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Thursday, March 27, 2014

Thursday Morning Non-Bakken Stories; ObamaCare's Geico Rock Award Nominee; Random Update, Cape Wind

With the news coming out of the Europe the past few days and the president appearing tired, and his options severely limited, the tea leaves suggest the whole response to Putin's actions in the Crimean could spiral out of control for both the world, and for President Obama. I'm an inveterate optimist, but the "stuff" coming out of the G-7 meeting should have us worried. I hope one year from now, the collective "we" isn't asking, "why didn't we just let Putin take Kiev?" -- 9:23 p.m. central time, March 26, 2014; to be posted in the a.m.

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I don't know whether to laugh or cry. This guy is so far behind the curve, one wonders...ah, yes, another nominee for the Geico Rock Award. I can't believe this guy wrote the book, and I can't believe The New York Times published the story. The lede:
Here’s a prediction: By 2025, “fewer than 20 percent of workers in the private sector will receive traditional employer-sponsored health insurance.” The source of this claim? Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, in his just-published book, “Reinventing American Health Care.”
Dr. Emanuel is an accomplished oncologist, medical ethicist and academic (and contributing opinion writer to The New York Times). And, of course, he’s no stranger to politics: He helped craft the Affordable Care Act as a health policy adviser to the Obama administration, when his brother, Rahm, now the mayor of Chicago, was chief of staff. The book is a full-throated defense of the law (its subtitle: “How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve Our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System”).
In it, Mr. Emanuel argues that in the next two or three years, “a few big, blue-chip companies will announce their intention to stop providing health insurance. Instead, they will raise salaries substantially or offer large, defined contributions to their workers. Then the floodgates will open.” He says that few small businesses will join the SHOP exchanges set up for them and that most of those that offer coverage are even more likely than big companies to drop it, since those who employ fewer than 50 workers face no mandate to offer it in the first place, which Mr. Emanuel thinks is fine.
"....in the next two or three years, “a few big, blue-chip companies will announce their intention to stop providing health insurance...." Say what? I've been posting this since, like, forever. Those "few small companies"? Here's a partial list: IBM, GE, Trader Joe's, UPS, cities and states. 

"Mr Emanuel thinks is fine." Hypocrite.

ObamaCare: saved Corporate America.

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Random Update Of Cape Wind

Look at all the foreign investors. Cable will start being laid by the end of this year; turbine construction next year; and on-line, 2016. Some of the investors:
  • French bank Natixis
  • Netherlands-based financial services provider Rabobank
  • The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ
  • Danish Export Credit Agency, also known as EKF
  • PensionDanmark
Jim Gordon may not get a Nobel Peace Prize but it looks like he could be a candidate for the Prize in Economics.

2 comments:

  1. I am not a fan of slicers and dicers as you sometime refer to them. I believe all forms of energy should be considered but natural market forces such a viability and pay back should be in play. Natural fiscal selection if you will. I came across an article in a creation magazine about birds flying into windows and how spider webs may be the answer to preventing this problem. The essence of the article is that the spider web gives off ultraviolet light which the birds readily see and are less prone to fly into the webs and destroy them. Interestingly they even ran an experiment with birds flying through a tunnel with ultraviolet and non-ultraviolet glass and it seemed to work. (I would of hated being the birds that didn't notice the non-ultraviolet glass.

    I say all of that to say maybe there is way, ultraviolet paints to potentially reduce bird strikes to help in a harmful system. This is more FYI than anything else.

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    Replies
    1. I'm glad you wrote. Your timing was perfect. I was going to post something on wind, but didn't have time.

      I agree with you: a) all forms of energy need to be "on the table"; and, b) technology will solve a lot of these problems.

      When I first wrote about wind energy, I was highly emotional about the subject. I am no longer all that concerned: a) we live in a democratic society and voters will decide what they want; b) we have a free market system and the market will sort this out. I've said my piece. I will continue to post stories on wind but generally from cost-benefit point of view. But the bird story for me is pretty much a sad, cynical story for me -- the activist environmentalists have shown their true colors. It is what it is and the country appears not overly concerned.

      Once one leaves the emotional arena, then one enters other arenas. One arena is the investing arena. Energy companies are learning to take advantage of tax advantages, etc., of investing in renewable energy; I am on earth for only a few short years; I might as well maximize my estate for my children and grandchildren. Wind is just one more investment opportunity.

      So, if technology solves the bird/bat/wind problem, that's just frosting on the cake. And as long as folks don't mind paying two, three, four times more for electricity, and apparently they don't, that's fine with me.

      But the numbers don't add up when it comes to renewable energy: I won't change my view that wind energy, as it stands now, how no redeeming qualities. Wind will make hardly a dent on total energy use; it will cost US consumers considerably more than fossil fuel; as long as the US goes it alone (without China, India playing along), wind power is environmentally insignificant; and, wind farms are an eyesore -- you won't see them in national parks.

      Bottom line: wind turbines as slicers and dicers is just a fact of life; I now see wind power almost entirely as an energy source and evaluate it as such. Americans had their opportunity to choose and they did. I now go with the flow.

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