High Tech-Pulleys, Fuel Efficiency, Economic Invention; The Uncertainty of Ideas

It seems like a silly idea at first, like something a 19th century car designer or Mike Trogg of cave man days might have imagined: increase the power and fuel efficiency of a car by reducing the workload on the wheels with several turns of car length composite-fiber pulleys before connecting to half-axles that turn the wheels. One might have expected Lance Armstrong to invent recumbent sit down trikes with unfair pulleys to beat the competition yet never the U.S. Postal Service struggling with rain, snow, sleet, hail and perennial deficits.

 Basic physical principles are simple to build up and easy to take down with folly. Does gravity convert mass to energy for warping space simultaneously creating black holes and also accelerating Universal expansion? Does the presence of mass in a Higgs field base when increased affect the shape of the field creating the effect of warping spacetime as proportional perhaps clogging smaller dimensional ties? Aren't black holes empty at the singularity having converted all the mass input mass into warped spacetime energy?

 Inventions and contemplative thought may be synthetic sides of the same process emerging into idea. The economy too is a concatenation of applications of myriad forms of capitalism selected for actualizations and sometimes evolved as an inertial compilation for good or bad. Dictators and kings may have capital and the slaves none. Liberalism at its heart is the denial of the right of anyone to coerce any other to do or be anything. The rectification of names such as north and south magnetic poles, male and female reproductive apparatus meaning particular ideas rather than anything at all, that is discriminating by not giving east the meaning of south or naming a bear an ant, is an essential attribute o the use of words in a coherent description of truth. With words and objects being reciprocally referenced by association it is valuable to keep language meaningful. North and south magnetic poles attract, males and females reproduce and that is socially recognized in marriage, inventiveness and economic construction occurs in a real global ecosphere with the health of each reinforced and conformed through intelligent analytical comprehension instead of explicit, incidental evolutionarily determined sprawl. One may have faith that God will direct one toward the most excellent developments as if the economy too evolved naturally, yet God's purposes are somewhat mysterious and economic determinism seems as uncertain as evolutionary determinism in a given theory of capitalism.

 There was a time in the distant past when people believed killing sea otters and placing a bounty on them would improve shellfish quantity. It turned out that sea otters eat echinoderms that eat shellfish and kelp too, at the roots. A lot of sea lives including some fish start their life in salt-water kelp. When the kelp is gone so are the fish. Thus those sea otters were the defenders of saltwater fisheries and shellfish before maladaptive human interventionist predation. If there are good ways to reduce loss of biodiversity and increase transportation efficiency that can be found it's always a good time to apply them.

 Unemployment should be triaged to create incentives to hire those jobless longest first. Social benefits from eliminating pockets of long-term unemployed would be significant while the process would be merciful and probably productive by introducing micro-capital to sectors of poverty running on empty. Some of those people might think outside the fossil fuel box a little more often than most and that could be productive.          

                                                                  

Federal Debt 1991 and 2013; Digging a Deeper Hole

I wrote a letter on U.S. national debt in December of 1991 to The All Alaska Weekly-a now defunct newspaper. In that letter I reviewed the historical development of public debt. Following are three paragraphs from that letter and a 2013 review of the financial circumstance of the public debt crisis and what is needed to resolve it.

December 13, 1991 All Alaska Weekly

National Debt

To the editor; The Republican Party at the national level, as holders of the Presidential post, have increased the national debt from $900 billion in 1980 to $3 trillion in 1992. For comparative purposes, the U.S. had virtually no debt of permanence until World War II.

 It took from 1940 to 1980 just to reach $900 billion.

 The gross national product is about $5 trillion. Reagan nearly doubled the gross national product of America, but also nearly tripled the national debt. That is deficit-financed growth. Another interesting fact is that since the Korean War, the U.S. national debt has never been reduced. If a politician says he will get rid of the debt, it would be an historical anomaly to do it.

2013-What is Needed to Pay off $17 Trillion of U.S. Public Debt

The federal budget should be brought into balance directly with cuts without raising taxes. There is plenty of room for those cuts using creative efficiency increases including the Department of Defense so services may remain at preset levels. Then federal taxation should be raised enough to bring in a $500 billon surplus directly applied to paying down principle on the federal debt of $17 trillion. That is, $500 million dollars should be taken from the U.S. federal budget and given to pay down the principle on the public debt. Taxation should be increased enough on the middle class and rich to bring in $500 million dollars annually so the federal budget can remain the same after the initial, one-time balancing budget cuts and reformulations.

The U.S. economic health is a different item than the federal debt and budget of the U.S. Government. The state of the economy is not fundamentally reformable by either tax policy or monetary policy. Instead the U.S. economy is a result of empirical economic factors multi-nationally and the demographics of global labor, supply, demand and allocation of capital.

 With the post cold war global economic changes bringing Chinese investment to the Panama Canal and Mexico, illegal alien migration to the U.S.A., foreign investments in China as minority shareholders and internationalization of U.S. public debt there is less direct relationship between American capitalists and American workers than formerly. When the economy is down in the U.S.A. investors may take profits abroad. As 50 million Americans are on food stamps and more than 12 million Americans are unemployed Wall Street has recovered generally and investors have taken record profits. The middle class too has increasingly taken the side of the haves versus American have-nots while wealth has become concentrated. One percent of Americans own about 50% of the wealth of the nation.

Federal economic remedies would include incentives for hiring those longest out of work first, reduction of taxes for building small, energy efficient homes and incentives for hiring workers over age 55 that do not draw social security. Transformation of the U.S.A. to a full-employment, public debt free nation with an effective, comprehensive public welfare safety net concurrent with a robust ecologically rational economic recovery would require intelligent political leadership and the will to act. I suppose it is the political equivalence of the pay 'Waiting for Godot'.

Few Realists in Understanding Reganomics

President Ronald Reagan's economy benefited from mass deficit spending with concurrent tax cuts. That freed a lot of cash and loans for economic stimulus and it worked-the jobless rate dropped from the high of the last Carter year. Ronald Reagan of course advocated just tax cuts, yet that wasn't the economy he had. The vast military build up and Star Wars developments, the 500 ship navy were paid for with public debt. During the Reagan presidency the public debt of the U.S.A. reached about 5.3 trillion dollars if I recollect that accurately.

For the nearing 17 trillion dollar U.S. public debt to be reduced a federal budget surplus is requisite to pay the 3/4's trillion dollars of annual interest on the debt plus more to pay it down. That would require economic management competence rather than fantasy or delusion as both Republicans and Democrats prefer. Tax increases and budget cutting are needed. Yet more vital is budget reform where intelligent legislators (I am not joking) get more bang for the buck; they provide better services to the public at less cost.

The U.S. Government should not create many new federal programs that increase the number of government employees and while the private sector is not doing so well. U.S. manufacturing has decreased significantly during the Obama administration. Neither should a revitalization of the private sector fail to regard the environment and its conservation and restoration as priority number one. Politicians cannot afford to be ignorant children on the topic if a long-range eco-health is to have a chance of existing as science now understands it.

Most Guns Crimes are Consequent to Poverty, High Unemployment

Ending poverty in the U.S.A. is the best way to reduce gun crimes. Lasting poverty and ghetto strife as well as drug sales and consumerism create violence. Gentrified neighborhoods just don't have as much violence as those that are poor.

 The prosperous of course would rather repress the poor and take away their gun rights rather than increase taxes on themselves while cutting and reforming spending to create a full-employment nation where few have any interest in giving up the jacuzzi and gold course for inner urban strife and gang violence.

 The mass-media gangland is of a different sort than that of the poor. The prosperous do not have as much inter-personal violent crimes; instead they manage foreign wars where thousands and thousands of foreigners perish in dubious conflicts for complex reasons.

Most Americans Arrived Legally-Strengthen Border Security Not Illegal Entry

Creating a fast track for law-breakers is wrong. Illegal aliens ought not be given an advantage over those that arrived here legally as did most U.S. citizens and their ancestors including slave any more than should burglars be given an economic advantage and amnesty over those that have struggled legally through unemployment and poverty

 If laws are to mean anything they must be consistent and plain. Lawbreakers that increase their numbers sufficiently should not find a government receptive to giving they're law-breaking a legal status. That is a process of revolution instead of solid legal change. If a government that is weak and inconsistent does flip-flop on the application of the law temporarily it does create a legacy of disrespect for legal philosophy and integrity with lasting ill effects to the well being of a nation of laws with moral validity.

 Mexican citizens illegally residing in the United States should return to Mexico and apply through normal immigration channels to become permanent residents. Reason would indicate that their familiarity with the United States from having lived here should be acknowledged and given the value of perhaps half of the residency requirements for applying for U.S. citizenship should they happen to develop that circumstance. Reason would also indicate that former illegal aliens should need to live in the U.S.A. for some years after arriving legally to prove up their willingness to play by the rules and not just cut to the head of the line. A wise-guy beginning may be good enough for the Jersey mob of yore, yet it is not an adequate start in the life of millions of new American citizens.

The rich and middle class may prefer a cheap new mass labor force to prop up their concentration of wealth. The interests of the poor of the United States and of the unemployed to not coincide with those that would dump millions of new low income laborers in the nation. Dumping millions of dual citizenship new citizens would be a permanent disadvantage to millions of Americans. No illegal alien deal, if one is made by the decadent legislative class, should fail to require the forfeiture of Mexican citizenship of those seeking to take on U.S. citizenship.

Free Advice to Rush Limbaugh on How to Restore Conservative Momentum

In the wake of the Obama inauguration you may ask yourself; what is a conservative to do? Herein I will provide several ideas on the rationale of Presidential elections since 1980. Thus you may discover things about your own beliefs, and that of the national electorate that you may not have known.

One-Ronald Reagan was elected for his populist ideas rather than conservative ideas. 

The conservative ideas of Ronald Reagan, without Ronald Reagan are dead. Carter was elected after the last intelligent political operator President Richard Nixon took the fall over Watergate, because of his populist symbology. He could have a beer behind the gas station in a field jacket with brother Billy and the nation felt at peace. For a new conservative to be elected President he must be popular rather than a technocrat.

Gorge H.W. Bush was elected on Reagan's coattails and didn't serve a second term. Bill Clinton seemed a populist the nation might like-especially the ladies and homosexuals, and that was that. George Bush the Younger was barely elected with the intervention of the supreme court only because he ran against Pinnochio and the blow jobs of Bill Clinton's administration put a stain on the democrat oval office. Then the 9-11 job happened providing G.W. Bush a second term or he would have been cast out-though he ran against the uncharismatic John Kerry who said he was a war criminal along with his Vietnam vet peers.

President Obama is a mouthpiece for the liberal elite (as they regard themselves). He is a stuffed suit withuot dangerous original ideas that could upset the rich. Malcom X might have though of President Obama as a y.n. who mollifies the uninformed while channeling the money off to the rich. Under President Obama wealth continues to be concentrated while the bread and circuses charged on the federal credit card continues to throw trillions of debt on to to deficit pile no one intends to repay.

Americans vote populist if they have any reasonable choice. They want to elect the one that promises prosperity for all (well, President Obama seems to exclude the poor and accentuate the middle class), not the scrooge promising cuts. A balanced budget and deficit reduction is part of prosperity yet it must be carefully marketed to the voters. No plain conservative with nostalgia for King George III, Louis the XVI and Attaboy Attilla would find it easy to be elected to the Presidency on an agenda of trickle down from bankers, Wall Street elites and globalists of all sorts buying the U.S.Government.

The Conservative movement hasn't much of a political base economically speaking. The rich comprise at most 5% of the voters. For conservativism to develop a winning edge in 2014 and beyond it cannot schism itself with moderate and liberal Republicans for a divided Republican party is a minority. When conservatives say my way or the highway they serve to elect extreme liberal democrats.

American voters desire prosperity for-themselves and a President that really supports that. They want a good environment in recovery and full employment. They do not want Canadian tar sands oil through a pipeline and national groundwater pollution with undeclared chemicals used in fracking. The public is more intelligent than conservative talk radio hosts on occasion in believing scientific opinion on global warming issues as well as a number of other environmental issues. Republican and Tea Party Conservatism tends to run toward short-term dirty profits and an obsession about tax cuts for the privileged.

President Obama talks disingenuously about working in a bi-partisan manner and has chastised Republicans for not doing so. The President however should cut the federal budget 25% straitaway and create a health care infrastructure for the poor with walk in service at no cost through an expanded V.A. hospital system and take them out of Obamacare. Means tests should be applied to all social entitlement programs so the prosperous do not soak up money they don't need. The President has much to do himself to move toward  bi-partisanship and hasn't the slightest intent of doing so. The national economy suffers, the unemployed remain unemployed even approaching a retirement age they can't afford to retire in.

Republicans need that popular individual to run for office,with whatever Westinghouse appliances and such a conservative needs, along with donated political theory, to overcome the challenges of the day.

Hope Rises That Human Surrogate Can Birth Neanderthal

A Harvard geneticist has mentioned to a German newspaper that a surrogate could give birth to a Neanderthal after sufficient recombinant tinkering I guess. That brings hope for avoiding concussions in NFL games as Neanderthals had thicker skulls than people today.

Modern Neanderthals might disdain guns and just go right at it with assault clubs for home defense just for the heck of it.

http://www.slashgear.com/harvard-geneticist-says-a-neanderthal-baby-can-be-cloned-with-the-aid-of-an-adventurous-woman-21266162/

Evidently the genome of Neanderthals might be reconstructed and put into human stem cells. One new that research would have real benefits one day.