Blowback on windmills was the headline that caught my eye in the “letters” section of Pittsburgh’s Tribune Review. The letter was from Sarah Howell, the vice president, public affairs, for the American Wind Energy Association. Ms. Howell’s response to the original article titled The Windmill Sham was understandable given her position advocating windmills.
The original editorial piece was critical of the number of jobs created by government subsidies of the alternative energy industry. The author made the mistake of siting actual data from the Spanish government showing that the actual cost of each new job was around $333,333.00. Of course the response from the wind folks touted how many jobs were created because of government support/subsidy of the industry.
“A Florida nonprofit that has sued more than 700 businesses claiming they violate disability access laws targeted at least two Pittsburgh hotels in its latest round of court action.”
That is the first paragraph in a story carried in our local paper about a group that targeted two Holiday Inn Hotels for violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act. When you look at the surface of the story it sounds like a worthy organization (it is a nonprofit) is suing a big corporation (it is for profit) on behalf of disabled people. A few things jump out from the article:
Politicians like to create villains before raising taxes or using today’s nomenclature raising fees. Politicians do not raise taxes, they charge fees. Groups like the evil health 
insurance companies, big pharma, Wall Street, big oil, and big defense have all been in the sights of liberals/politicians/progressives.
Personal Finances: My wife and I have amassed some decent credit card debt by spending more money than we had available, or deficit spending. Since we are blessed with a good credit rating, the banks are always willing to raise our credit limit. They are just so nice about that. Rather than take advantage of those nice folks’ offer, we are in the process of reducing that debt through a number of means. We are going to have to spend less, sell some investments, and restructure some debt, but should have it eliminated within the next three months. Although it will be hard, but we feel that there is a need to eliminate this debt.
About a year ago I was asked to participate on a committee (I know yikes a committee) from our local school district. The idea was to pull together the community to work with district personnel to better prepare students for college and working life. Our district has an outstanding track record in academics and that is one of the main reasons that we moved here long before we had children of school age. At one of the first meetings we brainstormed about topics where more emphasis was needed to better prepare our children.
“It’s not that easy being green…It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why? Wonder, I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful! And I think it’s what I want to be.”
When Kermit the Frog famously sang these words, being green was not all that popular and that was the point of his song. Fast forward a couple of decades and green is good. Green is so good that television networks have green weeks, schools go green, cities go green, and lots and lots of money is steered toward green enterprises. Investments in green infrastructure is necessary, it is explained, to drive development of the technology. That is a reasonable position and one taken by most politicians. Even the staunches fiscal conservative often bows to green energy.
As we approach the Christmas season many of us look inside ourselves to consider how we can help our fellow man. This is truly a time of giving and Americans are more generous than most other nations. I am not just talking about aid given by the federal government, but donations by average people who often open their pocketbooks when others are in trouble.
I read a heartwarming story about an organization that received nearly $3 million from Americans to help reduce their debt. Unfortunately their debt is fastly approaching $8 trillion. If you have guessed that the organization is the United States and the Treasury Department accepts gifts. This is in addition to the taxes we are all forced to turn over.
Once again, I could not make stuff up this good. This series is all about Joe Biden, arguably the smartest vice president in United States history according the the main stream media.
Joe on the economy:
December 2008: Joe Biden gave a speech after the election and spoke about the economy. Now faced with actually doing something rather than just campaigning he made this statement:
About 75 percent of the members of the United Auto Workers Union rejected a deal that would have given concessions to the Ford Motor Company. The concessions were reported to be similar to those given to GM (Government Motors) and Chrysler after they received large sums of bailout money. Ford Motor Company did not take government help and has emerged as the strongest of the “Big 3″ American automakers. Ford was the only U.S. automaker not to file bankruptcy…yet.
Much has been written about the notorious Cash For Clunkers program. Supporters relished in the fact that it was very popular and spurred automobile sales. It should not be a surprise that a program that gives money away will be popular (at least to those getting the money) and should increase sales. Opponents claimed that the program was a waste of money and rewarded people who probably did not really need the money and eliminated thousands of serviceable cars from the secondary market.
