Saturday, May 14, 2011

Oakley has a point

One of These Things is a lot Like the Other...

Both Al-Qaeda and the Liberal Party of Canada are organizations that seek to challenge Western civilization. One uses overt violence to pursue its goals while the other uses the numbing mantra of moral equivalence. They both seek to be unchained from the strictures of reason, individual freedom and the right to self-defence.  They represent vested interests that wish to operate with impunity in their spheres without interference or even criticism. These interests are as diverse as the Taliban and the Ontario teachers unions, but the assignment is always the same: gain and maintain power.  The only thing that stands in their way is our tradition of freedom and our confidence to defend it.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Response to a common Complaint

Who do you think pays when corporations pay more tax?

That's right you and me. I presume by fair you mean anything but fair -
punitive attacks on success are considered fair by the left.

If by success you mean making money through predatory pricing and poor wages/benefits for employees, then yes, I am for punitive measures.  However, I don't see how making sure businesses pay taxes like everyone is punitive.  If their greed makes them raise prices because they have to pay taxes, eventually they will fail, when people can no longer afford what they are selling.  Right now, I work just as hard as my elite business executive friends, yet I earne 1/5 the salary and pay more taxes...how is that fair?  Thea
I don't know of anyone who has been successful in business who relies on pricing that does not recoup costs and can't retain employees because of poor conditions. That is unless they are subsidized by governments or taking advantage of illegal immigration. Chinese oil companies and Brazilian aircraft manufacturers come to mind. Perhaps you can think of someone.
A business is not a person – (even people on the right don't seem to get this – Bill O'Reilly) They rely on customers to pay their expenses and if they are efficient they can make a profit and stay in business. Ultimately the customer will always pay – an added expense like a new tax will come right off the bottom-line. This is basic economics – if investors can get a better return at another company they will move their capital there – it is not a question of greed. The freedom to create wealth has produced unprecedented advances in standard of living and life extension over the past two hundred years.
I feel for you when you are prevented from getting the true market value for your work. Unfortunately your industry has been monopolized by the government and is artificially holding the real cost down by restricting wages and engaging in predatory pricing. I support your quest for private sector wage levels – that is if you also accept private ownership.
The alternative is to turn the entire economy over to centralized government planners and we will all be equally poor – see Cuba.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Technology Already Exists!

AREVA offers its clients electricity management solutions which enable them to adapt their production levels to meet demand. The group is developing solutions for the production of hydrogen through water electrolysis and the generation of electricity through fuel cells.


Building for the peak

The price of electric energy is going up at an astonishing rate and all indications are that if we continue with our existing policies it will reach economy crippling levels very soon. The reasons for this are many and varied, but the government’s desire to appear to reduce emissions is the primary explanation. So-called clean technologies are expensive and nowhere near as efficient as plants that burn fossil fuels. To compound this problem the cyclical nature of electric power consumption requires the industry to build an infrastructure that will meet the needs of peak usage. Most of this infrastructure will lay fallow during off hours - pushing up the cost.


So why not find a way to make the electrical grid pay for itself 24/7? The answer of course is to use excess electricity generation capacity to produce a clean efficient portable fuel – Hydrogen. The production of hydrogen fuel would create a whole new revenue stream for the power utilities that they could use to reduce the cost of electric power. Ironically this would have the greatest effect on the efficiency of alternative electricity sources such as wind or solar power. They are notoriously difficult to attach to the power grid because of their fluctuations in output. Taking them off-line to produce hydrogen would allow them to use 100% of their output to create usable energy.

The problem is we don't have an infrastructure that can distribute and store hydrogen. So what can government do to fix this problem? It would appear obvious. They should remove the cost of government from any project that will enhance a hydrogen fuel distribution grid. They have already spent recklessly on alternative energy projects such as wind and solar power – an investment in a hydrogen infrastructure would help make that technology more cost effective. Government should aggressively encourage the expansion of hydro-electric capacity in the far north with a primary objective of producing energy that can be piped to population centers without line-loss.

A hydrogen infrastructure cannot be built over night – so a sector by sector approach would have to be adopted. Government could influence taxis and buses to burn hydrogen fuel with tax rebates and then move to a similar program for the trucking industry. This would allow the infrastructure to keep pace with growing consumption and before long many private vehicles would make the switch.

So let’s do this before we are too broke to pay our hydro bills!

Monday, May 2, 2011

What will happen to us?

What will happen to us? From the Boston Globe

The underlying premise of this article, which takes a macro-economic view of our species, is at odds with what it means to be human. One must never forget that there is no such person as humanity – thinking of us in those terms can only lead to a calculus where millions will die. What separates us from the lower forms of life is our awareness of our own mortality on an individual level. This understanding guides us toward strategies that should enhance and extend the precious time that we have left. The subversion of our individuality by elites that collectivize us for “our own good” has left a trail of woe and destruction throughout our known history. The battle for the future of mankind lies with philosophy, not with technology.


The notion that free men are self-destructive boarders on absurd – only a sinister philosophy that would promote self-sacrifice for some “greater good” could end in the corruption of our self-interest. Liberty makes life worth living and mankind will survive by defending it.

Presently the greatest threat to freedom is the “precautionary principle” that says we should curtail liberty in order to prevent a theoretical and as yet unproven threat. This maxim will be used over and over again to exert control over our actions and extract our wealth until we become helpless. Our self-interest has always been the guide for free men to deal effectively with known threats and it will continue to protect us in the future.