1,000,000,000 Birds…… Gone

This is disturbing.  One billion birds have disappeared from North American skies since the seventies…

One third of all North American birds are threatened with extinction….

It is time for significant action… We are past the time of stripping our  Earth for monetary profits.  It is time to use some of those profits to re-invest back into this business called LIFE……..

 

BUBBLE WAR

Some people still don’t get Bernie Sanders… it is not they are stupid, but they have never been exposed to the true message… All they hear is an interpretation of him which of course has been processed and comes directly from the corporate mentality which now owns the entire media….

So they can’t be blamed for not knowing what they do not know….. (although many people try)….

Soda…. Have you ever had a soda with so many bubbles it tickles your upper nasal passages?  I did on Sunday at Burger King… What’s up with that?

You can get the same effect if you open a 2 liter bottle and inhale immediately afterwards. But if you at home pour a cup of soda and leave it… what happens? Perhaps if you come back to it in an hour, it is still drinkable.  But if you wait long enough, it goes flat…

This is essentially what happened to our economy. … and particularly it is being felt by the middle class who now, like the poor people of the South prior to the sixties, see no change of their predicament ever coming in the future…  This death of hope is almost unAmerican…

So using this analogy of spent soda, here are the options for America… Hillary and Trump are fighting over the allotment of the few bubbles left…. and who gets them… Both accept the stale soda at face value. Bernie is talking about re-infusing carbonation back into the old soda.

That is the difference… There is no real difference between Trump and Hillary unless you are a woman… or of Mexican descent…. or a Muslim…. Other than that, at the end of 4 years you on average will be poorer, with more and more money going to the top percent. If you are in the top percent, there also will be no difference in 4 years depending on whether either Trump or Hillary take power, (unless of course you are a woman, Mexican, or Muslim.)  So the race the media wants to happen will pit whites against minorities, rednecks against liberals, and dominant males against strong women…

And since that is a playbook the media knows so well, that is the one they are hellbent on pushing us towards….

But we don’t have to play it… At least not yet…

Because there is the third option:  which is to put more bubbles back into the soda so there is enough for all.. Yes, those from whose tanks the CO2 will come from will moan and bitch but they won’t die.
Now in case you are still not not able to see the analogy, let me be clear.  The CO2 stands for economic activity or money.  The soda is our economy. And you,… are the drinkers of either a glass of soda, or kool-aid….. depending on who gets elected.

 

Equaling Out Income

The income imbalance is gigantic.  You may have see this before.  It is our income imbalance as seen in three perspectives… What it is… versus what we think it is,… versus what we would like it to be.

So what would it take to make it like we would like it to be?

Obviously we would take the top 20% down from 85% ownership to around 30%… a  drop by 55% of the nation’s wealth. That would be divvied up though not equally, among the other four 20%….

So what if we used those numerical principles to tackle income inequality?  Then instead of wealth, simply use the same alignment picked by most Americans to figure out a theoretical income distribution?

In 2007 prior to the Recession American families brought in $7..723 trillion dollars….  one half of that went to the two 20% with incomes over $100,000..

If our aim were to move the slider from 50% down to 35%… then this is how much a percent of national income, the top 10% would take…   From 50% to 35% is 15% and fifteen percent of $7.7 trillion is $1.1 trillion dollars each year…

So basically to get the middle class back to where it was in the past, we need to take $1 trillion a year from the top 10% and give it back to everyone else…

America is roughly at 315 million people. and they live in 123 million households… If we lop off the top 20%, we have 80% left which is 252 million people or 98.4 million households…

Giving us 25 million households giving up their $1 trillion to be split up with 98.4 million households.

The average given would be $40,000 given up by 25 million households per year. And if spread across America’s other 80%, it would average………………..$10,204……

The economic value of that total gets reflected by the memory that the wealthy don’t spend the $40,000 into the economy; they lock it away in stocks. But an yearly extra $10,000 in the hands of the stressed 80%, gives a big boost to economic demand.

And this does not get us to equal. It is just where Americans think the levels inequality SHOULD be.

In fiscal 2014, the federal government collected nearly $1.4 trillion from individual income taxes, making it the national government’s single-biggest revenue source. (Along with corporate income taxes and payroll taxes, other sources of federal revenue include gasoline and cigarette taxes, estate taxes, customs duties and payments from the Federal Reserve.)

WE are saying this now needs to be raised to $2.4 trillion with ALL that average increase borne by the top quintile… As a rough estimate (since they are actually paying near a 25% real tax rate now), because we need double the intake of income, doubling their rates up to the 50% level for the highest margins, would bring us close to parity. Exactly to the level to which Ronald Reagan cut taxes in his first term.

THAT, should give you an indication of where we were at one time, and how bad things have been allowed to slip away from the middle class.

I should add, there is only ONE candidate who is addressing this issue…All other candidates are pandering to those who already “have”…..

Chill! Here’s Why You Must Vote In Support Of Christina’s Referendum

Many of you are being told the school taxes you pay are for nothing.  Though you pay taxes to your school district, none of that money comes back to you in any form. That was the line-up leading to 1776 when our taxes were going to Britain.  It is the line-up in this anti-school campaign. It is a disruption campaign by special interests. And I am confident that once more—in 2016—democracy in taxation will win. Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to the need of society to levy them. If you need to levy taxes, you do so.  If you don’t, you refrain from levying them…. Before the Republican-caused Recession in 2008,  Christina School District fought the corporate war (Joe Wise/Broad Institute) and that war put Christina $17 million dollars in the hole. We borrowed to pay off that war. Then, as now, the designated levies set decent levels of sufficient taxes to eventually pay off the entire debt and maintain those schools. Those taxes had been levied according to the value of ones property which for the most part, is based on the owner’s ability to pay. But the opposing top-down run Republican Party players do not believe in that principle. There is a reason. They have political debts to those who sat at their elbows. Across the entire Federal government’s spectrum to pay those political debts, they reduced the taxes of their friends in the higher brackets and left the national debt to be paid by later generations. Because they evaded their obligation, because they regarded the political debt as more important than the national debt, the Repression of 2009 which they started, gave us a seventeen-trillion-dollar handicap on us and our children. Now let’s keep this little drama straight. The actors are the same. But the act is different. Today their role calls for stage tears about paying pennies more to fund the necessary function of schools. But in the days of George W. Bush, they played a completely different part. The moral of their play is clear. They got out from under taxes then, they would get out from under taxes now—if their friends could get back into power now and if they could get back to the driver’s seat. But neither you nor they, think that we are going to allow them back in and so they apply their efforts to defeating necessary referendums which we need to continue schooling our next generation. As before the Republican Recession of 2009, we have again attempted to create a tax structure to yield revenues appropriately adequate to pay the cost of this war against ignorance of our children in this current generation, as well as the next. New or increased taxes ARE needed to enable us to provide the most basic service. Christina, one of the most efficiently run districts in the nation, is struggling with a poverty inherent in its population. Educational recovery is with us, but funds are not. Federal revenues are decreasing; State revenues are decreasing; emergency expenditures are increasing. A balanced budget is outlayed every year. This year another one is on the way. Does that sound like bankruptcy or moral decay to you? Why this increase in this district’s assessment of revenues? Because the very large property owners who lease or rent out the majority of the land in Newark and Bear, now earn more money and now spend more money. Though they are asked to pay more money in taxes, they have so much more money left for themselves and their families… For the average property owner we they can expect minimal increases. Only those who OWN property will pay the increase… Those who own bigger properties will see a small increase; this is a small referendum.  Those who own small properties will probably not even notice unless they actually look to compare one year to the next.  Those who pay rent, and that is many of you reading this, will pay nothing.  That means that less than 11% percent of the heads of Christina’s families will pay $50 dollars more than they did; and more than 89 percent will, if they pay at all, see increases between 0 and 50 dollars. If you want the answer to this talk about high taxes under this current school board administration—there it is. Taxes are higher for those who can afford to pay high taxes. They are minimal for those who can afford to pay less. That is getting back again to the American principle—taxation according to ability to pay. You would think, to hear some people talk, that those good people who live at the top of our economic pyramid are being taxed into rags and tatters. What is the fact? The fact is that they are much farther away from the poorhouse than they were in 2009. You and I know that as a matter of personal observation. A number of my friends who belong in these very high upper brackets have suggested to me, more in sorrow than in anger, that if this levy is passed, they will have to move to some other Nation because of our high property taxes here. I shall miss them very much but if they go they will soon come back. For a year or two of paying taxes in any other country in the world will make them yearn once more for the good old taxes of the U.S.A.  We have the lowest taxes anywhere on our wealthy. Far too low if you ask me. One more word on recent history. Not only did this district inherited from the current state Administration, the full cost for imposing an expensive governor’s testing regime into every school, a mistake which placed a revenue burden on providing lower-income economic families living in this district with the very basics of education, but it has also been fraught with an unfair burdens by the governor and DOE, designed not to improve the quality of student’s knowledge, but to flip it over to a zone primarily ripe for the influx of schools FOR-PROFIT. Christina’s local operating tax receipts are reduced by payments to Charter Schools and to other districts providing educational services to resident students.  Local revenues provide 41% of the district’s budget. Before the Republican caused recession of 2008-9, fifty-eight per cent out of every dollar of the districts cost came from the state as per our General Assembly.  That is now down to 51%… In order to make the top echelon and friends of the Republican Party pay less in state income taxes as the economy recovers, you, the lower level citizens are now being asked to pay more just to maintain the minimum level of expense…. Before asking you to pay more, the district has cut all fat out of their budget.  Christina has 98% of all salaried dollars directly impacting students either in the building or transportation. It is running two principals short. It has the lowest level of administrators to student in the nation.  Due to last year’s defeat by special interests, 90 teachers were cut and average class sizes swelled from 20 to 30 per room. This year we had to find new revenues to meet the immediate educational requirements. This new tax increase is merely an extension of the old property tax law and a plugging-up of the loopholes in it, loopholes which could be used only by men of very large incomes. I want to say a word to you average homeowners who are being flooded by propaganda about this tax—propaganda, incidentally, paid for by your money. It is being disseminated by those who have used corporations in the past to build up their own economic power, who seek by holding back your vote to raise the levels, to keep down their taxes. It is a fact that 89 percent of all those assessed will suffer less then a 50 dollar increase. Some none. Some a dollar. Some two. Some more. It is a fact that the new revenue only returns the district back to the basest minimum required level necessary for complying with the standards of education set by the state and Federal government. What we are concerned with primarily is principle, and the principle of this law, taxing local property to fund their local schools, is sound. If in its application imperfections are discovered, and they have been over time, they must be corrected for the good of American taxpayers and America’s students. I am certain that the average of our citizenship is not taken in by the amazing amount of tax misinformation which has been turned loose in this political campaign. People tell you the district is top heavy. But stop, look and listen. You will find what the propagandists do not tell you: is that this district is the most efficient in the nation. You will find that this district loses $20 million per year in payments to Charter Schools. Though the allowance of Charter-Schools is bad policy, unfortunately special interests have kept them still legal. That cost has to be made up.  You will find this district is forced to jump thorough more hoops required by the DOE than any district outside of East Los Angeles. You will be surprised at the unbelievable pressure put on it to fail, just so private for-profit companies can swoop in and collect all the money you currently pay, without giving back different results.  You will find these propagandists are not up-front with the truth. You will find they are purposefully trying to discredit your district’s schools to purposefully deflate your property values so they can buy you out when you leave for a song. .  They are against good schools for we all know, good schools inflate property values… Hence backers of the Republican Party at its very top, have something to do with defeating this referendum. Whether in Greenville, Kent, or Sussex County, far from the actual district itself, they have flooded your zip codes with false and misleading propaganda (often with made-up names invoking “Liberty”), both in print and robo-calls calling for the defeat of the referenda. If it fails, it WILL make it easier for them to take over your schools and pocket your property tax money in the process. .. These referenda are at the request of those local districts for whom the local revenue burden has become too heavy. Voters upon looking clearly at the costs of either a YEA or NAY action, should assumed the cost of paying small amounts in the immediate future, outweigh the entire district’s financial collapse, outweigh its inability to fulfill their function,and outweigh the plummeting property values of everyone affected. For the most part, the overwhelming majority of small time business men are like the rest of us. All of us whether we earn wages, run farms or run businesses are in one sense business men. All we seek and all they seek is a fair assessment based on the greater good for the greater number—fair play on the part of our Government in levying taxes and fair play on the part of our Government in protecting our children against financial abuses by those with large pocketbooks.. It is the special privileged who have no concern for your children, your property values, your well being. It is the special privileged who are behind this propaganda to scare you into playing right into their hands.  Like Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life, they keep their heads while you lose yours.. Once more this year we must choose between true democracy in taxation versus capitulating to the special interests in taxation. Are you willing to turn the control of your school’s taxes back to special privilege? I know the American answer to that question. Your emails, mailboxes, and texts may be loaded with suggestions of fear, and your party’s official line of communication may be filled with propaganda. But the American people will be neither bluffed nor bludgeoned. The seeds of fear cannot bear fruit in the polling booth. Inside the polling booth every American man and woman stands as the equal of every other American man and woman. There they have no superiors. There they have no masters save their own minds and consciences. There they are sovereign American citizens. There on March 23rd they will not fear to exercise the sovereignty.of the American People over special interests.

Poisoning The Well

Christian Hudson at 30045 (Eagles Crest Road, Milton, Delaware 19968; (302) 729-2178; info@FirstStateLiberty.org) is responsible for the robo calls now dialing off hate-lists compiled out of zip codes undergoing the Chrisina Referendum.

If you go to the beach, the above property is that old airport that has always been just north of Lewes…

If you’ve been here very long you may remember it as the location when as a child you looked out your window and saw this….

It was also one of the early fields featuring Pumpkin Chunking….

Today it is headquarter for Hudson Management, a wide ranging assortment of investments scattered across the winds, some of whose seeds have drifted close to home. Some of which include the wooden Fairfield Inn, Rehoboth Beach, Sam Yoder and Sons, Village of Five Points.  Other investments include:

• 300MW Wind Farm and Solar project in northern Ontario, Canada (under development)
• 150 unit ocean-front luxury residential development in San Juanillo, Costa Rica
• Video commerce network- TV Page in San Diego, CA
• Leading digital news and information network in Dallas, TX
• Self-storage investment firm with 12 locations in the US, and 2 locations in Ontario, Canada

As would any investor, zeal against taxation would become a cause celebre because taxes sap some of the return off investments… And Christian Hudson has almost zealfully crusaded against any form of taxation….

Any form of taxation…. as would any zealot I could imagine.

Here is one of his ads on removing all taxes. Here are his ideas of cutting the state budget instead of raising taxes.  Here is why they are against “smart” growth, advocating for its opposite instead.  Here is him as a plaintiff trying to remove Delaware from the Regional Gas Initiative.

Those of us who have sparred with Christian Hudson across DelawarePolitics.net and Delawareright.com are familiar with his single-mindedness whenever anything interferes with the personal accumulation of money.  Nothing wrong with that; were I raised differently it would make sense to me too.

But why would someone with no bone to pick in Lewes (Milton), employee his Robo-tax-cop machine to bother people in a district far-far away?

The first and simple reason:  it costs nothing for him to do so.. The apparatus is set up; calls are free; and all it takes is 5 minutes to leave a greeting on tape, and then off to the Sussex Country Republican Convention while voters in Christina drop what they are doing when the phone rings, rush to their phones, only to hear a taped message telling them their taxes (but not their time) are wasted and they need to vote no on the upcoming increase….

For whether your taxes are or not wasted, here is a first rate breakdown of their funding… Basically Christina District is one of the most efficient districts in the entire NATION and if it weren’t for the abject poverty endemic in both Wilmington and the Route 40 Corridor, they would be considered one of the best districts in the United States…  For the real fact is, those who are paying school property taxes across that small swath of state, are carrying the bulk of the weight for up to 90% of its students….   The real fact is that all the bad press being used to smear that district, is strictly because of the poverty that district bears; from the DOE website, we see one student in every two lives in families making less than $16,000 a year. Here is a quick succession of charts from the above Delaware-Liberal article.

Over 98% of all salaries go directly to people in the buildings or bus drivers.  From a quick search over multiple educational funding sources, that seems to be the highest of any United States of American school district….

When you don’t vote FOR a Christina referendum…. you are voting to kick children in the teeth…  Those lies of being too top heavy may apply to other districts INCLUDING  CAPE HENOPLEN WHICH ENCOMPASSES CHRISTIAN HUDSON’S DISTRICT, but it does not apply to what is probably the most efficient school district in the entire nation:… Christina.

Of course. We understand there may be personal legitimate reasons, (such as living on limited pension income that is being too-quickly drained by ever-increasing corporate fees), which could push you not to want even one more dollar of money taken from you which you can’t spend on absolutely necessities.  It’s just like there are reasons you don’t always put money in the collection plate as it’s passed by you in your church.  You are entitled to vote and that is why we put it up to a vote.  But be advised. Outside influences spreading mis-truths to achieve a certain outcome from which they are completely insulated, such as Christian Hudson and everyone who votes his way solely on ideologically grounds…. are putting loaded guns to the heads of children and pulling the triggers, especially in a place where one out of every two children comes from an under-$16,000 income family.

Just thought you all should know that…..

 

 

Feed The Hungry On WDEL

On Rick Jensen today, some figures gave us pause.  One in five Delawareans live in poverty. Three out of every five children, live in poverty. The numbers of people going hungry has gotten worse since 2012…. not better.

This happened because of the Republican’s cuts to SNAP, the food stamp program. Originally a family of four in 2012 could spend $750 a month in food stamps. Now it is down to a little over $400 dollars thanks to both Tea Party Republicans and Democrats like John Carney who cowardly don’t stand up to them.

Which means a family of 4 making less than $1500 a month working however many jobs, ate off $25 dollars a day in 2012, but now, thanks to bastards in the Republican Party, is down to 13 dollars a day!

Most go that 4th week in the cycle goes with very little or no food.  They would have to stop by charities to pick up a 50 pound box which would get them through that last week…

We all know that the recession was brutal.. But I did not know that by 2011 very few people were needing boxes and most of the charities cut back on handing them out and would only do them to order, at special requests.  In 2011 and 2012, there simply was no need….

Then came the budget cuts.. Those brutal 60% cuts which not only put hunger back into the working people’s daily ritual, but laid off large numbers of grocery and retail store employees are causing tremendous hardship.

So whereas private sector jobs are growing, and unemployment is down, the need for food is not.  One needs $50,000 in family income to stay self-efficient today. Anything less is hurting the economy and is draining some other resource from somewhere… Most often SNAP and Medicaid.

We need to realize that despite as much as we like their entertainment, we cannot afford Republicans.. But until we root out the prime cause, stingy people in power, we desperately need charities to fill the void.  Please make some of your holiday money go to a cause that is probably the most important and most politically correct of a choice you could possibly make in this life…

Big thank you to the Riley family… ❤

Go  here, click on the banner. and donate…

 

Politics 2016

As we approach the new year, the clowns will begin dropping out and all begin to take a serious view over who can be our next president.  By now a normal trend; it happens every four years.

The reason we have to put up with the clowns is  because across all of America, there is gross disenchantment over  the way things are.   A gross enchantment so huge, that unifies both the extreme right and extreme left into a larger classification.

These two opposite sides actually have a common denominator.  Both sides are both unhappy how the needs of real human beings are being trumped by those whom they have elected and trusted to serve them.

On the right it is the tea party types who are erroneously easy to dismiss as primitive forms of intelligence.  On the left is its those who exhale in triplicate just to hear themselves breathe, usually with complaints regarding how good programs are not good enough to their liking.

Or so each are characterized by the other side’s talk radio hosts…..

But in reality, both have a deep love of the America they grew up under and see it slipping away by the minute.  Both share the same vision that America needs to be great again, but simply differ on the approaches required to achieve that aim which can be characterized as such.  The left believes we need to change somethings in our system of governing; the right believes we have to change individual people one by one.

The common enemy in both parties surprisingly is the bloc of moderates spanning both parties who compromise too freely against their parties values and who seem  too prone to cater to business at the expense of individual constituent’s wishes and demands.  Rather bizarrely, we three parties, if you include this business class in the middle of both and only when two of the three agree, does anything get accomplished.

In Delaware this is played out in the opt out movement where the Governor (business party) used his veto and the head of the House of Representatives (business party) shows no sign of bringing it up to be overturned.. Enough votes (Dems and Repubs) are present to do so, just little procedural matter is all that is now boxing up the two wings wishes…’

Nationally the same scenario is being played out in that all the candidates are the same except one.  Only one candidate of either party is taking on corporate America.  All the rest are fortressed and supported by Corporate America marking all the differences actually existing between them as petty and insignificant when compared to the pressing needs at hand.

No matter who is elected, we can have no real change over the next four years unless that one who is different and from Vermont, wins.

So despite all the banter our main stream media is giving us, (whose staff is primarily and pathetically reduced to snooping on Twitter and putting that up as “real news”), the real question emerging as voters begin to look seriously, needs to be:  who will actually make that change that benefits me?

Only one.  Right now only one candidate’s platform can make the huge changes required to wean America off its penchant for developing profits, and turn America back to work on developing its people. Which is what the extremes of both right and left believe need to be done.

Because behind all the arguments about trade, abortions, shootings, and economics, the real solution to making your life better, is to put more money into your pocket as well as the pockets of the rest of the 99%.,…

Because you really aren’t politically free, unless you are also economically free. For unless you can quit that job you don’t like, can’t stand, or hate, and quickly find another one, you are not free.  If you have no choice but to work at that crumby job, you simply do not taste freedom.

Only one candidate’s platform will change that now;  it requires raising taxes on the one percent.

According to Fortune estimates, on this planet global households together have amassed over  $250 trillion in assets.   The one percent now owns 50% of that which translates into their ownership of $125 trillion in net worth. If this net worth were conservatively earning 7% per year in interest ($17.5 trillion), and the capital gains tax were raised to 50% marginal levels only on this select group, it would pump a lost $8.5 trillion back into the economy per year.

This is money that could be spent on combating global warming.  This is money that could be spent on making normal citizens earn more.  This is money that could be spent on ending hunger world wide. This is money that could rejuvenate cities providing great future for ones youth. This is money that could be spent on education.

And this money is absolutely free.

For the $7.5 trillion taxed and reinvested through governments around the world will offer (at minimum) a 2:1 rate of investment, meaning that the $7.5 trillion taxed and spent will generate a yield a $15 trillion return on that investment. Which since the wealthy own one half of all wealth, this means they get to re-pocket $7.5 trillion which they just gave up.  And if investment returns are higher, by ratios of 3, 4, 5,  even 10, they make out big time. Win, win, win.

Right now, only one person says he will do this.

Compared to this sea change, none of the other little things matter. If that yearly $7.5 trillion dollars through increased economic activity, is averaged out to all the 7.5 billion of this planets dwellers (of course it won’t be), it actually gives every single person a $1000 dollar increase of money they get to keep… They will see it in two ways; one they will see part of it in expenses going down and part of it in salaries going up.

Only one person across both parties fields has the wisdom take on Wall Street now knowing that it gets more expensive to do so by each hour.  OUT of all the candidates on both parties… ONLY ONE is not beholden to the interests of the top 1%.

You need to send him  money, whether you’re a Republican or Democrat. Both party’s networks are thoroughly tainted by corporate money. But one person isn’t…

In 2002 we gave the top one percent a loan from the American people which was to make us all wealthier over time.  They got their money, and kept it; we were polite and nice about asking for restitution. Apparently enough time has gone by, they think it is theres.  Meaning, it’s now past time we called back our loan which we originally gave to the top 1% via the Bush Tax Cuts. …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOT 111’s ; Delaware’s Potential Atomic Bomb

Courtesy of AP/Nati Harnik

This is the DOT 111…. It is called the traveling nuclear bomb.  This rail car was deemed unsafe in 1990… it still carries 65% of the crude across North America….  It is these cars that blew up La Magnetic in Quebec.  It is these cars that blew up Casselton, North Dakota.  It is the cars that blew up in Lynchburg, VA just last week…

Here is the explanation via video.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been urging replacing or retrofitting the tank cars since 1991 (George H.W. Bush was president), but the most recent federal effort to write tougher regulations for new cars didn’t get underway until 2011…. You can rightly blame the oil presidency for that delay. New rules are to be out by this upcoming December….

Though these cars look nice, they are easily ruptured in an accident, spilling out their contents.  With US oil production being up 70% over 2009 levels, increasing per day production from 5 million barrels to 8.5 million barrels per day, these cars are getting a heavier workout than at any time in their history.  Increased exposure means increased potential for a harmful accident….

U.S. freight railroads transported about 415,000 carloads of crude in 2013, up from just 9,500 in 2008, according to government and industry figures. That is an increase of 4200%….  So yes, that translates to having 4200 times more of a chance at a spill, 4200 more of a chance at an explosion, or 4200 more chance of a death or maiming….

The rail and chemical industries have committed to a safer design for new tankers but are pressing regulators not to require modifications to tens of thousands of existing cars, despite a spike in the number of accidents…  It is modifications to these cars that will save lives..

Essentially we and regulators are being asked to trade in our lives for their money….  In other words they can fix the problem, but it will cost them money to do so, and they don’t want that.  Since if a train explodes not that many people will die, that is an acceptable loss society should bear they say, so as not to invest any money into a tank car that will soon be scrap metal once newer safer cars are available…..

After last years explosions Canada has moved forward on making their railroads safer… The US has gotten as far as a Congressional Hearing.

Then 2 months ago, the NSTB issued an emergency order.  The order requires all crude oil be properly tested before being transported. And all crude that travels by rail must be carried in these DOT-111 tank cars. The older DOT-111 tank cars were deemed inadequate by the National Transportation Board more than 20 years ago.

Some crude from the Bakken region, including the oil in the tragic Lac Megantic derailment, was misclassified.  What that means is that potentially explosive crude oil was being shipped in rail cars even less safe than the DOT-111’s.  The so-called misclassification has resulted in $93,000 in fines.

 

So if you are driving through Bear, and a train is crossing your path, look up and see if the rail cars look like the one above,  If so, make  U turn and get out of there… quick!   The extra few minutes your drive may cost you, could mean a lifetime of thank-yous….

Ernie Diana$ta$i$

This was in his editorial:  

“One of the best investments the business community can make is to simply share our knowledge of leadership, goal-setting and time management. “

Business community:  shall we present your knowledge of leadership?

“I don’t care if you do think it’s a really stupid piss poor idea that will destroy my business. It’s my way or the highway… Wait a minute. You’re fired! So it’s the highway. There! I decided it for you!..  Seriously, how about them apples?…”

Business community:  shall we present your knowledge of goal setting…?.

“Um.  If they meet their goal, they will all get lazy afterwards and not want to do anything… I know, I’ll raise the goal 4 gazillion times higher than anyone can possibly achieve in reality!… Then I’ll fire them for not meeting it… That should keep them scared of me and on their toes…”

Business community:  shall we present your knowledge of time management?

“Holy piss!  Grading these motherfvcking papers? I’m not doing them, they can kiss my fvcking a$s.   I don’t have time for that s\it… I gotta tee off at 2:30…..”

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Somehow… I think as far away, as we can keep businesses from our kids while they are growing up…. the better all will be….  Kids have the right to grow up right.

Our children can learn what real assholes are, AFTER college is finished….  like, duh,… when it’s time to enter the…… business world……  heavens.  Who in their screwed-up mind still thinks that businesses are something holy to still be venerated?   Duh… How long has it been since Cheney took over our country?  Fourteen years now?

 

10 Cent Gas Tax: Pro’s and Con’s

Cons

Raises tax on gasoline by 10 cents  per gallon.  If gas costs $3.33 today, with tax it will cost $3.43.

Does not tax the wealth as much a percent of their income, as it would tax those on the lower levels.

Takes consumer’s money away from discretionary spending on other items.

Could cause truckers to fuel up in other states.

At a drive rate of 25,000 miles per year, at an mpg of 20 miles per gallon, the number of gallons used would be 1,250.  A ten cent tax on each of those gallons amounts to $125 per year…  Per month that would be .. $10.41… Per day…$ 0.32…  If one drives less, or has higher mpg, one pays less.

Gasoline tax has lost its value over the past decade. Changes in fuel-saving automotive technology and driving habits are resulting in less revenue to repair crumbling bridges, repave highways or upgrade buses and trains.

Pros

Jobs, jobs, jobs,  with funding highway construction can get into gear.

Solidifies the Transportation Trust Fund, which has been robbed to simply run government. That’s been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, and specifically what has been squeezed out of it is the ability to build more capacity to deal with congestion. All that’s left, pretty much, in the capital budget at the state level (for roads), is maintenance and repair.

DelDOT’s capital budget would increase from $128 million this year up to $192 million next year.

Opens door of super high tax rate on the super high wealthy in this state. Those who should be paying 15%.

Encourages people to use less petroleum.  Smaller cars, higher MPG’s, more public transit, less pollution,  get bumps when gas rises higher.

Allows state to tap in on all those people using 95 who pull into the best service center on the East Coast, perhaps the nation.

County and local roads which have also have suffered, may now finally receive repair.

The current poor condition of roads costs drivers in Delaware cost $2,500 per person per year in extra fuel, wear-and-tear and lost time.  This cost must be balanced against the cost of an additional 10 cents per gallon. (Compared to the $125 per year cost of the tax.)

We paid more in the past.  Driving the same 25,000 miles back when cars ran on 10 mpg,  the same mileage would have generated.  $250 dollars…  Fuel efficiency has cost state transportation funds half of what they once used to receive….

The tax was last raised in 1995… Since then, what we could once buy for $250.00, we would now need $382.00.  The money we collect does not go half as far….

States with lower gas taxes actually pay more for the gas in the pumps because the market will bear it.  Sam’s Gas (Walmart) in Athens, Georgia, where there is  a 7.5 cents Georgia state tax on gasoline…. sells gas for $2.99….   Putting the price of  the cheapest Athens, Georgia gas today is $2.915… In Delaware, Wawa has $3.23 up on their sign, (as of a couple of hours ago.)  Today Delaware’s tax is 23 cents per gallon…  The cost of the gas minus taxes is $2.99….  some may say… aha!  Georgia is cheaper.  But that would be comparing Sam’s Club to Wawa.  One would expect Sam’s Club to be cheaper… It is a “club”… is it not?  The lowest priced national brand in Athens, Georgia is the Shell Station on Atlanta Ave. near Trade Street.  It’s pump cost is $3.19…  Deduct the 7.5 cent gasoline tax, and Georgians are paying $3.115 per gallon for gas;  the comparative Delawarean price with Delaware’s tax tacked on, would be… $3.35….  Today that is 8 cents higher than most stations sell in Delaware today…..  Point is… consumers don’t absorb the gas cost… The $4 billion dollar gas companies do!

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The benefits outweigh the cost.

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With so many great benefits, it seems senseless to halt them all for a price jump that can occur on it’s own at a moment’s notice…  No more difference from driving past a gas station in night checking the price, and doing it again in the morning and cursing you didn’t fill up the night before…

Thus, are the pros and cons of raising a gas tax….  if the poor and middle class are being asked to sacrifice, come later, THE WEALTHY HAD BETTER BE FORCED TO DO THE SAME…. IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR YOU KNOW……  Pass this minor tax on the poor, then raise state income rates where they should be… As a reminder I’ve included them below…….

Recommendations for 2014:

Go to multiple tiered tax rates:

15% on $1 billion or more
10% on $100 million to $1 billion
9% on $10 million to $100 million
8% on $1 million to $10 million
7% on $500,000 to $1 million
6.75% on $60,000 up to $1 million