U.S. Economy Shrinks in 4th Qtr

[MichaeltheGreat]

Would the industry exist without the largesse of the government?

Yes, although you could ask that about any industry, given the distortions and corporate welfare in the tax code. There are no subsidies, no tax preferences at all associated with these assets. Yet they've been built and running for years.

For that matter, would Mississippi exist without the largesse of the federal government?

Any cuts in federal spending will create many challenges for local governments…especially when tax revenues, federal and state support are declining and demand for services are increasing.
Consolidated Federal Funds data (Census Bureau, 2009) reports that Mississippi received more than $53.7 billion in grants, subsidies, direct loans, retirement and disability benefits, other direct payments to individuals, direct payment [not to individuals], guaranteed loans, procurement contracts, and salaries and wages in 2009.

"Mississippi’s dependence on federal aid has grown each year since 1993-2009. A trend analysis of federal funds data for Mississippi showed few signs of slowing during this period (Figure 1).
In fact…federal subsidies to Mississippi grew faster (5.66%) than population (.76%) between 1993 & 2004. Between 2005 & 2009 the growth in subsidies to the state was more than double that of population growth...

A truly fascinating read: http://www.mcrsa.org/Assets/Document...20Analysis.pdf Done by a couple of screamin' libruls from Mississippi State University.

Perhaps y'all should concern yourselves more with getting your own state off blocks before commenting about governement largess. To be fair, some of that was due to Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon spill. But y'all got a TON of federal aid every year before those events, and the amount grew much faster than population.

"

[Ben Kenobi]

You've got a lot to learn before they can call you "Tex"

What can I say? Beautiful women. Canada, on the other hand can suck my ****.

Yeah, it does, and the utilities have their heads in the sand, or someplace. NERC screams about it on a regular basis, and all FERC can do is review and approve, it can't direct.

Better done as an overhaul, fix all the **** at once and let them ***** and complain after it's all done.

You'd also need to build whole new classes of transformers that would stretch the limits of the technology and have high failure rates. Plus new types of vacuum breakers.

So not feasible at present. Stuff that aside for the future. It's a good idea, just ahead of it's time.

That's also the cheap way to fix the grid - if you can reduce the major grid to primarily a balancing system and synchronizing reference, then the need for major upgrade and replacement goes away. At the granularity you describe, you're talking a couple of decades (or more) to build a completely new transmission grid independent of the existing one, with no revenue to support it. Then you get your massive banks of multi-unit nukes, and if one goes offline in an emergency situation, the resulting cascading failure will dump the entire national grid and force emergency shutdowns on all your nukes. Then you're well and truly ****ed trying to blackstart into a dead oversized grid like that.

Well, you'd need backups of course, you could run with smaller backups closer in. Not nukes, other stuff. Plus it's not like you'd shut down the hydro and whatnot, just run it on top of all of it.

That's whats done now. But you have to approximately balance in near real time. If you go more than a few percent out of balance, you'll trigger overvoltage/undercurrent relays and have a cascading failure on the whole regional grid. That's happened before. It's not pretty.

What I meant - at these scales - say the overall variance in power is between oh, I dunno, 3 to 10 nuclear plants. Run 3 at the lowest levels, run up to 10 for the peak, but over build so that you've got more to run if necessary. Say another 2 nuke plants over peak use. Grow into the overall system.

It can, since generators offset load-imposed reactive power. It wouldn't take much, but as long as you have some generation on a given line, (given that wind sites in California are typically just outside major load centers and can provide stabilization benefits on the lines between those load centers), you would see voltage, phase balance and reactive power stabilization benefits.

Interesting. Something I did not know.

Threads like these make me wish Adam Smith was still around - we used to have great off-site exchanges about this stuff. RIP Scott.

Indeed. RIP.

[DinoDoc]

Yes, although you could ask that about any industry, given the distortions and corporate welfare in the tax code. There are no subsidies, no tax preferences at all associated with these assets. Yet they've been built and running for years.

You seem defensive. Why is that?

Generous Subsidies Make Solar Panels a Great Investment
Solar Industry Fights For Extension Of Subsidies

Perhaps y'all should concern yourselves more with getting your own state off blocks before commenting about government largess.

I would like government spending in general cut. The party you voted for (quite happily from the sound of it) seems to believe that the US government finances are in great shape and no cuts need be made.

[MichaeltheGreat]

You seem defensive. Why is that?

Just bored with kneejerk reactions from know-nothings.

Irrelevant link since I already stated I don't work in solar

The only reason you don't see similar wailing and gnashing of teeth from big oil and gas is that their lobbying presence is much deeper and more entrenched, thus cuts to subsidies for those industries are never even on the table. An industry lobbies for preferential tax benefits... News at 10.

I would like government spending in general cut. The party you voted for (quite happily from the sound of it) seems to believe that the US government finances are in great shape and no cuts need be made.

So would I. And I happily vote for the party I vote for because the other party generally spends more of its time and energy on whether a clump of 50 cells is "a baby" and teaching biblical science as creation. When they get around to spending cuts, they leave corporate pork untouched for their favored lobbyists, cut taxes in a top down way, and propose kneejerk cuts (if they make specific proposals at all) which will cause contraction. The GOP as a whole has dumbed itself down. Case in point. Voting for Barbara Boxed makes me sick. I need a pottle of pepto to do it, then look at bridges to jump off. So what does the GOP scrape up? Carly ****in' Fiorina, widely panned as one of the worst CEOs in American history, no political experience, all because she'll throw her own money at the race. Meg the Peg Whitman? Sweet Jesus, the ONLY way Jerry Brown could get elected governor is with the help of the GOP, and they obliged.

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't really see how someone claiming to prefer moderate republicans would choose Babs over Fiorina and Whitman. Seems to me that the social issues are just smokescreens. At least here in Texas we get folks like Cruz.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Fiorina is even more stupid and shrill than Boxer, with much more arrogance and entitlement. Hard to accomplish, but that's her one accomplishment.

Whitman ran against Moonbeam, and her campaign speeches revealed she had no ****ing clue how government works. She didn't seem to get that the legislature aren't employees of the governor who can be termed at will. Whitman started out with a massive advantage and the more she opened her mouth, the more she marginalized herself. One of my clients at the time were a bunch of hardcore Republicans, and they shared offices and were parters with a development company run by one of the biggest Republican powers behind the throne in the state. They salivated over Whitman at first, but kept their distance from Fiorina, but over time, their salivation over Whitman became less and less and eventually was no more than a perfunctory wiggle of the pom-poms. I figure if California Republican party activists are souring on their own candidates, what message does that signal for the rest of us?

[DinoDoc]

Irrelevant link since I already stated I don't work in solar

Point out a Green energy sector then that makes money on something other than federal subsidies or requirements.

So would I. And I happily vote for the party I vote for because the other party generally spends more of its time and energy on whether a clump of 50 cells is "a baby"

Your party wastes time arguing for the right to kill a child right up until it takes its first breath of air. Then they switch gears and want to sign it up for welfare.

and teaching biblical science as creation.

This has never been a national issue and I highly doubt the California GOP bigwigs discuss it in their regular meetings at the phone booth at the corner of the street.

Voting for Barbara Boxed makes me sick.

No it doesn't. I'm willing to bet you've checked that box on the ballot every time she's been up for reelection.

So what does the GOP scrape up?

What's the point in the National party wasting resources in a futile bid to win a Senate race when a) those resources could be better spent elsewhere and b) no Republican has a chance at statewide office in California.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Point out a Green energy sector then that makes money on something other than federal subsidies or requirements.

I already did. Biomass. Oh, and in most areas, ROR hydro is considered renewable.

Your party wastes time arguing for the right to kill a child right up until it takes its first breath of air.

Only in red state fantasies.

Then they switch gears and want to sign it up for welfare.

Are you capable of anything beyond caricature?

I'm willing to bet you've checked that box on the ballot every time she's been up for reelection.

Only once, when she wasn't polling too far ahead of an even worse slug than Fiorina. I took a shower afterwards. I usually leave that one blank.

What's the point in the National party wasting resources in a futile bid to win a Senate race when a) those resources could be better spent elsewhere and b) no Republican has a chance at statewide office in California.

Republicans have a good chance at statewide office here - if they were sane republicans. Boxer is highly vulnerable, and to say enthusiasm for Brown was limited is an understatement.

[DinoDoc]

Then they switch gears and want to sign it up for welfare.

Are you capable of anything beyond caricature?

Was "And I happily vote for the party I vote for because the other party generally spends more of its time and energy on whether a clump of 50 cells is "a baby" and teaching biblical science as creation." meant to be deserving of a serious response? My Bad.

Republicans have a good chance at statewide office here - if they were sane republicans. Boxer is highly vulnerable, and to say enthusiasm for Brown was limited is an understatement.

Define sane. If it's how people of your ilk typically define it, what would be the point of offering a Democrat lite option when people have the option for the real thing?

[Ben Kenobi]

Whitman ran against Moonbeam, and her campaign speeches revealed she had no ****ing clue how government works. She didn't seem to get that the legislature aren't employees of the governor who can be termed at will. Whitman started out with a massive advantage and the more she opened her mouth, the more she marginalized herself. One of my clients at the time were a bunch of hardcore Republicans, and they shared offices and were parters with a development company run by one of the biggest Republican powers behind the throne in the state. They salivated over Whitman at first, but kept their distance from Fiorina, but over time, their salivation over Whitman became less and less and eventually was no more than a perfunctory wiggle of the pom-poms. I figure if California Republican party activists are souring on their own candidates, what message does that signal for the rest of us?

So, IOW, you won't vote for a social conservative republican and you won't vote for social moderate republicans. Pretty convenient way to ensure voting for Babs in perpetuity.

Explain to me why the republican party should care about you?

[Aeson]

Define sane. If it's how people of your ilk typically define it, what would be the point of offering a Democrat lite option when people have the option for the real thing?

Sane would be fiscally conservative without the military aggression and obsession with running people's personal lives. (note that neither party fits that bill in any case)

[MichaeltheGreat]

Was "And I happily vote for the party I vote for because the other party generally spends more of its time and energy on whether a clump of 50 cells is "a baby" and teaching biblical science as creation." meant to be deserving of a serious response? My Bad.

The fact that you don't find a social conservative agenda obsessed with bliblical creation in schools and legal personalty (only for purposes of abortion) at conception absurd is telling. Not all Republicans are that stupid, but look at the great luminaries dug up in your presidential primaries the last couple of go-rounds: Huckabee, Bachmann, Perry, Santorum. Just recently there was the great fun of all these Republicans asked how old they thought the earth was, and they panicked over the question, because they could say "6-10,000 years" and get right with the fundamentalists, but brand themselves as drooling loons to the rest of us, or they could say 4.5 billion years and may as well get some firewood for the stake, as they'd declare themselves to be heretics. The fact that **** like that is even thought of, let alone relevant, to a major party in the US political system is laughable to virtually the whole world.

Define sane. If it's how people of your ilk typically define it, what would be the point of offering a Democrat lite option when people have the option for the real thing?

Maybe because your version of the "real thing" is increasingly marginalized and not nationally electable Do you actually think any of ol' Mittypoos primary rivals would have done better in the general election? For every GOP "true believer" vote you'd pick up, you'd shed two or more independent or moderate GOP votes.

[MichaeltheGreat]

So, IOW, you won't vote for a social conservative republican and you won't vote for social moderate republicans. Pretty convenient way to ensure voting for Babs in perpetuity.

I won't vote for a chameleon social policy Republican with no personal integrity who feels entitled to buy an election with her own money. And I don't vote for Babs, I try to sit that one out unless someone worse has a chance of running.

Even though he's fairly socially conservative, I would have given Jon Huntsman a lot of consideration if he'd won instead of Romney. I'll take integrity and competence and relevant experience, even if I don't agree with many policy details.

Explain to me why the republican party should care about you?

It shouldn't. I don't pay to play. If it's interested in being nationally relevant, however, it should pretend to care about enough of the electorate to actually get elected.

[DinoDoc]

The fact that you don't find a social conservative agenda obsessed with bliblical creation in schools and legal personalty (only for purposes of abortion) at conception absurd is telling.

That's because there isn't one at the national level wrt Creationism and I see nothing wrong with a political party adopting a pro life position.

The fact that **** like that is even thought of, let alone relevant, to a major party in the US political system is laughable ...

The fact that **** like that was even asked should be shameful to the network and journalist that asked it as it isn't relevant to the presidency.

Maybe because your version of the "real thing"

I realize that your time in Spic land might have degraded your English skills, but the real thing referred to in that sentence is a real Democrat.

Do you actually think any of ol' Mittypoos primary rivals would have done better in the general election?

I think that if Mittens had managed to articulate a positive agenda for what he would have done beyond not being Barack Hussein Obama, he would have done better electorally than he did.

[MichaeltheGreat]

That's because there isn't one at the national level wrt Creationism and I see nothing wrong with a political party adopting a pro life position.

It's a big local issue for social conservatives. Anti-intellectual nutbaggery at the national level is focused elsewhere, but common local nutbagerry is a valid basis for judging the relevance and usefulness of the party as a whole.

The fact that **** like that was even asked should be shameful to the network and journalist that asked it as it isn't relevant to the presidency.

The fact that people like Jindal, Rubio, et all stumbled on it and danced because they didn't know how to play it off without looking like a loon or alienating their ignorant base is relevant.

I realize that your time in Spic land might have degraded your English skills, but the real thing referred to in that sentence is a real Democrat.

Awwww, we getting our panties in a bunch? "Spic land?" Is that your party's new attempt to pander to a base/fringe a little broader than white males? Like when Michael Steele was selected as head of the RNC? " Look, we dun did got us our very own negro now, too!"

I think that if Mittens had managed to articulate a positive agenda for what he would have done beyond not being Barack Hussein Obama, he would have done better electorally than he did.

Problem is how do you articulate a "positive agenda" that sells to the general election electorate without alienating your base? "severely conservative" my ass.