Kleptocracy

And let's see how easily you guess the subject of that title....

Scroll down....

Heck why wait. Russia.

There you have this vast country, some 200+ million people living in it, although most of the country is simply empty, and a history and culture of theft. From you, from him, from the government, from the Party ... from anyone and anything that you do not personally own or control. History has it that the great despots of Russian lore simply confiscated anything that they fancied. The peasant class existed simply to support the rich. The rich simply existed to flatter and pass on ill-gotten gains to the Czar.

Then they had a little Revolution. That was all meant to stop. Only it didn't. The members of the Party took over from the aristocracy as the funnel to the Central Committee, the Tse-Ka of the CPSU. Party members took what they wanted, and the higher you were -- i.e. the sneakier and more ruthless you were -- the better you lived. No change, then, at all from the earlier "feudal" Russia. The Czar was replaced by the General Secretary who ruled with an iron fist. His family got prime positions within the government, as did all the Politburo and Tse-Ka members. Each Party Boss ensured the continued riches flowed to their family, regionally and locally. Nothing had changed with regards to system, only the actors were different, and all pretense of meritocracy vanished. Only it may have become more dangerous to the individual, riskier to express ideas and opinion, and easier to be sent to the gulag.

You see, to a large degree, the Czarist system at least had as a benefit education: the ruling elite were to a large degree well educated, well travelled, and forward thinking. The riff-raff that followed were ill-educated buffoons, blood-thirstier and less able than those they replaced. The curtain fell, creating a violent and irrational monster that threatened the world for more than 70 years -- at least in that form.

Enter the rise of the FSB/KGB/GRU clans. They were educated and adherents of the clan system. While not well travelled, they had a far better grasp of the world socio-political systems than the average Russian in the street. They understood economics and law, and more importantly, how to use the two to enrich themselves. So, when the great Gorbachev/Yeltsin upheavals came, they and their Party Boss friends were well placed to simply snatch the huge assets of the vast country. And they did. Unbelieveable wealth was created in the shortest possible periods of time, seizures enforced by criminal gangs and quasi-governmental gangs.

Less than 10 years later, we have a failed democracy -- there was simply nobody who really supported it; it was a convenient curtain for the change of guard of one set of kleptomaniacs for the next. And in the context of 2008, we have a government run by Putin with his puppet President Medvedev. All the assets of the country are slowly being stripped from the first set of democratic entrepreneurs (ex-party and industry bosses) and redistributed to the FSB/KGB clans. Legally, at least whithin the charade that passes for the Russian judiciary. You see, there is no judge that wishes to be sent to prison for "corruption" because he made the wrong call.... As has been the case all along in Russia, he who controls the camps, controls Russia.

Which, finally, gets to the point of this entry: who in their right mind would invest even a U.S. dollar (let alone Euro) in Russia? Only Russians, I'd think ... because they are the only ones who know the right people to pay off to avoid becoming the target of an anti-trust probe by the federal prosecutors. You'll head to the slammer if convicted of those sorts of "crimes." BP is not a small company -- one of the world's richest oil companies, in fact. And yet even they have fallen foul of the Kleptos. They are being squeezed out by judicial probes, allegations of tax evasion, failure to renew visas of required UK personnel, and in the end, the simple risk of a Polonium 21o enema. Shell ... well what happened to Sakhakin? Find any oil to sell?

And the Europeans are stupid enough to cozy up to this Russian Bear. They think that if they cooperate with the Russians, that they'll get an even break -- as opposed to working with those evil Americans who only want our money and economic imperialism. Idiots. The Bear wants the whole shebang! The Russians have successfully hooked Europe on cheap natural gas, the heroin of fossil fuel. It's clean (won't get you hooked, like that dirty oil), comes by pipe into your very own home, plentiful, can power cars, and provided from limitless resources by our friends in the East.

Let me give you a clue, Euro-morons, there is nothing friendly about Russia or Russians. They want your assets and best addresses. Your banks, your watches, your Mercedes, your chalets, your wine, your beaches. All of it. And they simply don't give a damn. You can bet on it.

Voodoo-economics aka Obamanomics

And before some weenie calls me racist, the term voodoo economics was from the Reagan era -- leveled against Ronnie by a Democrat.

Folks, we are now starting to see what Obama has in store for us if her gets elected: and it ain't pretty. His "Hope and Courage" (or whatever) campaign is a blind for raw socialist greed for income redistribution and, coincidentally, some of the worst policy decisions to come along since the Great Depression.

Yesterday in the WSJ, they did some numbers as to what his tax hikes are going to mean. Briefly: (1) top Federal rate up 4.6%; (2) phase out of itemized deductions; (3) additional soc sec tax of 12.4% for income above $250K; (4) marginal tax on dividends up from 15% to 39.6%; (5) phase out of dividend deductions 1.2%. Net of all this (for combined net income of over $250k) the combined marginal tax rate increases from 44.6% to 62.8%. The combined marginal rate on dividends (inc. corp tax rate of 35%) rises from 50.4% to 65.6%. Bad enough, but when view in the prism of after tax return on a dollar of earnings, the actual number is worse ... it represents a third less spendable/investible income. That's right, you take home only two thirds of what you did. The balance goes to ....

These are not small numbers. These are huge. And the free income for investment will shrink dramatically, killing off the incentive to save and invest. It represents a stunning slap to the most productive sector of our nation: if you work hard for financial security, we will take it all, so why bother? Can you spell "disaster?" What is the idea, to take the money and spend it through the government to make up the difference in growth? Ever heard of communism and what it meant to financial security or health? Did it ever -- in any one single case you can mention -- work?

These levels of taxation have not been seen in 30 years -- during which the country has experienced the strongest uninterrupted growth seen in history. As pointed out by Boskin in the WSJ, this also declares the foundation of a welfare state in the mold of France: there is no link between social security taxation and benefits. Simply put, the cap comes off on FICA. This proposal represents the creation of an entitlement system to benefit the chronically lazy and indolent ... his constituency. And have we ever been successful in weaning anyone from entitlements? Ever?

Couple this with his "proposals" for trade protectionism and we have the ingredients for a full-blown disaster of biblical proportions. Smoot-Hawley was protectionist introduced when the markets were fragile ... as they are now. His lame-brained ideas are the corollary of the idiocy shown by Congress almost 80 years ago. Obama might have hope, but apparently, he has no education with respect to economics -- or worse -- history. He wants to "rip up NAFTA" -- notwithstanding the benefits to Mexico where wages have almost doubled, trade between Canada, US and Mexico tripled, and our agricultural trade with the two has similarly grown. Rip it up, and watch the flood of wage refugees arrive. Great idea. He has already said that he will feed them and house them -- and tax us to do it.

But his desire to negate trade treaties is completely at odds with his desire to alleviate global hunger and poverty: you can't have it both ways. You can't be the world leader the Bush wasn't -- "we care" -- and become protectionist. Or maybe you can, but the countries that try this (Russia, China) have controlled press that won't contradict the leaders. Is this a hint?

INTERNATIONALLY, Obama has stubbed his toe and irritated he new-found "friends" in a spectacularly stupid fashion ... a page out of Dubbya's manual on foreign relations: While in Germany -- one day after Obama-stock in Berlin -- he said that the NATO allies need to step up their participation in Afghanistan, so that the US could cut its burden there, saving billions of dollars. These dollars could then finance lower taxes for middle class families. As an aside, from what we have just read above, Obama has a different idea as to what a "middle class" family is that I do.

The Germans nearly infarcted: the head of the FDP (a German middle-left party) stated, "[u]nder no circumstances will the the German taxpayer pay with more money and troops for Afghanistan to finance tax cuts in the United States." The CSU (right-ish) leader expressed disappointment for Europe and Germany. The ruling CDU leader, Merkel, pointed out that it was the opposite of solidarity for one side to make more sacrifices to permit the other side to make gains from such sacrifice.

Doesn't that sound like the actual trap that all American presidents have been in since 1945? Including Dubbya? If you want us there, you have to pay for it Obama -- our "allies" have never shouldered their fair share, always enjoying the freedom of their American-guaranteed security, all the while complaining about how we manage it. THAT, Mr. Obama, is reality. No amount of social-liberal clap-trap is going to negate that. The Europeans care, all right, just don't try to make them pay for anything. How naive can you get?

So, how do you suppose this foreign policy genius is going to fare with the Russians?

Demo-crude trap

Democrats are in a delicious position: they have to re-assure their constituents that they are really for easing the pain on the pocket book created by higher oil prices -- and at the same time, they are trying to get tough on energy alternatives. Put another way, they want to punish the gas-hogs to satisfy the EcoWeenies in the Party, but don't want to alienate the bulk of the Party that is being hurt by $4.00 gas. And that folks, can't be done.

Pelosi (who vants to suck your blood -- or your wallet, anyway) is trying to show how "active" the Democrats are: "use it or lose it" with regard to usable oil leases. "See how hard we are working for the average American against those bad, bad oil companies?" What this blood-sucking hypocrite fails to acknowledge is that at $150 a barrel, the oil company execs would drill on the 18th green of their favorite country club if they thought it would produce. The threat then, is both misleading to the public and totally asinine to the educated (note how the inference is that the public is NOT educated).

AlGore, the ueber-blowhard hypocrite, is similarly trapped: he advocates that we
not "dig when we are in a hole." Hmmm. So that means that because we are in trouble with an energy deficit, we should not exacerbate the problem by drilling for more oil -- thereby continuing our reliance on that same stuff. AlGore seems to want to consign the vast American public to cold houses, walking, public transport (if it exists), etc. until we manage to bring the vast new world of alternative energy online. IS THAT IT, AL? Boy, won't that make a great Democratic political platform for this election cycle. PLEASE, please use it. And what this forgets -- conveniently the leftist press cannot for some reason publish this -- is that AlGore is a a serious investor and hedge fund maven for alternative energy. To use the vernacular, he is "talking his book." Nobel Prize my ass, Gore is trying to make moolah from the useful idiots of the environmental movement.

Gore, the cretin, refuses to consider that the fastest and most secure method of weaning America from oil is to develop our nuclear capacity. The Euro-weenies that gave him that award are heavily invested in nuclear power, France over 75% of all energy needs. The Russians (who have some of the largest oil reserves) are going full speed to plan for the future of nuclear energy for when the oil runs out. The Americans? Led by EW liberals, is nowhere. Fretting and whining about how evil it all is. There "must" be a solution, if we only spend more money on research!! And in the meantime, let's live in mudhuts. Low carbon footprint.

Let's see .. what else is stupid out there .... Cellphones!! More evidence is coming to light about the perils of cell phones and brain cancer. The head of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center has warned staff to stop using their cellphones -- or putting them to their heads: "it is playing Russian Roulette with your brain." Consider how many young girls (in particular) you see driving with one hand on top of the wheel and one hand holding a small microwave transmitter to their head. You know its true. Even on a gut level -- just like everyone knew that cigarettes were bad -- "cancer sticks", "coffin nails" long before reliable medical evidence surfaced in the 1960's.

Want to see Obama lying? Watch this clip ... he does this thing with his eyes looking down and his upper lip ....

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=2568583&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/

This may all backfire on him.

Mr Presi-DONT.

Mr. President ... uh, oh, wait you are not President yet. Mr Obama ... please don't go giving future U.S. policy briefings to our enemies?

The U.S. media have already crowned Obama as the next President of the United States: his every move and speech is covered as though this is his triumphant post-election tour of friends and foes. But with one detail missing: he has not been elected yet and he is not even the actual Democratic nominee yet. So why is everyone hanging on his every word as the second coming of Jesus?

Europeans want to see him elected by anything from 5 to 1 to 2 to 1, depending on the country. And Euro-media is even more Oba-mad than the U.S. lap-dog Democratic sphincter-lickers. And so all anyone gets to hear is Oba-madness ... and believe his twaddle. 16 months and we are "out" of Iraq. But wait ... nobody bothered to parse the rest of the statement: "except for those troops we may need to keep there for security purposes as the situation dictates." And how does that really differ from McCooter's policies? Or even more tellingly, Bush's plan? It does not. Bush has been telling anyone who will listen (admittedly there are few) that as soon as he can, we will pull troops out of Iraq and re-deploy some to Afghanistan. EXACTLY what Ob-ozo suggested in the last few days to almost universal acclaim.

But what is Ob-ozo doing "planning" the future " with Maliki anyway? The guy's an Iraqi -- he will do whatever is politically expedient for the next 48 nanoseconds and after that, all bets are off! But Ob-ozo does not seem to "get" this. Effectively, this moron is negotiating a future surrender based on the outcome of an election to be held next November -- and nobody in the leftist press seems to understand the idiocy of telling your enemies (not the Iraqis, but the insurgents and their mentors) exactly how long they have to lie low building supplies before they can once again go on the offensive.

Ob-ozo has never served in the military -- or even made the most superficial study of military force and geopolitics -- and this is becoming painfully clear. He is committing every error of appeasement seen since we came out of the caves of our distant past. You cannot trust your enemies: they will smile, wave and pose for photo ops ... with plans for invasion in their back pockets. Ahmad-whacka-job must be be beside himself with mirth.

I'd never confirm or deny that we have any troops anywhere at all -- surprise is a better weapon than handshakes. McCooter knows this. Strangely, Sarko l'Americain understands this too, as does Putin and the Chinese. Only their leftist sympathizers in Cambridge seem to fail to grasp this. Far better to have a convoy of terrorists Taliban cross over from Pakistan into an ambush comprising of a Marine brigade that they thought was in Basra, than telegraph to the world their removal just to please domestic Iraqi and American politicians. I'd rather kill all the Taliban than let one go because Nancy Pelosi wants to show her lefty-loonies in Berkeley that she is working to remove our imperialist troops.

Ob-ozo will speak in Berlin shortly. Prepare yourself for all sorts of JFK analogies, a fawning German press and general hysteria. Make mine a double.

So much to blog about so little time

There is Jesse using the "N" word as part of his vernacular, Iran shooting off missiles, Israel swapping terrorists for stiffs, the Big Dig costing another 7 billion, Doofus (our gov) planning to raise taxes on the rich ... and just about everyone else. But... I like Barbie. She just about says it all.

And no, this is not a put-on. This is the new face of Barbie.


Just when you thought that you day could not get any worse, with plummeting stock and personal wealth, the folks from Mattel thought they'd pre-program your daughter to become a slut / street walker / democratic politician. Ah, hah. That's it. Nancy Pelosi.

You see, she has emphatically stated that there will be no vote to allow the oil companies to drill in "forbidden" areas, such as our coastal shelf. About the time that the Beatles imploded, there was a spill in the Santa Barbara channel off the Califorloonie coast. Since then technology has progress vastly (think horse and buggy to Bugatti). But we are not allowed to access our own oil. The Masshole congressional delegation -- our 10 idiots in Congress -- voted 10-0 to stand with Pelosi. They also want $9 BILLION from the government to pay for increased heating oil costs for Masshole residents this year -- so the poor grannies and welfare cretins don't freeze. But they won't let us drill.

You see, "it would take 10 years to get that oil on stream, and it won't help our problem now." And that is precisely what Liberal EWs (eco-weenies) said 10 years ago too. And if we don't do anything now, in 10 years from now as well.

The goal is to force a political change to wean us off energy ... or make the "rich" pay for it. Or even better get to government rationing of energy where the "people" elect politicians who will give them the oil. A tyranny of the indolent and ignorant with Peolsi at the helm. It may be time to think about moving to Australia.

More Summer Malaise.

Look folks, the property market sucks, no matter what you hear from spokespeople from the National Association of Realtors. Or from the UK equivalent ... or Spain ... or.... And it will continue to suck for quite some time. Are we in a Japanese spiral (the unpleasant slow collapse to 30% valuations over a 10 year period) or something a little more violent but quickly passing? I dunno. Sorry. But there is really no end to the gloom -- or at least for the next year or two.

And in the UK it may be far worse: the UK is a smallish economy that has experienced insane property growth fueled by the greater fool theory, inflows of foreign capital (city driven), and the old stand-by, greed. Everyone just knew that you could get rich by flipping property. Buy to let. Buy three and hold, you know it is headed to the moon because everyone says so and there is only just so much land on our overcrowded island. Morons. So property, particularly in London and in parts where city-folk bought their "estates" skyrocketed.

As I have pointed out before, there is no stability to a market where the bottom rung is unattainable to those who must anchor it: the people who serve the estates have to have a place to live too. Until prices are rooted in that fundamental reality, prices are overinflated. Look at it another way, if you'd like to move to cash in on the gains, but can't find a place to move to -- well then those gains are not really gains, are they? It is illusory. Sure, you can get another mortgage on the increased value -- and spend it, but then you can't afford where you live. And if prices fall, you are toast.

Consider the city lads ... and their Bucks, Hants, Kent estates ... if they lose their city jobs, then they will probably need to sell their estates within a few years -- there is only so much cushion. And if they all want to sell at basically the same time (now), then it becomes "spot the bid." And don't anticipate that there will always be a Russian to buy/bail them out: if Darling and Brown get their way, they will tax these people out of the UK. Also, they are not stupid, either ... buy into the dips and sell into the bear market are phrases they are familiar with and they DO know the distinction between the two. Savills (big estate agents) said that prices in the country estate sector dropped 6.7% in the first six months of this year. Precisely.

The British Chambers of Commerce said "the economic outlook for the business sector was 'grim and ominous' and the downturn could be 'longer and nastier' than previously expected." Since the ex-city economy was largely a new housing driven event -- let's look at that for a moment: Barrat and Taylor and Wimpey shares (two large builders) are down an average of 95%, year on year. Yes, you read that right. Builders are simply walking off the job-site rather than risk any more unsold units ... at the prices they needed to make a profit. They spent too much on the land and infrastructure anticipating a pricing level that is simply not there. Resales are down 7% for June year on year. Mortgages are down 44% May to May.

So what? Well consider that inflation is headed North ... and therefore rates will be headed in that direction. But if Darling is unable to lift rates because of non-existent factory orders and a precarious mortgage industry supporting housing ... can you say "stagflation?" Remember the 1970's? Central banks tried to counter the slowdown caused by spiking oil prices by monetary stimulation ... leading to run-away price spirals and ... no growth to speak of. Do you really remember? I do.

Back to the U.S.....

Conveniently, Democrats are focused on the economy (stupid -- as Bill would say) and have decided that it would do not much for their cause to focus on Iraq for now. General Betray-us (moniker courtesy of Moveon.org -- it should really be "more-on.org" but the neo-commies don't have a sense of humor), uh Petraeus, has shown us how to do it ... finally. And if we can keep enough personnel in Iraq in spite of political pressures -- not to mention financial -- we should be able to gradually restore that country into a functioning society. And no, we cannot leave right now. Maybe not for a long while. The issue is not Shi-ites, it is Iran. You know that too, not that the New York Times will ever print that.

Nadal outlasted Federer. Too bad. But if Nadal would try and smile every now and then, maybe I would feel different. It was, however, the best final I can remember. Maybe ever.

Sorrry.... Back to Big Ben Bernanke. Everyone knows that Ben is a student of economic history, even acknowledged as one of the leading world experts in this subject. So, Great Wizard (my new name for Ben), why are you repeating the mistakes of the 1970's? Refer to the stagflation comments above ... if Darling can do it, why are you thinking about it? The answer I suppose lies in Great Wizard's fear of 1929 repeating itself: the risk he sees is more related to a collapse of the banking system because the the sub prime mess (it is still with us, people). If he makes money too expensive, more pain will hit housing, more pain to people holding essentially worthless securities, more pain to shareholder in US financial institutions. If one or more of those big boys go under, the systemic risk of global financial collapse becomes unacceptable and inevitable. So GW is faced with: inflationary sprial or financial armegeddon. Great choice, huh? And this is because Americans thought about property the same way the Brits did, and our financial institutions came up with creative ways to allow it prosper -- for the greater glory of the end of year bonus along Wall Street, and against all common sense. The Fed should have recongnized this and brought it to a halt, but with the spectre of the Tech Wreck shortly banished, nobody wanted anyone to rain on their latest parade: real estate.

Do you, the reader, realize how few people it actually took to run this massive CDO, etc. industry? Sure there were thousands of mortgage originators across the US, all bent on their little incentive for placing a new load of worthless shit in the hopper to be processed by the Wall Street few, but it is just amazing how a few reckless quants managed to ruin our financial system. Anyway, GW took over far (from Greenspan) too late to have any realistic chance of reversing it, and by then the investment banks had the smell of greed in the air and in their pockets.

If we have stagflation here in the US, the dollar will be worthless, exascerbating the spiral. But maybe our financial institutions won't fold in that scenario. Maybe. Clearly, what we need to do is guarantee our financial system first -- perhaps simply put the Fed put option underneath the whole mess: "We Guarantee" ... "In The Fed We Trust." Not for ever, but until the OCC can certify that the toxic elements are off the books. GW made a step in that direction with opening the Fed window to investment banks, but it needs to make the complete step -- sort of a quasi-nationalization of the U.S. financial system. GW needs to extend this to ALL banks, etc., for the duration, no matter how "clean" their books, because they were ALL guilty. Even Goldman Sachs -- probably more guilty than most, just not so greedy that they kept the toxic stuff on their books, hoping for the homerun.

This possible action by GW would in a stroke shore up the entire U.S. financial market, unleash the taps of credit again -- sensibly and under Fed supervision -- and place a bottom on our stock market. Then raise rates. Raise them sharply to support the dollar -- pass tax incentives to manufacture in the U.S. as opposed to abroad. Then watch oil collapse and inflation too. It might just save the E.U. too. GW might want to limit resales of Treasuries to a fixed percentage per year ... but that might be risky. China remains a wild card, but they need us healthy ... if we collapse, I'd hate to think how bad things could get in China. But that is another rant.

Nuclear blackmail -- not what you think.

Nuclear blackmail -- not what you think.

I was reading the WSJ yesterday when it occurred to me....

It real and upon us: the energy crunch. Even if I am right and oil goes back to, say, $100 a barrel, there is no doubting the Earth has reached a tipping point in its use of fossil fuels. We could start to mine the oil shale and oil sands of Canada and the U.S., but for the first time we may have seen the spectre of too many users demanding too much oil.

And if the eco-weenies are right, and there is some form of anthropogenic climate change happening, we need to reduce or eliminate the gross carbon-based energy bonanza that passes for industry today. If they are wrong (and I believe that they are), why should we schmutz up the world anyway. Or worse, hand over trillions of dollars to those who would rather see us dead? We put bread in the mouths of those that would kill us, those who would see the world turned into a stone-age theocracy?

The immediate anwer is nuclear power. Clean -- carbon footprint of "nil" -- efficient, producing the energy source of choice for eco-weenies: electricity. Renewable through breeder reactors. But why does France produce 99.8% of its electrical energy from nuclear power and in the U.S. it is about 20%. France even exports about 18% of its production to other EU members -- most of which are held hostage by their environmental movements and cannot build their own plants.

AND THAT, friends, is the key point here: environmental movements across the globe (except notably in France and Russia) have managed to throw up hurdles to the exploitation of nuclear energy, at the same time loudly decrying the use of fossil fuels. The eco-weenies want "renewable, clean energy" but apart from pointing vaguely at wind, solar, geothermal and tidal source offer NO real solutions. None. I can't continue to write "eco-weenies" so hereafter they shall be known as EWs.

The real impact is socio-political ... the EWs want to shut down international trade (except when they want solar panels from New Zealand), and force us to scale back to living in mud-huts freezing our butts in the Winter. Riding bikes for ALL purposes. Only legitimate government officials would have access to or need cars and trucks, we could all live together in harmony, tilling the Earth in an eco-friendly manner ... nobody getting too rich and flying off in their Citation jets to second or third houses where it is warm. The EWs want to use the "energy crisis" as a means of advancing a secular-progressive agenda: modern communism, enforced by care for the Earth and concern for equality of the people everywhere in terms of carbon footprint. We, bad Americans, should have the same footprint as Babu in Bangalore, or Mbuki in Mbabane.

And nuclear power is a problem because it effectively "short circuits" their political agenda and goals. The EWs remember the great protests of the 1970's and '80's -- their fathers and mothers successfully managed to scare the elected government into erecting a barrage of bullshit regulations, planning commissions, agencies (which have to generate paperwork, or go out of business) -- all to prevent the construction of nuclear power plants. I have always suspected that the USSR was behind that, or even a cabal of far-sighted Saudis and their counterparts in the energy companies, or both. But the proto-EW movement were nothing short of Lenin's useful idiots. And while they failed to force us to "cave" to the East Bloc -- largely thanks to the Reagan Revolution -- and while they have been proven wrong on essentially every single geopolitical issue they have ever demonstrated for, their legacy remains a poison to a prosperous, modern America.

Today the anti-nuke movement sees the following themes as the main arguments against nuclear power: (1) cost; (2) number of plants required; (3) knowledge; (4) subsidies drawing resources away from other potential sources; (5) safety; (6) waste storage; and (7) proliferation.

And in looking at these "problems" I realized that every single one of these issues is either a "non-issue" (scare tactic) or a problem created by the EW movement themselves. Let's look at costs.... Since no new plants have been built since 1977, nobody has any idea of what the costs might be. We could guess that the expense of the first couple of new plants would be heavy, both with engineering permits, legal wrangles (the self-same EWs fighting against the plants would fulfill their prediction of high costs), financing costs, skills training, initial parts production .... All of which would drop significantly as more were built. "Cheaper" fossil fuels are going to look a lot more expensive when you have to count in the carbon costs imposed by the EWs, not to mention the environmental costs.

The number of plants required to cut into the need: larger and more efficient plants is one solution, but hiding our heads in the sand and saying "too many" is absurd. You need however many you need, given acceptable numbers of coal or oil fired plants and the availability of other energy sources -- all in the context of predicted energy requirements. More plants also means lower unit costs. Costs are unfavorably compared with solar and wind power ... maybe if you can guarantee that those sources will provide continuous power, but since nobody can get my 24 hour forecast right, why should we presume to be able to predict the weather? Also, suitable sites for wind farms and solar arrays are often too far from the end user of the energy being produced to make it sensible at all.

The EWs wring their hands about the lack of knowledge and skills available for the building and running of nuclear plants. Har-har. The EWs' parents are responsible for that lack, having virtually killed off that industry in the 1970's. We could always buy nuclear plants from France ... that ought to please the EWs. But fortunately, the military has been able to pick up some of the slack and has kept current on matters nuclear -- isn't that ironic. But consider the dangers of coal-fired plants ... aren't the EWs telling us fossil fuel plants are killing the Earth? Causing everything from global warming to mass lung disease and cooties? Or that the wind turbines in Vineyard Sound will kill all the seagulls and damage their views? What's worse, nuclear risks or the "surety of global warming?"

But the inevitable subsidies will take away money from ... other industries requiring subsidies that just might fall within the rubric of politically correct wastage? We know that nuclear power produces electricity - where and how required. Can you say that about wind or solar power? In the Northeast?

Where to put the spent nuclear fuel? So far, in the US, the sum total of all nuclear waste would cover a football field 15 feet deep in toxic crap. That's it. Some of this is now "cool" on a radioactive horizon and can be stored in a different way from the recent hot waste. To be sure, that's still one seriously toxic football field, but finding room for storage is NOT one of the problems. Finding a place for it is. And that problem is created by the same EWs who claim that there is a problem. Voila. Reprocessing of spent fuel also decreases the amount of waste, but as EWs point out, that also means that such dangerous byproducts as Plutonium are available for separation -- a proliferation problem. Compare that waste problem with the emissions creating global warming....

And we come to the ultimate EW nightmare: proliferation. Oh dear! Look, it is not as if anything we do "to set an example"' will in any way affect the actions of other nations. And if other nations are going to try and "nick" some of our reprocessed stuff, why would they bother to get it here? Why not France or Russia? Or build their own D.I.Y. nuke kit from Kim Jong-Il or Pakistan? Just worrying about our ability to keep tabs on our own nuke-stuff is nonsensical compared with the global risk already out there. The Genie is already out of the bottle.

Also ironically, it turns out that the best system for producing gasoline from oil shale and oil sands involves using a nuclear plant to hyrdolize the raw material, heating it, using superheated steam, etc. -- under current plans, 30% of any fuel produced has to be used in the making of each gallon of good stuff. Kind of expensive when you consider how cheaply it could be done using the by-products of nuke electricity production.

Weird.