Finally, we can maintain consumer spending and keep the economy robust by simply changing the tax code to favor the U.S. worker-consumer. The best way to get cash in the hands of the American people is to dump the income tax and IRS immediately...no tax rebate checks, just let them keep the money they have earned, to wit: Replace the income tax with a national value-added tax or sales tax. No more hiding ten million dollar purchases or write-offs as some kind of deductible expense. If we want to be frugal, our taxes won't amount to much and we will save more than we ever have for a comfortable retirement.
Our tax plan will exempt all small business owners from a Federal corporate income tax if their gross receipts are less than $100,000,000 per year. A nation's economic growth is dependent upon the strength of its small business industries and entrepreneurs. If we cut them loose from government taxation and bureaucratic harassment, the small business community will show us how to rebuild America.
We should forever eliminate double taxation laws, e.g. (a) Capital Gains Taxes and (b) The Death Tax. Retired Americans have not worked their entire lives to lose much of their savings and investments to double taxation. Why should the government inherit the money intended for family endowment? Taxes have already been payed on that earned income. Terminate capital gains taxes and watch business investment grow at unprecedented rates. If we want to compete with China and India, we'd better stop punishing investors.
In conclusion, I'd like to remind you that the energy business is financially the largest on earth and our conversion to a renewable-energy economy could create new jobs and clean air virtually forever. If we continue on our current self-destructive path by pandering to Big Oil and their two-party-system partners in crime, we will destroy the world economy and mother earth and her people in the not too distant future. If we take the path of our RenewE plan, we can knock Big Oil and Republican and Democratic politicians who aid and abet them solidly on their collective derrieres and stop the energy stranglehold they have on the American people. We can't do it with Congress' business-as-usual behavior. The politicians will always screw things up, to wit: I recently saw a news flash on TV where George Bush, while promising to spend billions of dollars on alternative energy sources and promising as usual, that you'll be paying less for gas at the pump, apparently was unaware that his U.S. Transportation Department has simultaneously proposed to raise the Federal gasoline tax significantly. The Political God Giveth and the Political God Taketh Away...I rest my case.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Continuation of Platform #25, Sec. D
There are several ways to pay for the renewable-energy economy and each of these paths are an integral part of our issues platform. Platform Issue #1: Stop the War Now: Bring home our troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and all corners of the world now. Troops pulled from non-combat zones like Korea and Europe will be deployed on the Mexican border to stop the invasion of the U.S. by illegal aliens, drug pushers, and terrorists. This will provide billions to invest in RenewE.
In a December 2007 article, N.Y. Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote that Nobel Prize winning
economist Joseph Stiglitz calculated that the true cost of the wars would ultimately exceed $1 trillion and maybe even $2 trillion. Various government figures suggested the long-term cost of the wars could be in the vicinity of $3.5 trillion. That's estimated to be 10 times the cost of free health care for all Americans. With many dollars left over, we could easily fund our renewable energy plan and begin to repair our crumbling infrastructures, all of which would create jobs and clean air.
Another mother lode to be tapped (Platform Issue #2) stop illegal aliens from invading the United States, deport those who are already here illegally (no amnesty ever), who are sucking-up our financial resources via free health care, education and the illegals' crime, D.U.I. escapades, and their imprisonment. Some estimate it's costing us billions and could hit a trillion over the next few years.
How about the billions we spend on Federal subsidy programs...the king of them all, $285 billion in farm subsidies for billionaire gentlemen farmers, while the family farmer struggles and sees small family farms gobbled up when they can no longer make it? How about the global political giveaway programs, e.g.: the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, whose loans often are not repaid because billions go to dictators who flee with most of the money to any country that will have them and their billions...and the continuing foreign-aid program and our UN membership.
We would like to propose another source of money that could contribute significantly to our RenewE program. Have the President direct the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute CEO's of banks, mortgage and insurance companies who are putting our economy into a recession that could turn into a full-blown depression via the sub-prime debacle. Along with fining them billions, the CEO's should be sentenced to at least one year of weekend prison time to teach them a valuable lesson about gluttony. This action would also prohibit free passes - meaning no mortgage subsidies - for real estate speculators, and home buyers who should have known they couldn't afford the homes they bought. Incidentally, perhaps we should add the U.S. Congress to our list of sub-prime enablers...a January 2008 article by perhaps the best economist around, Walter Williams reveals that Congress promoted sub-prime lending. Dr. Williams wrote: "As with most economic problems, we find the hand of government. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, whose provisions were strengthened during the Clinton Administration, is a federal law that mandates lenders to offer credit throughout their entire market and discourages them from restricting their credit services to high-income markets, a practice known as redlining. In other words, the Community Reinvestment Act encourages banks and thrifts to make loans to riskier customers.
(To be continued)
In a December 2007 article, N.Y. Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote that Nobel Prize winning
economist Joseph Stiglitz calculated that the true cost of the wars would ultimately exceed $1 trillion and maybe even $2 trillion. Various government figures suggested the long-term cost of the wars could be in the vicinity of $3.5 trillion. That's estimated to be 10 times the cost of free health care for all Americans. With many dollars left over, we could easily fund our renewable energy plan and begin to repair our crumbling infrastructures, all of which would create jobs and clean air.
Another mother lode to be tapped (Platform Issue #2) stop illegal aliens from invading the United States, deport those who are already here illegally (no amnesty ever), who are sucking-up our financial resources via free health care, education and the illegals' crime, D.U.I. escapades, and their imprisonment. Some estimate it's costing us billions and could hit a trillion over the next few years.
How about the billions we spend on Federal subsidy programs...the king of them all, $285 billion in farm subsidies for billionaire gentlemen farmers, while the family farmer struggles and sees small family farms gobbled up when they can no longer make it? How about the global political giveaway programs, e.g.: the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, whose loans often are not repaid because billions go to dictators who flee with most of the money to any country that will have them and their billions...and the continuing foreign-aid program and our UN membership.
We would like to propose another source of money that could contribute significantly to our RenewE program. Have the President direct the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute CEO's of banks, mortgage and insurance companies who are putting our economy into a recession that could turn into a full-blown depression via the sub-prime debacle. Along with fining them billions, the CEO's should be sentenced to at least one year of weekend prison time to teach them a valuable lesson about gluttony. This action would also prohibit free passes - meaning no mortgage subsidies - for real estate speculators, and home buyers who should have known they couldn't afford the homes they bought. Incidentally, perhaps we should add the U.S. Congress to our list of sub-prime enablers...a January 2008 article by perhaps the best economist around, Walter Williams reveals that Congress promoted sub-prime lending. Dr. Williams wrote: "As with most economic problems, we find the hand of government. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, whose provisions were strengthened during the Clinton Administration, is a federal law that mandates lenders to offer credit throughout their entire market and discourages them from restricting their credit services to high-income markets, a practice known as redlining. In other words, the Community Reinvestment Act encourages banks and thrifts to make loans to riskier customers.
(To be continued)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Continuation of Platform Position #25, Sec. C
Another recent rising star in the renewable energy galaxy is offshore wind turbines and the ubiquitous wave-surf and tide power. As usual, it takes a foreign country - Scotland - to take the lead over the U.S. whose potential in this arena is colossal because of our 12,378-mile coastline. The U.K. with only 7,700 miles of coastline is on schedule to hopefully replace 100,000 workers in their reserve-dwindling North Sea oil and gas industry.
To satisfy environmentalists, the plan will employ the largest wind turbines in 150-feet-deep water, 15 miles offshore. Each turbine blade measures about the length of a football field. In this one small area of coastal Scotland, the project will build a 200-turbine wind farm that is expected to provide enough electricity for a million people, one fifth of Scotland's total population. And it is renewable forever and will contribute to keeping the region's air pure for as long as people live there. No oil and no coal involved, partially because they don't have the U.S. Congress to interfere with the project.
Additionally, the U.K. anticipates it will generate approximately 20% of its energy needs from renewable sources. Assisting in making that goal attainable will be the new technology being developed to bring to fruition the harnessing of energy from tidal power and wave-surf power along their coastline. In just this one small area of Scotland there is so much potential that they're beginning to call it the Saudi Arabia of tidal power. Can you imagine what could be accomplished with this ocean-power technology on our long coastline? Jobs and more jobs with clean, sweet air. We'd be on our way to oil and coal independence with a vibrant economy and a strong resistance to global warming. Maybe with congress and the money-sucking two-party system out of the way, the people just may decide to ax the current financial subsidies to "ailing" Big Oil, and use those funds to provide interest-free loans to entrepreneurs who would just love to start up renewable-energy companies. We can accomplish that with our Direct Democracy Platform Issue #3. (See our Website Flowers4Prez for more details)
Another sector of renewable energy whose geological life and renew ability is eternal, but gets no mention from the presidential candidates, is geothermal power. In a current study at MIT the report concluded that geothermal energy and its peak performance time would be almost always (24/7).
One other report in the McClatchy Newspapers indicated that just one portion of the Cascades of Oregon has enough geothermal potential to produce 1000 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to that from a large nuclear-power plant (without the danger of leaking plutonium.) The same story referred to Nevada's known potential for becoming the Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy.
Can we conclude that geothermal energy can produce thousands of new jobs and more clean air? You bet! So where are our presidential candidates on this vast renewable-energy potential! Apparently they feel there's more job creation and clean-air potential in issuing no-medication band aide welfare checks.
In an article published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Tom Werner and Matt Cheney, the writers come up with some astounding numbers. They claim Nevada alone has 100,000 megawatts of potential solar resources just waiting to be tapped and converted into renewable and affordable energy. (10,000 megawatts is equivalent to power provided by one large nuclear-power plant) That's enough energy to power 20 million households. Nevada doesn't even have four million households. Yet Nevada politicians are bringing in more coal plants!
(To be continued)
To satisfy environmentalists, the plan will employ the largest wind turbines in 150-feet-deep water, 15 miles offshore. Each turbine blade measures about the length of a football field. In this one small area of coastal Scotland, the project will build a 200-turbine wind farm that is expected to provide enough electricity for a million people, one fifth of Scotland's total population. And it is renewable forever and will contribute to keeping the region's air pure for as long as people live there. No oil and no coal involved, partially because they don't have the U.S. Congress to interfere with the project.
Additionally, the U.K. anticipates it will generate approximately 20% of its energy needs from renewable sources. Assisting in making that goal attainable will be the new technology being developed to bring to fruition the harnessing of energy from tidal power and wave-surf power along their coastline. In just this one small area of Scotland there is so much potential that they're beginning to call it the Saudi Arabia of tidal power. Can you imagine what could be accomplished with this ocean-power technology on our long coastline? Jobs and more jobs with clean, sweet air. We'd be on our way to oil and coal independence with a vibrant economy and a strong resistance to global warming. Maybe with congress and the money-sucking two-party system out of the way, the people just may decide to ax the current financial subsidies to "ailing" Big Oil, and use those funds to provide interest-free loans to entrepreneurs who would just love to start up renewable-energy companies. We can accomplish that with our Direct Democracy Platform Issue #3. (See our Website Flowers4Prez for more details)
Another sector of renewable energy whose geological life and renew ability is eternal, but gets no mention from the presidential candidates, is geothermal power. In a current study at MIT the report concluded that geothermal energy and its peak performance time would be almost always (24/7).
One other report in the McClatchy Newspapers indicated that just one portion of the Cascades of Oregon has enough geothermal potential to produce 1000 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to that from a large nuclear-power plant (without the danger of leaking plutonium.) The same story referred to Nevada's known potential for becoming the Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy.
Can we conclude that geothermal energy can produce thousands of new jobs and more clean air? You bet! So where are our presidential candidates on this vast renewable-energy potential! Apparently they feel there's more job creation and clean-air potential in issuing no-medication band aide welfare checks.
In an article published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Tom Werner and Matt Cheney, the writers come up with some astounding numbers. They claim Nevada alone has 100,000 megawatts of potential solar resources just waiting to be tapped and converted into renewable and affordable energy. (10,000 megawatts is equivalent to power provided by one large nuclear-power plant) That's enough energy to power 20 million households. Nevada doesn't even have four million households. Yet Nevada politicians are bringing in more coal plants!
(To be continued)
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Continuation of Platform Position #25, Sec. B
Keep in mind that various forms of Ethanol additives, especially sweet Ethanol can indeed end Big Oils' and politicians' energy stranglehold on the consumer. My administration will offer zero-interest government loans to entrepreneurs who want to start sweet Ethanol farming and production and the same for starting wind, solar and geothermal energy source development. How can entrepreneurs start up alternative energy businesses on that tired old congressional promise of extensive tax credits, when it's not tax credit they need? It takes cash loans to start the business before they can make profits to use tax credits. Remember, with Ethanol you can begin replacing oil in one year, and it's renewable!
So, let's take a look at some true facts and features of sweet Ethanol: A recent headline in Investors Business Daily stated: Brazil Achieves Independence from Foreign Oil. It went on to say: After 15 years of research and experimentation, Brazil transforms the biggest sugar-cane growing country in the world into a nation that replaces 85% of its gasoline usage with sugar-based Ethanol.
During the past five years, Brazil has allocated half of its enormous sugar-cane crop for Ethanol fuel production, thus reducing its need to import foreign oil and simultaneously reducing its negative balance of payments burden. Furthermore the reduction of sugar supply on world markets - from this change of crop allocation - raised the world price of sugar to a decent level, kept millions of farmers and farm workers at their jobs and kept tens of thousands of farmers from losing their farms. Recently most countries around the world have been sending large scientific delegations to Brazil to study their successful Ethanol programs, except one...you guessed it, the U.S.
A Uof C at Berkley study estimated that Ethanol (corn-based) could replace 20-30% of fuel usage in the U.S. with little effort in just a few years, but you can start the replacement in one year. Furthermore and most critically, the 15-year Brazilian study clearly demonstrated that sugar-based Ethanol would replace much more fossil fuel than corn-based. Some estimates go as high as a 40% fuel replacement using sugar instead of corn.
From a cost perspective, consider the following startling comparisons: It costs more than five billion dollars and five to ten years to build a new oil refinery; it costs one billion to construct an oil-drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico and five to seven million a day to operate it. And it takes years to bring that oil to market, and...once that field is depleted, the oil is gone...you want more, build another platform, because crude oil is not renewable.
On the other hand it takes 12 months to complete construction of an Ethanol plant...costs vary depending on desired capacity...$50 to $150 million for up to 100 million gallons to market a year. And, sugar-based Ethanol is truly renewable. You grow the same beet and cane crops on the same land and use the same Ethanol processing plant, year after year. (Most sugar-cane species yield two or three crops a year perennially.) You spend billions all over again to find more oil...with Ethanol, you spend no more unless you want to increase your Ethanol production capacity and crop yield. The most prolific sugar-beet farmers are found in the colder Northern states. One of the leading growers of beets is Michigan...yet there are only two Ethanol plants in operation. Michigan can use a minimum of five plants over the next five years and probably more thereafter.
The State of Minnesota is a big sugar-beet grower and they appear to be far ahead of the pack, in that they have six operating plants and two more under construction. But, there is a state law that prohibits gas stations from selling gasoline mixed with anything but sugar-based Ethanol, not even corn-based. That's why our RenewE program will offer Ethanol-pump installation grants to gas stations throughout the U.S. The most prolific cane growing states are Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Would you believe that Florida and Texas have no Ethanol plants at all?
The smart play would be to build smaller capacity plants initially to cut down on overall construction costs, e.g.: to build a 100 mil.gal. per year plant, the average cost is between $1-$2/gal. depending on a number of variables. The average cost of building a smaller 35-50 gal.cap. plant is the same, however, the cost of expanding capacity of an existing plant is only .50/gal. So the initial capital outlay is much less costly and it allows you to build more plants in a shorter period of time in a greater number of states that need them yesterday.
In Michigan alone, new Ethanol plants are considered of huge importance to the state's agricultural economy...a recent new Ethanol plant will be keeping 600 farmers in business. Michigan's AG office reports that between 12,000 and 23,000 new jobs will be created each year in Michigan (that's only Michigan), as a result of more farmers and food processors selling products with added value (e.g.: Ethanol, pharmaceutical enzymes and animal feedstocks derived from sugar.) Please keep in mind that any independent Ethanol producer who grows his own cane and/or beets, will stay in business virtually forever, thanks to the renewable continuing supply from their own farms. Besides, land ownership never hurt anybody...it will serve you well forever.
(To be continued)
So, let's take a look at some true facts and features of sweet Ethanol: A recent headline in Investors Business Daily stated: Brazil Achieves Independence from Foreign Oil. It went on to say: After 15 years of research and experimentation, Brazil transforms the biggest sugar-cane growing country in the world into a nation that replaces 85% of its gasoline usage with sugar-based Ethanol.
During the past five years, Brazil has allocated half of its enormous sugar-cane crop for Ethanol fuel production, thus reducing its need to import foreign oil and simultaneously reducing its negative balance of payments burden. Furthermore the reduction of sugar supply on world markets - from this change of crop allocation - raised the world price of sugar to a decent level, kept millions of farmers and farm workers at their jobs and kept tens of thousands of farmers from losing their farms. Recently most countries around the world have been sending large scientific delegations to Brazil to study their successful Ethanol programs, except one...you guessed it, the U.S.
A Uof C at Berkley study estimated that Ethanol (corn-based) could replace 20-30% of fuel usage in the U.S. with little effort in just a few years, but you can start the replacement in one year. Furthermore and most critically, the 15-year Brazilian study clearly demonstrated that sugar-based Ethanol would replace much more fossil fuel than corn-based. Some estimates go as high as a 40% fuel replacement using sugar instead of corn.
From a cost perspective, consider the following startling comparisons: It costs more than five billion dollars and five to ten years to build a new oil refinery; it costs one billion to construct an oil-drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico and five to seven million a day to operate it. And it takes years to bring that oil to market, and...once that field is depleted, the oil is gone...you want more, build another platform, because crude oil is not renewable.
On the other hand it takes 12 months to complete construction of an Ethanol plant...costs vary depending on desired capacity...$50 to $150 million for up to 100 million gallons to market a year. And, sugar-based Ethanol is truly renewable. You grow the same beet and cane crops on the same land and use the same Ethanol processing plant, year after year. (Most sugar-cane species yield two or three crops a year perennially.) You spend billions all over again to find more oil...with Ethanol, you spend no more unless you want to increase your Ethanol production capacity and crop yield. The most prolific sugar-beet farmers are found in the colder Northern states. One of the leading growers of beets is Michigan...yet there are only two Ethanol plants in operation. Michigan can use a minimum of five plants over the next five years and probably more thereafter.
The State of Minnesota is a big sugar-beet grower and they appear to be far ahead of the pack, in that they have six operating plants and two more under construction. But, there is a state law that prohibits gas stations from selling gasoline mixed with anything but sugar-based Ethanol, not even corn-based. That's why our RenewE program will offer Ethanol-pump installation grants to gas stations throughout the U.S. The most prolific cane growing states are Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Would you believe that Florida and Texas have no Ethanol plants at all?
The smart play would be to build smaller capacity plants initially to cut down on overall construction costs, e.g.: to build a 100 mil.gal. per year plant, the average cost is between $1-$2/gal. depending on a number of variables. The average cost of building a smaller 35-50 gal.cap. plant is the same, however, the cost of expanding capacity of an existing plant is only .50/gal. So the initial capital outlay is much less costly and it allows you to build more plants in a shorter period of time in a greater number of states that need them yesterday.
In Michigan alone, new Ethanol plants are considered of huge importance to the state's agricultural economy...a recent new Ethanol plant will be keeping 600 farmers in business. Michigan's AG office reports that between 12,000 and 23,000 new jobs will be created each year in Michigan (that's only Michigan), as a result of more farmers and food processors selling products with added value (e.g.: Ethanol, pharmaceutical enzymes and animal feedstocks derived from sugar.) Please keep in mind that any independent Ethanol producer who grows his own cane and/or beets, will stay in business virtually forever, thanks to the renewable continuing supply from their own farms. Besides, land ownership never hurt anybody...it will serve you well forever.
(To be continued)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)