A $ucker Born Every Minute

[HuFlungDung]

Does this mean I don't get to be King?

I would imagine that the whole rationing concept could be handled within the income tax/gst/child tax credit system of the CCRA, aka Revenue Canada. All the subjects, er, I mean taxpayers need to do is keep their energy receipts and let the royal computers autocalculate the potential refund. Of course, I will be needing new gold plating for my castle stonework

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by HuFlungDung Does this mean I don't get to be King? I would imagine that the whole rationing concept could be handled within the income tax/gst/child tax credit system of the CCRA, aka Revenue Canada. All the subjects, er, I mean taxpayers need to do is keep their energy receipts and let the royal computers autocalculate the potential refund. Of course, I will be needing new gold plating for my castle stonework

Sire

I could see a system like that being workable, one question though. I assume Canada has a public assistance program similar to the US's welfare system in some form or fashion. How do we refund their unused credits? File a return and recieve a credit on only those expenditures minus perhaps the discounts (applicable in USA at least) they recieve on heating oil? How would you track and assess (sp) penalties for over usage?

Bowingly yours,
Subject Scott :P

[Geof]

Here is another alternative which should appeal to Hu because he's agin us...whoops I mean them...rich people getting all the perks.

Just let prices go as they will and then institute an energy surtax. If you are receiving more money you must be responsible for more energy consumption: I mentioned this in a thread Hu started, energy consumption is synonymous with economic activity. So it is reasonable the the biggest earners pay the biggest surtax. Then just cut taxes on low incomes and if someone is already below the taxable limit they get a negative tax, i.e., a subsidy.

[Wade]

You guys are killing me. I hope I stepped into the middle of a long running joke.

We don't need another excuse for middle class to pay through the nose while the Ophra watchers sit at home in their government housing, and get a check for not moving. And, the rich come up with a way to skim the cream off the top. There's only two things wrong with the current system.

one: we let the oil companies merge. Reverse that. And, quit making it impossible for new oil companies to start. Like, hand out some permits to build refining plants. We got rid of the competition side of our capitalist system. Think Southwest, after deregulation.

two: we need a space race, of energy. We need to find some ways to create energy at home, and conserve. No more middle east purchases. Wind mills, fission, fusion, tital currents, solar mirror collectors, solar thermal, solar voltaic, solar reflective streets and roof tops, wind chimneys, dams, building houses more efficiently, set MPG limits that push technology, fund LED/SED lighting research, shut off the damn street lights, set limits on power usage by DVD players etc., it will all add up to more than anything else your talking about.

And, a lot of the simple conservation stuff, will not cost the government anything. It will put people to work, creating designs that meet specifications.

Heck, you have any idea why a high-end computer processor pulls 60 amps of current, partly because of the E = number of gates * frequency * gate capacitance * (voltage^^2). But mostly, because they don't shut off the 95% of the chip that isn't being used. There's no "advantage" to making the chip efficient.

Since I'm in the middle of rant, why not tell those idiots, that I despise more than words can describe, that buying some carbon offset bumper sticker, or shutting motorized access to the national forest down, is not a way to make up for your fat lazy up-ity butt driving a giant SUV, or living in a 4000sq-ft home. Anyone, that keeps their house at 80+ degrees shouldn't be allowed to even speak to me about the environment. But sure enough, you follow the loudest environmentalist around, and you'll find out he is the worst energy hog there is. Oh, and one more thing, the only thing causing all of these problems is the world is over populated. You fix that, you fix the problem.

In short, you can't trust the governments with more tax money. You can't trust the governments with the new universal currency, carbon credits. The whole carbon dioxide thing is a complete joke. There's nothing wrong with this country using lots of energy. You just need to engineer your way out of the problem, not throw your hands up and surrender. Don't tax people that work, put people to work fixing this.

[Geof]

Originally Posted by Wade .....Anyone, that keeps their house at 80+ degrees shouldn't be allowed to even speak to me about the environment....

I take exception to this!!!! I keep my house at 80 degrees sometimes and I would still claim the right to preach to you about the environment if I so chose. Why do you think the temperature at which my house is at has any bearing whatsoever on the validity of my opinion?

I will concede I only choose to keep this type of temperature for a short time each year, generally when the outside temperatures are above 80 degrees.

[Wade]

You are most correct.

During the periods when the ambient air temperature is below 60 degrees, I hereby take exception to persons keeping their homes at 80+ temperatures.

[Shotout]

Wade,

Maybe not a joke but I was having fun exploring my opinions and maybe broadening my perception.

We all signed NAFTA so build the refineries right across the border in Mexico, run two pipelines, one for crude one for refined fuels and the refinery problem is fixed. What isn't fixed is the fact big oil doesn't want to build them since that would end one excuse they have to rob people. Breaking up the oil companies would work a little, until the upstarts got in league with the others. Nationalization, such an ugly term to an American as it is, would solve more problems until bogged down by bureaucracy. Heck the oil companies owe the US taxpayer anyway, if my understanding is correct they don't pay taxes like other corps do.

An energy race would be great, but the financial incentives are all speculative at this time so you don't see a lot of funding dumped into it by the private sector like the govt did with the space race. Also that was all in house bringing in the best and brightest, you'd have to do the same thing again to keep from wasting funds on duplicate research and to ensure all information is available to every division. What might be worthless to the fusion guys might end up being the holy grail to the wind guys, that kind of thing. As I said earlier conservation should be the watch word, more efficient engines, cleaner exhausts, better utilization of what we have now.

Rant away! Al Gore is Head Fox in Charge of Security at Chicken House Inc, not to mention all the lesser publicized jack@$$e$ that think they have a divine right to squander resources while dictating to others what they should or shouldn't do since they are "preaching the gospel".

Trust the Govt???? To waste, mismanage and divert funds while perverting the spirit of the laws or regulations maybe. Private sector will always serve the public interest providing sufficient competition and enough real profit in the market. To paraphrase, intentions don't kill economies, regulations do.

Scott

[Wade]

Yes, a energy space race is a tricky problem.

How to fund such a thing? How do you keep the Government Welfare Contractors from sucking all the funds out of the project? How do you get the best and brightest to come forward, for little pay, and make something like fusion work?

After all, fixing this is worth what, a couple trillion dollars. Potentially millions of American lives. Maybe the government offers an X prize. 1/2 a trillion dollars to anyone that can figure it out, and make it work.

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by Wade Yes, a energy space race is a tricky problem. How to fund such a thing? How do you keep the Government Welfare Contractors from sucking all the funds out of the project? How do you get the best and brightest to come forward, for little pay, and make something like fusion work? After all, fixing this is worth what, a couple trillion dollars. Potentially millions of American lives. Maybe the government offers an X prize. 1/2 a trillion dollars to anyone that can figure it out, and make it work.

It will be funded, it just will take longer at the current levels of funding to make the break throughs that will be definitive enough to get the major funding that will accelerate the pace. Look at the hybrid car market now. When I was a teen in the mid 80's I remember reading about the cars of the future, hybrids and straight electric. 20 years later they are here for mass consumption. Why so long? IMO people weren't aware on a deep level of the problems with emmisions and the limited nature of oil so the market didn't exist. No one anticipated the current demand for fuels, coal oil etc, so it was considered a problem for the future when other tech would be easily substituted, which never did miraclously appear. That attitude has changed and now we have a market so we are seeing new tech enter the market. I would prefer to see the tech developed sooner rather than later, like after Mexico city become uninhabitable due to smog or the national power grid takes a major one.

I'd like to see an international effort from Universities to push for some kind of co-op program funded through all the gov'ts that have a tech base to contribute. That would make it a public property and to address Hu's concerns, it would prevent private ownership of the resulting tech. The gov'ts involved can then license it for use in their own countries, let the energy companies bid for the rights to produce the energy and sell it and the license requires that a surcharge amount be added to every kWh as a flat charge royalty that goes to the gov't. Then the gov't has a new income source that is actually pretty fair since the more energy you use the more you will pay just like a flat tax system. With as many consumers as the US has a very small amount of surcharge per consumer would add up to real money. Just a thought.

Scott

[CoolHand]

Honestly, all I'm hoping for is to make it out of this whole fiasco financially intact, and with the absolute minimum in losses to my civil liberties.

Every single "solution" to this problem comes with heaps and piles of new government controls. National RFID tags on your car, national registration and gas cars to get fuel anywhere at all, personal ID this, GPS tracking that, accountable, traceable, locatable, real time, etc, etc, etc.

Boil it down and it equates to never being able to be out of the governments gaze without resorting to seriously drastic measures. I for one see no reason why anyone should need to know where I'm at or what I'm doing at any time for any reason.

When you can no longer drop your credit cards and blend into the background whenever you please for whatever reason you please, you might as well tattoo a number on your wrist.

IMO the whole CO2 = Global Warming scenario is bull****, but even if it wasn't, I'd rather drown at the top of Pike's Peak as a free man than be safe and sound and cataloged and accounted for at all times. You might as well be a veal in a crate at that point.

[sdantonio]

Originally Posted by CoolHand IMO the whole CO2 = Global Warming scenario is bull****, but even if it wasn't, I'd rather drown at the top of Pike's Peak as a free man than be safe and sound and cataloged and accounted for at all times. You might as well be a veal in a crate at that point.

I heard a news report last week in fact (CNN or something like that), where some Canadian professor of planetary physics has said that he now has proof that all of the warming we have been seeing (the 0.5 degree) is due to the sun and solar cycles and that by the mid 2020's everyone will be crying about a mini ice ace.

Sounds like the 40 year cycle idea strikes again.