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I'm asking the question of how Obama proposes to save them since it's part of his plan.
As far as letting them die, it's debateable that they will die, but I agree with you about keeping the government out of private industry.
"How does he plan to protect the financial future of domestic automakers"
Why should they need protecting? They've flat out mismanaged and ed themselves up, failed to protect market share vs imports, and even against non-American mfrs building cars in USA, all of that long before $4 gas.
They know how to build efficient cars, doing it Europe.
Let them die. Why more corporate socialism to save failed corps?
I'm asking the question of how Obama proposes to save them since it's part of his plan.
As far as letting them die, it's debateable that they will die, but I agree with you about keeping the government out of private industry.
boutons just owned himself. He's defended Obama as not being a socialist, yet admits that Obama's plan to 'save' big auto is corporate socialism.
I agree that the automakers should work this out themselves.
The same with the housing crisies.
I shouldn't have to pay for someone else's up because they wanted a 5 bedroom house instead of a 4, and KNEW they couldn't afford it.
I also shouldn't have to pay the ing lenders who are so damn stupid to lend money or give home loans to people with horrible or no credit.
Jesus Christ if this is your defenition of socialism then we're a socialist nation. This is ing re ed. You guys are tossing around this stupid Marxist and Socialist labeling like its the new game and its ridiculous.boutons just owned himself. He's defended Obama as not being a socialist, yet admits that Obama's plan to 'save' big auto is corporate socialism.
I'm sorry did you just say you counted on CNN and ABC for your information?
take it up with boutons, he defined it as corporate socialism. My question was how Obama was going to protect domestic Auto, because seems to me that's like Ms. America wanting world peace? Again, I just stopped at his first point. I'm sure his plan is riddled with these head in the clouds ideas.
Ok fine, but thats not an Obama issue thats an American politics issue. The fact is that while you may realize the president isn't capable of doing many of these things thats not what the American people realize and thats not what they demand. Obama may make claims that he can't back up but so will almost every person running for a federal office regardless of the party.
To sit here and act shocked at this is either disingenuous or naive about the nature of presidential campaigns. I don't believe Obama has a chance in of pushing anything like this plan through Congress to begin with but I expect him to tell people what they want to hear. I don't like everything I hear from his camp but I understand that I'm not going to.
The hot air in this thread alone could power millions of American homes.
The difference is Obama would have a Democratic Congress to his bidding, and much of their views falls in line with his (profit, industry bad, save the earth, tax big oil, etc.).
Our system is broken, but the only hope of anything resembling balance in D.C. is to have either a Republican president and Demo Congress or a Demo pres and Republican Congress.
None of what Obama can do domestically worries me nearly as much as what McCain would do as far as foreign policy. There is no way in I'm voting for another Republican in hopes of keeping government small. We saw how well that worked out over the past 8 years. Government got bigger by a ton and we also managed to up everything foreign policy wise.
Another stellar editorial by J. Kelly
Obama's energy plan nonsense
Saturday, August 9th
By Jack Kelly
SEN. Barack Obama's efforts to explain his energy policy indicate why his campaign has emphasized celebrity over issues. The liberal San Francisco Chronicle says he is offering "more flip-flops than a Lake Tahoe souvenir stand."
Speaking in Florida Aug. 2, Mr. Obama said he'd be willing to support drilling off the coast of Florida if it were part of a "comprehensive" energy strategy. Just two days before in Springfield, Mo., Mr. Obama had denounced offshore drilling as a "scheme," and said that Americans would be better served by more often checking their tire pressure.
What could have changed Mr. Obama's mind? The day he was dismissing offshore drilling in Missouri, a Quinnipiac poll of 1,248 likely voters was released that indicated 60 percent of Floridians favor offshore drilling.
In a speech in Lansing on Monday, Mr. Obama called for the release of 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As the Associated Press' Tom Raum noted, this was a reversal of a position he had taken less than a month before.
"The strategic oil reserve, I think, has to be reserved for a genuine emergency," Mr. Obama said in a press availability in St. Louis July 7. "You have a situation, let's say, where there was a major oil facility in Saudi Arabia that was destroyed as a consequence of terrorist acts, and you suddenly had huge amounts of oil taken out of the world market, we wouldn't just be seeing $4 a gallon oil. We could see a situation where entire sectors of the country had no oil to function at all. And that's what the strategic oil reserve has to be for."
Now, apparently, a drop in the opinion polls is reason enough to tap the strategic petroleum reserve.
The 1973 Arab oil embargo plunged our economy into a deep recession, from which we didn't fully emerge until 10 years later. We're more than twice as dependent on imported oil now as we were then. Iran has said it will cut off oil supplies from the Persian Gulf if Israel or the United States attacks its nuclear plants. Given Iran's saber rattling, to deplete the reserve now could be an act of supreme folly.
"Remember how he hooted at suspending federal gas taxes as a primary-season stunt"? the San Francisco Chronicle's editors asked. "Now he wants $1,000 rebate checks mailed out to families, paid by a windfall profits tax on the oil industry that was tried and dumped in the 1980s."
Punitive taxation of oil producers seems a peculiar way to encourage them to produce more oil. Oil and natural gas companies earned, on average, 7.4 cents on each dollar of sales in the first quarter of this year, compared to 7.6 cents for all U.S. manufacturers; 13.7 cents for computer companies such as Apple and Microsoft, and 17.8 cents for manufacturers of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products.
Oil companies are making "record" profits because 7.4 percent of $4 a gallon is twice as much as 7.4 percent of $2 a gallon, but they are making "excess" profits only in the heated rhetoric of Democratic demagogues. And although oil companies have benefited mightily from high gas prices, they aren't responsible for them. It's OPEC that restricts foreign production and Congress that prevents drilling here.
The other main components of Mr. Obama's "plan" are:
•To get 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles that average 150 miles a gallon on U.S. roads within six years.
•To require that 10 percent of U.S. energy come from renewable sources by the end of his first term.
•To reduce U.S. demand for electricity 15 percent by 2020.
He was light on details of how this would be accomplished, for good reason. These goals would require magic to be achieved.
No current plug-in hybrid gets better than 69 mpg. It will take more than the wagging of Mr. Obama's tongue to more than double that within six years. And if we could get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road, we'd be using a lot more electricity than we use now, not 15 percent less. Currently we get just 3 percent of the electricity we use from the renewables Mr. Obama favors. More than tripling that percentage in four years is not physically possible, no matter how much money is thrown at it.
Mr. Obama has a deep, rich voice. Coming from his mouth, nonsense sounds good. But it's still nonsense.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll...ST14/808090308
"Does the government need to pay for everything?"
no, but the corps will buy enough politicians to get tax breaks, subsidies, corporate welfare, without which they would not move at all, or very far. corporate welfare.
Remember the "clean coal" plant in OH? As soon as dubya pulled out, the corps did, too.
The coal-fired dirty-coal electricity plants won't get cleaned up by the corps without heavy $$ from the govt.
"Why wouldn't private industry invest as they always have?"
beause they know they can buy enough $$$ to get the pork, subsidies, tax breaks, tax cuts.
anothe example: Mainly BigPharma had overseas profits parked offshore, wouldn't bring them in until dubya reduced the rate on those profits from 35% to 5% on the govt motivation that the money would create jobs, saving the megacorps about $300B. The corps got their profits taxed at 5% then stareted laying people off.
any middle class people get to have "one time' tax break of 5%?
One or two large rental trucks filled with explosives.
One waste fuel/shipment to a nuclear reactor containing a few pounds of nuclear fuel/waste.
4-10 guys who are willing to die to detonate the trucks next to the vehicle/train delivering the fuel shipment, as the shipment passes upwind of a major city.
As long as you are OK with being downwind of the routes these shipments make, build away.
Then tell me what percentage of nuclear power plants have EVER been built for less than 300% of their original estimated cost.
Nuclear is not a realistic option for energy independence. It costs to freaking much, and has a rather nasty set of added security risks, even if the reactors themselves are built to withstand the impacts of jetliners. Add the cost of security to the costs of operating the plants, and you have a form of energy that is soooo not cost compe ive in any free market.
There are better solutions out there.
10% of our nations energy supply from renewables is not that big of a stretch, and doesn't quite require "magic".
It depends on whether or not one includes hydro as a "renewable".
Assuming not, then a solid infrastructure investment would make such an investment fairly possible. The goal is aggressive but not impossible.
http://www.johnmccain.com//Informing...f1468e96f4.htmJohn McCain Will Put His Administration On Track To Construct 45 New Nuclear Power Plants By 2030 With The Ultimate Goal Of Eventually Constructing 100 New Plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economi...r_power_plantsRecent construction cost estimates
In 2006, Business Week magazine stated, "...,the [US] industry is aiming to build new plants for $1,500 to $2,000 per kilowatt of capacity,...". However, they also added, "Trouble is, the cheapest plants built recently, all outside the U.S., have cost more than $2,000 per kilowatt."[11] 2007 estimates have considerable uncertainty in overnight cost, and vary widely from $2,950/kWe to a Moody's Investors Service conservative estimate of between $5,000 and $6,000/kWe.[12]
In June 2008, Moody's estimated the cost of installing new nuclear capacity in the US to potentially exceed $7,000/kWe. In comparison, Moody's estimated wind and solar to cost $2,000 and $3,000/kWe. However, these estimates did not take into account the capacity factor for power generation which stands at 25-35% for wind, 25% for solar and 90% for nuclear. [13] [14] [15] The capacity factor means that three to four times as many wind or solar plants need to be built to achieve any given nameplate capacity rating that a single nuclear plant could achieve. It also fails to note that the peak cost incurred in the real world for nuclear generation, was an inflation-adjusted $4000/Kwe in the 1970s.[16]
Provisional contracts for two AP1000 power stations at the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station have estimated costs of approximately $4.9 billion per power station, which is in line with an overnight cost of about $4,400/kWe. The operators are filing an application to increase customers bills by $1.2 billion (2.5%) during the construction period to partially finance capital costs.[17]
Interesting bit that.
It is VERY hard to estimate exactly how much nukes really end up costing after all is said and done.
that's only construction costs, a total pig in a poke.
the COST of uranium discovery, extraction, refining are of course very high, energy and pollution intensive, and not factored into the cost of building nukes, to say nothing of Yucca mountain nuclear waste projects.
I really wish nukes would be the answer to electrical, domistic energy, but it's VERY hard to see how, when ALL factors are considered
The containers they use to transport nuclear waste have been tested by, among other things:One waste fuel/shipment to a nuclear reactor containing a few pounds of nuclear fuel/waste.
4-10 guys who are willing to die to detonate the trucks next to the vehicle/train delivering the fuel shipment, as the shipment passes upwind of a major city.
http://www.nmcco.com/education/facts.../transport.htmThese test conditions are:
n a 30-foot free fall onto an unyielding surface, which would be equivalent to a head-on crash at 120 miles per hour into a concrete bridge abutment
n a puncture test allowing the container to fall 40 inches onto a steel rod 6 inches in diameter
n a 30-minute exposure to fire at 1,475 degrees F. that engulfs the entire container
n submergence of the same container under 3 feet of water for eight hours; containers also are subject to separate testing under 50 feet of water for eight hours.
In addition to the tests required for NRC certification, engineers and scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico conducted a wide range of tests on used nuclear fuel transportation containers in the 1970s and 1980s. These tests, which verified computer models used to design the containers, included:
n running a flatbed tractor-trailer carrying a container into a concrete wall at 60 miles per hour
n placing a container on a rail car that was driven into a concrete wall at 80 miles per hour
n placing a container on a tractor-trailer that was broadsided by a train locomotive traveling at 80 miles per hour
They also tested the containers against high explosives, but the results of those tests have been classified to keep terrorists from getting information as to how big an explosion is required to puncture the containers.
And this is all in addition to the shipments being guarded by military personnel along the way.
Let me guess: your house and your kids' school aren't currently very close to a nuclear power plant, right?
One of the most annoying things about this debate is that many of these things were in place and ready to go in the late 70s-- automobile fuel efficiency standards, tax rebates for solar and wind devices, etc., and they were all derailed in the 1980s. The US, with its wealth, ingenuity, and technological sophistication, should not be risking its national security by being beholden to Middle Eastern oil. Any honest assessment of this situation has to conclude that corporate profits have benefitted more than the health, safety, and security of the American people regarding energy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Let me guess, you don't understand that we already have nuclear reactors near (within 20-25 miles) the following major metropolitan centers:
New York City
Green Bay
Philadephia
Charlotte
Omaha
Chicago
Phoenix
Miami
and Osama hasn't managed to blow one of them up yet.
Next time you might want to check some facts before you talk out of your ass just because you like advancing the candy ass liberal agenda.
Damn, if you're that worried about it, fine. There's plenty of room in west Texas, the desert southwest, eastern California, and on the eastern side of the Applachians that are not near any population centers.
Congratulations on automatically throwing out cliched political les. For starters, I'm a fiscal conservative.
Sorry if I think it's irresponsible to subject American citizens to the dangers of radioactive waste for the next five hundred plus years, but I guess your own convenience and comfort are more important than the safety of potentially over a few billion future Americans. The extremely short-sighted posts about radioactive waste being contained by cannisters that can withstand being hit by a truck or train are incredibly stupid at best. Can they withstand a powerful bunker busting bomb one hundred years from now? Two hundred years from now? Or is that not important to you, since you won't be around?
Except for the envirowhackos in the Pacific Northwest who have, for the last 12-14 years, been conducting a campaign to TEAR DOWN exixting dams because they're bad for salmon; not to mention protesting any plans to build new ones10% of our nations energy supply from renewables is not that big of a stretch, and doesn't quite require "magic".
It depends on whether or not one includes hydro as a "renewable".
Assuming not, then a solid infrastructure investment would make such an investment fairly possible. The goal is aggressive but not impossible.
Not sure if they're the same ones who have started whining about wind farms mangling birds
You don't post like one...
It's not about my convenience and comfort. You seem to think we'd go pick up some local school crossing guards and have them protect the reactors and the nuke waste shipments, when that simply isn't the case.
And like I said, you really don't know much about what's going on. A bunker buster that would go deep enough into Yucca Mountain to get at any of that waste would have to be a nuke, and if that's the case then our country has got some bigger problems to worry about.
Again, you are the one who doesn't look into the future, because it won't matter to you. You have no idea what kind of firepower will be available 100, 200, or 500 years from now. Compare the arsenals of today's modern armies to those of just one hundred years ago, and then think about what those arsenals will look like one hundred years from now. The most brilliant military minds of the 19th century could not conceive of something as powerful as nuclear weapons... and you have no idea whatsoever what sort of tools will be available both to national armies and terrorists alike in the future.
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