41% of American GDP is in Debt: Will it be 82% after 10 years? »
Posted By WikiMap 5 months, 3 weeks ago in NewsThe price of oil is up over the last several months as the US dollar index falls to its lowest level in months—in fact, pretty much of a free fall. Oil and the dollar tend to run inversely now. Gold is up $50 dollars since we last looked at it: at about $975 an ounce.
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FrankHummel5 months, 3 weeks ago
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A Way Out-
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I, for one, would offer something more than a mere SYMBOLIC expression of "respect" and/or "sympathy" for the growing throng of economically (and in many cases even physically) dispossessed people. I would like to seriously suggest a fundamental REDIRECTION of the energies and resources of this entire society that could CONSTRUCTIVELY utilize their capacities (and indeed those of ALL THE REST of "us" as well!) in endeavors that would SUSTAIN them (and “us”) economically --- and could enable many to REDEEM sacrifices they have been (I, for one, think MIS)led to make.
I submit that the TECHNOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVES to the war in which “we” have been caught up DO INDEED EXIST --- and have LONG EXISTED(!), CONTRARY to the notion that has been propagandistically cultivated among a hugely techologically IGNORANT preponderance of "We the People", many of whom have evidently been beguiled into believing that any meaningful change is predicated on hypothetical "exotic, futuristic" NEW developments "in the laboratory" over, say, the next fifty years or so.
But the truth of the matter is that by the application of very OLD technological concepts --- applying to the mere automobile things worked out MANY YEARS AGO NOW ALREADY in much HEAVIER-DUTY systems --- "we" could have, beginning DECADES ago already, by now easily FLAT-OUT ELIMINATED about THREE-FOURTHS of all the oil importation to refine into gasoline to fuel "our" automotive vehicular fleet --- had “we” but had the wit and the wisdom to do so!! And “we” would have, incidentally, thereby simply greatly DIMINISHED the "economic" OVER-valuation of the stuff, which is what has ACTUALLY rendered it so "lucrative" (even to the point of being “worth” fighting over), and thus AVOIDED the huge waste of an entire WAR / WORLDWIDE CONFLICT that has now crashed “our” whole economy! -
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FrankHummel5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Now however OUTRAGEOUS and OUTLANDISH such an assertion may sound to many, make no mistake about it: PRECISELY THAT genuinely, simply IS the implication of the “new” ELECTRIC / I.C.E. "CHIMERA" automotive architectural concept --- exemplified by the (hopefully) soon to be forthcoming (but really much belated!) Chevy VOLT --- or if not that, then by its now slightly-FARTHER-advanced (recently formally "unveiled") EUROPEAN counterpart (jovially dubbed the AMPERE), to be followed shortly (no doubt) by still other entries into the “development derby” coming from all those clever folks over in ASIA.
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The idea involves BATTERY POWER carrying the car for a number of miles (in the case of the VOLT, FORTY), with an internal combustion engine then kicking in if (and only if) the battery runs down. But FULLY THREE-FOURTHS of all personal auto usage "fits" within a forty-mile power budget! You go to the store, bank, dentist, etc., and you come back home AND PLUG THE CAR BACK INTO THE WALL. MOST OF THE TIME THE PETROLEUM-POWERED ENGINE NEVER RUNS! The car is thus mainly powered by resources that “WE” can supply for “OUR”SELVES!
Now actually, BOTH components of this "chimera" involve VERY OLD technology. ELECTRIC cars have been around since the EARLIEST days of the automobile! (And by the way, the speed record for ELECTRIC-powered cars these days out at the Bonneville Salt Flats now stands IN EXCESS OF FOUR HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR. So how’s THAT for speed and power?) Moreover, the I.C.E "fallback" component, involving a petroleum-powered engine coupled NOT to an elaborate, troublesome, expensive TRANSMISSION / DRIVE TRAIN but, rather, merely to a GENERATOR that supplies ELECTRIC drive motors (the same ones powered by the BATTERY until it runs down!) --- is a paradigm implemented MANY YEARS AGO NOW ALREADY on a much larger scale on the RAILROADS and also in the BIGGEST SHIPS on the high seas! Anybody ever hear of the DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE?? (THAT is how such behemoths ACTUALLY WORK!) -
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FrankHummel5 months, 3 weeks ago
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The truth is, really BIG-MUSCLE machines have LONG relied on relatively simple, UNbreakable MAGNETIC-force drive elements rather than on complex, fallible mechanical ones --- because “we” simply couldn’t BEGIN to engineer a viable FRICTION-based CLUTCH to harness an internal combustion engine --- which by its basic nature cannot operate all the way down to ZERO RPM as an ELECTRIC motor can --- to start a really HEAVY load moving!
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As for the operating costs of such a “chimera”, about EIGHTY CENTS worth of “grid” power “fills the VOLT’S tank”. Eight such forty-mile “fill-ups”, costing about $6.40, carries the vehicle about 320 miles --- THE SAME DISTANCE AS A TANK OF GASOLINE THAT COSTS OVER FOUR TIMES AS MUCH! (And if one is smart enough to gather one’s OWN energy for ONE’S SELF via solar photovoltaic panels or a windmill it could even be FREE!) Moreover, such cars should also ultimately be MUCH CHEAPER TO BUILD --- as one simply DISPENSES WITH the complex, expensive TRANSMISSION / DRIVE TRAIN! (Note that there simply IS NO TRANSMISSION on a Diesel-electric locomotive!)
Furthermore, “we” really SHOULD ALSO have (LONG AGO NOW ALREADY!) seriously begun --- as per the recent proposals of famed “oil”man T. Boone (“T-Bone”?) Pickens --- the CONVERSION (which could be accomplished as a RETROFIT!) of all those BIG TRUCKS and other heavy vehicles over to NATURAL GAS (in the form of LNG) --- which “we” possess (for “OUR”SELVES!) in ABUNDANCE for quite a while longer (until HYDROGEN alternatives eventually come to replace BOTH interim “stopgap” technologies!).
So GET BUSY, FOLKS --- doing something POSITIVE that would actually be USEFUL (in place of much of the “fluff” on which so many people evidently consume themselves nowadays)!-
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FrankHummel5 months, 3 weeks ago
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I submit that those who now dither and blather about the "meltdown" in the "financial sector" are in reality BEING DIVERTED AWAY from what really should be the MAIN object of their exasperation --- which is actually the FAILURE of "our" past MISguided (or maybe more like MISBEGOTTEN!) MIS"leadership" (of both the “political”, and also “corporate” and OTHER varieties!) who FAILED to fulfill their ACTUAL obligations to the membership of this society (and others) --- which would have been to OPTIMIZE BOTH THE CHARACTER AND THE QUALITY OF "OUR" TECHNOLOGY and PRODUCTS, rather than to merely MAXIMIZE ”THEIR” MONEY!
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Now I wonder just how THAT sort of technological / economic realization must now weigh on all the folks who long SPONSORED and BANKROLLED the likes of a Saddam Hussein (however unwittingly) --- by blithely buying up so much of what he "had to sell" (and then brainlessly, wastefully burned it up as a mere fuel to power “our” automobiles!) --- and who (or whose kids and grandkids) then subsequently came to be lured off into fighting a dirty little "OIL war" over in Iraq, making "us" lots of enemies there and the world over --- in some cases even coming back DEAD OR PERMANENTLY DAMAGED THEMSELVES or maybe having LOST LOVED ONES OR FRIENDS therein??
Surely that is an UGLY, HATEFUL reality to which to have to face up. But would it somehow be any "better" for people to now just meekly try to erect a "psychological defensive barrier of DENIAL", letting their (under-the-circumstances) RIGHTFUL wrath and ire be "harmlessly" diverted over to and dissipated on mere practitioners of artificial hocus-pocus involving "our" "financial system"?! Would not THAT actually merely COMPOUND the fraud that has been foisted off on all the REALLY aggrieved victims??!
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