   Alternative energy investment prospects have shriveled in the United States after the U.S. Senate was unable to break a deadlock over tackling global warming, a Deutsche Bank official said.

   “You just throw your hands up and say … we’re going to take our money elsewhere,” said Kevin Parker in an interview with Reuters.

   Parker, who is global head of the Frankfurt-based bank’s Deutsche Asset Management Division, oversees nearly $700 billion in funds that devote $6 billion to $7 billion to climate change products.

   Amid so much political uncertainty in the United States, Parker said Deutsche Bank will focus its “green” investment dollars more and more on opportunities in China and Western Europe, where it sees governments providing a more positive environment.

   “They’re asleep at the wheel on climate change, asleep at the wheel on job growth, asleep at the wheel on this industrial revolution taking place in the energy industry,”

   Parker said of Washington’s inability to seal a climate-change program and other alternative energy incentives into place.

   Besides failing to set a policy dealing with climate change, Parker also complained that on-again, off-again tax incentives for renewable energy contributes to the poor outlook for investment in the United States.

   None of this is surprising to me. I’ve got a transcript request into NPR’s Marketplace for a piece I heard as I was transferring the tags from my inefficient gas-guzzling 2000 Chevy Astro and buying a 1996 Subaru wagon, which has much better MPG. The article discussed how resistance to change among US corporations has cost the country untold billions in patents and jobs.  One example was the flat screen TV; another was the microchip (IIRC); I believe they mentioned solar panels too.

   “The U.S. hasn’t even entered the race yet” for a clean-energy economy, Parker said. Indicative of that was the fact that of the nearly $7 billion in green investments his fund currently juggles, only about $45 million originated in the United States, according to Deutsche Bank.

   HAHA, our country’s Ralphie Wiggum. me fail English? That’s unpossible!

   • 

     justadood on August 16, 2010 at 4:38 pm

     …maybe I”m a conspiracy nut, but–

     I don’t see that the government has been ‘asleep at teh wheel’ on those policy matters.   My view is more that those policy decisions have been stonewalled by politicians or interests betting governmental inaction will either sweep them to power this November, or allow them to earn sufficient profit in the short-term to be able to pay for their home in the Hamptons, or new car for the mistress….in any case the policies are being held back, not adrift as supposed.

     And, with most of the Dems too timid to stand up for their ideals, it’s likely to stay that way as our ‘car’ steers back into the ditch, this time with Dems at the wheel…

6. 

   TarheelDem on August 16, 2010 at 4:28 pm

   Imagine if Al Gore had paid down half of the national debt during his first term.  And in his second term invested a trillion dollars in infrastructure that reduces greenhouse gases.

   What would Wall Street look like then?

   Not only are they greedy; they are overpaid idiots.

7. 

   mainsailset on August 16, 2010 at 5:18 pm

   Ahh, the national security of it all. A generation coming out of college with their PhD’s, Masters in science, the humanities and all brimming over with curiosity and energy to give China a run for its money.

   A generation of soldiers who didn’t lose themselves in tour after tour but instead were sent to parts of their homeland or even afar to help in the name of America when catastrophes hit.

   To mountaintops that still had their tops and energy lobbyists who had to stand in line.

   To our Defense Budget moving more and more toward Clinical Trials and medical research. That alone would have perhaps saved just one person who embodied the genius to invent cures we can only dream of today.

8. 

   Geov Parrish on August 16, 2010 at 6:27 pm

   As valuable as NPP is, it’s actually still a gross underestimate of how much these wars have cost.

   Joseph Stiglitz has estimated the total eventual cost – including impact on the economy, percentage of the national debt, long-term health care costs for physically and mentally maimed soldiers, etc. – as at least five times this.

   Sobering stuff.

9. 

   Kate H on August 16, 2010 at 11:18 pm

   That’s easy to imagine. I just came back from the Netherlands. We are so left behind…