Comments on: Heads Up, Tennessee

By: hillbilly

hillbilly — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:35:57 +0000

Fancy that. $6.75 huh? You really gotta wonder sometimes if they just pull those numbers out of a hat, don’t you?

By: BB-Idaho

BB-Idaho — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:54:33 +0000

Gee, I wish I was ‘average rich’! Speaking of loan sharking, we were notified our property taxes will be getting a $6.75 monthly surcharge to meet ’storm water run off EPA requirements. We get about 11″ rain a year. Huh ? Are we having a nice day yet?

By: hillbilly

hillbilly — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:30:07 +0000

BB, they raised the gas tax here to do just that, yet, nothing is being fixed. They raised the sales tax here to pay for education. They raised cigarette tax here to pay for “I don’t remember what”. They raised property tax to pay for something else that I don’t remember now for what. Our water bill doubled last year. Our electric bill also has seen 3 other rate increases not including this new one they’re talking about.

They all talk about how much money they need to “fix” things, but then they don’t “fix” those things. They do something else instead.

I agree that we should start scaling back what we are spending on Iraq’s reconstruction as they seem to be building up their own economy nicely but if you expect our government to use those funds to do anything for the average American you’re mistaken and that’s across the board, nonpartisan. They’ll use it for anything else that strikes their fancy while we keep apathetically doling out more and more.

They keep tossing out bones like the housing bailout, the rebate checks, and offering more and more but when you read the fine print, they’ll take back twice or better what they disperse and are busy creating a domino effect with their policies that will eventually encompass everyone but the very rich and I mean the very rich, not the average rich. The average rich are going to fall right along with the rest of us.

The tax system is really nothing more than an elaborate loan sharking operation that’s being forcefully shoved down our throats. Everything they dole out to us from our own money, they’ll take back double or better.

I’m ready to throw the bums out and tell them to “kiss my grits.”

By: BB-Idaho

BB-Idaho — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:50:01 +0000

Welfare? Good question. Likely the one that the
8,787,000 unemployed are asking. I’d like to see
some work done on our highways and bridges: they are in poor shape, the construction companies could use the business and more employment would also result. Presently “Without a fix soon, we could face having to cut all federal highway funds by a third simply to keep the trust fund solvent. That is the last thing we should be doing when infrastructure needs are up, construction jobs are down and Americans are struggling through tough economic times.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-highway21-2008jul21,0,1343115.story
Seems to me if we can spend $48 Billion on Iraq
infrastructure, we could pay more attention here…

By: hillbilly

hillbilly — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:31:02 +0000

And for those of us who don’t have time to wait decades for the playing field to become more level? Welfare?

By: BB-Idaho

BB-Idaho — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:22:54 +0000

HB,
Coal production has not been ‘killed’, it continues to rise. see http://indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=us&product=coal&graph=production+consumption and actually coal-fired electric plants have become cleaner. (the problem is the increase in fuel costs getting the stuff from the powder basin to the utility (for example BNSF rail has increased coal trains to 6000 100 ton loads per day on a triple track mainline through the Wyoming desert..its competitor
Union Pacific does about the same) IMO, coal will continue to grow until and unless nuclear comes on line.
I agree the environmental movement can be a detrimental factor for industries, but things like steel mfg decline have a number causes: high labor, foreign subsidized plants, failure to invest in new technology – (a factor always overlooked) a shareholder greed which resulted in wonderful diviidends but no investment in research or plant
infrastructure. The mixture of free markets
and globalization has been profound. Whatever the cause, the decline of heavy manufacture in this country will cause us grief in the future. (A factor which gives me hope is that those countries that ban environmentalism, eg. China, can make stuff cheaper, but they will get tired of wearing masks to go shopping every day and when they start dying off from
carcinogins at an early age they will clean up their act too….then the playing field will become more equal.)

By: hillbilly

hillbilly — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:30:55 +0000

Forgot something.

Yes, it’s hot. It’s always hot in the summertime but is it as hot as last year? Or the year before? In comparison, this summer is on the mild side which means usage should be down, right? If usage is down, bills should be lower, right? Couple that with all the stupid bulbs they say use electricity and other things you can do to make your home more energy efficient, bills should be lower, right? They’re not.

By: hillbilly

hillbilly — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:25:15 +0000

BB, environmentalists have essentially killed the coal industry and killing that killed some others, like the steel industry and so forth. It’s not just the gas prices, it’s the environmentalist all out war on everything that makes this country and others run.

On top of that, it’s tax and spend in all levels of government with no respite for anyone. Every time they say, they’re going to tax the rich, everybody else gets squeezed in the bargain, so it’s a false statement from the start. They’ve said that so many times in the past that have turned out exactly the same way that you’d think they’d give it up. Americans are smarter than that… except for the ones who’ve never experienced it before.

In all the hulla-BULL-oo over Exxon’s profits, hardly any news outlet pointed out that the government raked in 3 times that amount on the same revenue nor did they point out that it translated into an 8.6% profit margin which is pretty pathetic. If the dollar doesn’t go very far for us, paycheck to paycheck, 11 billion isn’t going to go very far for a corporation.

And wind power? Don’t make me laugh. What are they going to do? Conscript us to pedal so lever and gears that make the propellers move and have us pay for the privilege of doing so? It costs 2 million to build just one of those wind turbines.

Can’t go back to the days of woodburning cookstoves, either. It creates too big a carbon footprint. I have a carbon footprint for the environmentalists and I know just where to put it… up their *****.

No other country in the world is cowtowing to environmentalists the way this country is doing.

By: BB-Idaho

BB-Idaho — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:05:18 +0000

Up this way we have a similar arrangement: the Bonneville Power Administration. This DOE group runs 25 hydro dams, some windfarms and a nuclear plant. And we have cheap electricity. In fact, many homes have electric furnaces. While their rates are low and have remained constant, they do not sell direct, but through utilities. These latter not only have costs, but shareholders, hence rate inflation. IMO, when gasoline goes up from under $1/gal to $4/gal in eight short years, the effect on the economic structure
has to be profound. I suspect gas prices will remain high, so nuclear, coal, renewables etc are the only
pragmatic area in which to look. We can drill the daylights out of the earth’s crust, but petro is a diminishing commodity and its consumption has
increased significantly worldwide. Fixed and low income folk will feel it first. When they stop purchasing, business will feel it. Its 103 today and here I am running the AC…big help, huh?