The Crisis Report - 84
“Half empty” or “half full”?
How do you see these things?
What do they signal about the future to you?
AMERICAN INTERNAL DIVISION AND WEAKNESS
No matter how improved the Democrats position seems. The Democrats only have about a 50% chance of winning in November.
Silver Bulletin 2024 presidential election forecast, All the numbers for Trump vs. Harris.
According to Nate Silver 96% of voters have chosen a side. Only about 4% of the pool of voters is still “in play” and “sway-able” before the election.
In 2020 the election was decided by 2%. Trump 49% versus Biden 51%. America is DEEPLY and EVENLY divided.
Trump could lose the popular vote and “win” the Electoral College vote.
That’s what happened in 2016. In fact, of the 3 elections that Republicans “won” between 2000 and 2020 (2000, 2004, and 2016). In 2 of those 3 they didn’t win the popular vote (2000 and 2016).
The Electoral College favors Republicans because of the “low population, white dominated” states and the “Old South” states where white racist populations still dominate. In 1968 with Nixon’s victory over Humphrey this became clear.
Nixon won the popular vote over Humphrey by only 1%. 13% of the vote went to the openly racist American Independent Party of George Wallace. A LOT of young Progressive voters stayed home in protest after Gene McCarthy refused to endorse Humphrey at the Convention.
Nixon won by 1% of the popular vote in 1968.
He won DECISIVELY in the Electoral College vote.
Those facts were the basis of the “Southern Strategy”. It welded Southern White Racist voters to the White Racist voters of the Midwest and created an unbeatable majority.
It was very successful, between 1968 and 2008, the Republicans took the presidency 28 out of 40 years. They would have had a “clean sweep” if it hadn’t been for Watergate in the 70’s and Ross Perot in the 90’s (he split the Republican vote).
There are more Democrats overall, but they live in fewer states and that handicaps them in the Electoral College and in the Senate.
If Trump loses the popular vote and ekes out an Electoral College “win”, should the 51% ACCEPT the outcome?
Should the MAJORITY accept “White racist minority rule” and the implementation of “Project 2025”?
Should they accept the imposition of a “Christian Fascist White Nationalist” rule by people who have stated that they intend to rewrite the rules so that they “never lose another election”.
Or should there be civil war?
Lets not forget four years ago when the George Floyd protests were happening across America. On Jul 25, 2020 I wrote this.
The news this week has been at a surreal level of dystopian scariness. American citizens have been snatched off the street by men in paramilitary uniforms, forced into unmarked vans, and hauled away. Without advisement of their Miranda rights. Without any of the due process of law that supposedly distinguishes the US from a police state or third world dictatorship.
Without probable cause and without identification of the men kidnapping them. Because it was not an arrest, detaining someone in this fashion is by definition kidnapping.
When did ICE and CBP build an army that’s under the personal control of the President?
Who authorized this?
Where did the money to pay their salaries, train, and equip them come from?
How many of them are there?
How long has this been going on and why did anyone think these units were necessary?
The implications of these units are deeply disturbing, and their existence should be a major topic of discussion in the upcoming election. The Republicans need to be called to account for this and DHS needs to be purged of everyone involved in this proto-Gestapo.
Because what it looks like to me, is that they are doing unit shakedowns in anticipation of needing to do post-election riot suppression.
The Trumpublicans have already shown that they are “ready and willing” to wage an internal “Dirty War” and make people “disappear”. That they are willing to turn DHS into a “Secret Police” to be used against “Enemies of the People”.
Should the MAJORITY allow a MINORITY to create a Misogynistic Apartheid Nation because of a quirk in the rules that they have ruthlessly exploited?
The Trumpublicans are taking a “win at any price” stance towards this Election. The Supreme Court has made clear that they will make it easier for states dominated by Trumpublicans to “question” the election results.
Georgia election board says counties can do more to investigate election results
Georgia's State Election Board has voted to require county election officials to make a "reasonable inquiry" before…
Trump's focus on Georgia election board raises fears for November vote
The board's majority enacted a series of changes to state election rules this week, days after the former president…
WE CANNOT TRUST THE TRUMPUBLICANS IN POWER.
Yet no matter who wins.
America is DEEPLY DIVIDED and weak.
FOOD or ENERGY?
Chinese Solar Farms Are Crowding Out Much-Needed Crops — WSJ Aug 1, 2024
China installed more solar-power capacity last year than the U.S. has built in its history. Now Beijing is worried that the push may have gone too far in some places as solar farms encroach on cropland, undermining leader Xi Jinping’s goal of ensuring China can feed itself.
The issue garnered national attention after state broadcaster China Central Television aired a report on it earlier this year.
While the solar sector deserves support, “no matter how good the industry, it shouldn’t violate state laws and go against the central government’s policies,” CCTV warned. “The protection of farmland is a major matter related to national security strategy.”
Food security is paramount for Chinese leaders, given the country’s limited water supply and arable land. Past food shortages including the Great Famine of 1959–61 threatened stability, and climate change is raising fears of new threats to agriculture, with drought affecting parts of the country this year.
Despite some increases in food production in recent years, it hasn’t been enough to keep up with increasing demand.
Xi has said that officials must “resolutely defend China’s arable land red line” of roughly 300 million acres nationwide to ensure the country doesn’t become more dependent on imports, including soybeans from the U.S. and elsewhere.
According to state media, the rate at which arable land has disappeared due to urbanization, illegal encroachment and other factors has accelerated in recent decades.
The government’s latest land survey showed China lost more than 18 million acres of arable land in the 10 years up to the end of 2019, bringing the total down to roughly 316 million acres.
“As early as 2013, I’ve said that we must protect farmland like how we protect giant pandas,” Xi said in 2020.
“As solar energy expands, the loss of cropland will become a pressing issue that requires urgent attention,” another group of researchers warned in a November commentary published by the journal Nature Geoscience. “Countries grappling with renewable energy development and facing spatial development imbalances, as in China, must be mindful of the potential conflicts between energy and land.”
— — — — —
This is a “non trivial” problem with solar power. It takes up a LOT of space. It “eats” land and produces ENERGY.
ENERGY is MONEY.
Farmers in China can make more money leasing their land to solar power producers than they can make growing food. The government is having to crack down on this practice and restrict it.
It’s estimated that the land required to reach Xi’s Net Zero by 2060 goal would be about the same as needed to feed 200 million people. Globally that number could be as high as one billion.
In the US it’s estimated that we could generate enough power for the current household usage of the entire country by covering the state of Nevada with solar panels.
INFRASTRUCTURE eats MONEY.
Part of the appeal of EV’s is not having to buy gasoline. They save you money because “charging them up” is cheaper than “filling up at the pump”.
The taxes on gasoline are what pay for maintaining all the roads. That's a problem.
EV Owners Don’t Pay Gas Taxes. That’s a Problem for Congress. — Barrons Opinion 08/01/24
EV drivers don’t pump gas or pay gas taxes. Fixing the fund’s problem isn’t difficult, though, and it isn’t existential for EVs. The average driver pays about $100 in gas taxes annually. Congress could compel EV drivers to pay that.
Here's the PROBLEM.
This fund takes in about $25 billion a year from drivers, plus money from the trucking industry to be used to maintain the federal highway system. In total it’s been about $35 billion a year for the last decade. It’s a PATHETICALLY low amount.
Remember what a BIG DEAL Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was?
Remember how NO Trumpublicans voted for it, and how in order to get it to pass, Biden had to appease Joe Manchin for his vote? It was enormously difficult to get that Act to pass and it’s the biggest investment in infrastructure since the Eisenhower administration of the 1950's.
$5 billion of it has been allocated to fixing bridges.
Dozens of bridges across the U.S. will get upgrades, thanks to a $5 billion grant from the Federal Highway Administration. The recipients of the grant were announced last Wednesday, though they make up a fraction of the nation’s bridges in need of repair:
$1.4 billion — Amount the Pacific Northwest’s Interstate 5 bridge will receive, the most of any grant.
42 — The number of bridges that that will be repaired and reconstructed.
‘The biggest investment in our bridges since the Eisenhower era”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
600,000 — Number bridges in the United States as of 2019.
54,000 — The number that are in critical need of repair.
This grant fixes 42 out of 54,000.
Compare the amount taken in from gasoline taxes, which is also used to maintain the interstate highways, against the amount needed to fix just the 42 bridges most urgently in need of repair and you begin to understand the size of the problem.
That’s how INADEQUATE our response to the Climate Crisis currently is.
We don’t have a lot of time left. Extreme climate events are occurring more frequently and with greater severity.
If we don’t start upgrading our aging infrastructure “right now”. It’s going to rapidly start failing. The systemic costs of that will be catastrophically high because these failures will degrade our ability to respond to them.
If we don’t start a MASSIVE program of infrastructure repair and upgrade. Then we need to start doing a “national triage” and deciding which areas we are going to abandon.
CORPORATE AMERICA and THE ONE PERCENT DO NOT WANT TO PAY FOR IT. So we have been trying to get “regular” Americans to do it. With FUCKING “TAX CREDITS”.
IRS sent $8.4 billion in tax credits to homeowners making clean energy upgrades last year
— Marketwatch 08/07/24
This is the first look at how many people are taking advantage of sweetened tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act.
More than 3 million households tapped $8.4 billion in tax subsidies last year in order to defray their costs buying solar panels, heat pumps, water heaters, home insulation and other clean-energy improvements, according to the Treasury Department.
Wednesday’s numbers are the first look at how many people took up the federal government’s offer of tax credits in the first year after the Inflation Reduction Act sweetened the incentives.
Congressional action aims to return more incentives, mostly via tax credits and rebates, to the pockets of homeowners who opt for energy-efficient choices by replacing fossil-fuel furnaces, boilers, water heaters and stoves with high-efficiency electric options that can be powered by renewable energy.
SO.
These upgrades to “home solar” take anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 depending on how much you want to be totally “self powered”. They have an estimated 20 year lifespan.
If you can afford the “upfront costs”. The savings “per year” that these panels could provide in lieu of a monthly power bill could make them well worth it and a good investment.
Particularly if the government is willing to give away $8.4 billion in tax credits to just 3 million households. About $2,800 per household.
More than they are able to spend on fixing bridges.
What this means is that in order to “go solar” you are going to probably have to take out a loan. Most Americans cannot put together $500 for an emergency. Few households are going to have that kind of money laying around in savings.
You have to spend all of this money yourself, “up front”. Then you get “tax credits” and rebates that “lower your taxes”. Which, unless you are getting a refund each year, really doesn’t put any money in your pocket.
This method of “decentralized solar deployment” has social issues. It allows the “Upper Middle Class” and 1% to detach further from the rest of society. As they ‘pull out’ of our shared social systems it leaves the rest of us stuck with the bill for the desperately needed infrastructure upgrades.
Why Californians Have Some of the Highest Power Bills in the U.S.
-WSJ 08/05/24
Utilities are investing billions to upgrade infrastructure and build out green energy, passing budget-breaking costs to households; trying to keep the chocolate from melting.
BORREGO SPRINGS, Calif. — California is doing all it can to expand renewable energy production and rebuild its electrical infrastructure after flaws led to a series of devastating wildfires.
The state’s big utilities are spending billions to bury power lines and insulate wires, while at the same time moving quickly away from fossil fuels by building big solar and wind farms and transmission lines to carry the power.
As a result, resident Jessica Simpson Nehrer, who lives in Borrego Springs, near San Diego, has seen her electricity bill for her ranch-style house soar. It hit $1,873.90 in June, far exceeding her $1,200 rent and around double what it was two summers ago.
Grocery store owner Rodger Gucwa tried cutting his power bill by raising the thermostat to 85 degrees — but found that the chocolate bars melted.
Nationwide, the costs of utility companies’ capital investments are being passed on to customers. Those added fees, combined with higher inflation and a series of heat waves, mean painful bills for many this summer.
California has seen some of the sharpest increases in the country — electricity prices in the state have nearly doubled during the past decade and are now higher than those of anywhere but Hawaii. The consumer advocate’s office at California’s utilities regulator has called the trajectory “untenable.”
Lawmakers, regulators, utilities and consumer-advocacy groups in the state are battling over how to fix the rising power costs and questioning who should pay for them. Legislators are trying to make the state’s utilities regulator dial back a fixed monthly charge that big utilities will levy on consumers next year. Other politicians have tried to repeal a major cut in rooftop solar subsidies that had made it more affordable for some households to generate their own power.
Higher prices and less-reliable electricity, as utilities struggle with aging infrastructure, have become problems nationwide. At the same time, demand for energy has shot up as more AI data centers and electric vehicles come online.
We MUST fix this. Or “abandon” whole regions to infrastructure collapse. The people in “rural” America cannot pay for these upgrade by themselves. Most people in the cities will not be able to handle electric bills DOUBLING over two years.
The wealthy and upper classes want to use solar to ‘opt out’ of the system and then have the population pay for the needed upgrades. To power companies that pay them dividends.
In the US our “Energy Policy” desperately needs reform in order to hasten our transitions AWAY from fossil fuels and TOWARDS renewables.
Because things are getting a LOT HOTTER, very quickly.
2024 'increasingly likely' to be warmest on record: EU monitor
It is "increasingly likely" 2024 will be the hottest year on record, despite July ending a 13-month streak of monthly…
Tipping points are being crossed and the situation is about to turn very BAD. We are about to have a roughly 20% reduction in global agricultural output by NO LATER than 2035. Probably by 2030.
The Earth/s population is probably going to be around a Billion people smaller. How this happens will shape the rest of the 21st century and how we manage the Collapse of the Climate System.
There is very little time left for the “world that was”.
“Collapse”has started.
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”.
rc 081024
NOTES:
These kind of “say it all”.
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Hard times are "a coming" globally. I don't see any way to avoid that now.
We waited to long to do this cleanly. Now, billions are going to die prematurely.
People are already defaulting on their credit card debt, auto repossessions are getting so bad there are repo companies backed up for months with too much business. Mortgages are going into default at ever increasing rates . . . I don't think many people could stand a double on the electric bill.
Yet we are still buying bomber jets at almost a billion a plane. The money has to come from somewhere and after a double on homeowners insurance the people don't have that money. It will be facinating watching this play out. Facinating, but not pretty . . .