Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Taxes | Tags: Democrat Demagogues, liberalism, Spending, Wasteful Spending
The “educated class” and those who aspire to being thought of as “educated” have gathered in Davos, Switzerland for an opportunity to see and be seen the World Economic Forum to, in one panel, debate where the next global crisis will come from.
Unsurprisingly, they were all over the map, but in general they think that long-term government debt is a problem. A few hours after this meeting, in his State of the Union speech, President Obama would call for a three-year government spending freeze, applying to a teeny-weeny sector of government spending approximately 16% of the federal budget. Nine percent of the public thought that would be effective.
Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), who attended the Davos session as one of the selected “challengers” for the three presenters, called for large cuts in defense spending as well as tax increases — particularly on wealthy Davos types. Frank vowed:
I think almost every American here pays much less in taxes than you ought to. I’m going to go back and try to raise the taxes of most of the people who attended here.
That’s just what we need, Barney. Raise everybody’s taxes. The real problem is s-p-e-n-d-i-n-g! You are not just spending too much, but most of what you are spending is pure waste. Rebuilding bridges that nobody uses, money for airports that have no flights, money for imaginary (and temporary) “green” jobs, guaranteeing loans for “clean energy” that will never be cost-effective. Creating new bureaus, new administrations, new offices, and funding those who supported your campaigns.
Just stop! Please, please, just stop!
Filed under: Energy, Environment, Junk Science | Tags: $3.3 Million, Minnesota, Wind Farms
Like many states, Minnesota has invested in alternative energy. It’s the in thing to do. The state has spent $3.3 million on eleven wind turbines, but in an economy where everyone seems to speak in billions and trillions, that doesn’t seem like news.
But it seems the turbines don’t work in cold weather. The special hydraulic fluid used for colder temperatures was used in the turbines, but it’s not working, so neither are the turbines.
There is a plan to heat the fluid, but officials must find a contractor to do the work.
So they need heaters to warm the hydraulic fluid. How will the heaters work? They will have to use either electricity or natural gas at each turbine to keep the mechanism lubricated. That reduces the net energy gain from each turbine, depending on how much heating the turbine fluid needs, to stop congealing in the winter. Minnesota winters last anywhere from four to six months, so that makes the wind farm fairly inefficient as an energy source.
As we were saying, you simply can’t rely on what the turbine salesmen are claiming about the efficiency of wind power. Sometimes the wind blows, sometimes it doesn’t. It is simply not reliable enough to be a primary energy source. But it is “Green” so there are brownie points involved.
(h/t: Hot Air)
