Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[greenback44]

I just think the maintenance will be higher for green energy.

That's not good for the economy though (and it's really what I should've said in the first place). Economic growth happens through increases in productivity/efficiency or through increases in the working population relative to the non-working population. Capital disappears when it's allocated to less efficient means of production.

[BW23]

Not completely off topic, but does anyone actually believe anything Michael Moore writes/says anymore? I just read what he wrote this morning about the bailout.

Who was the rich person when he was smaller that called him fat?

[Arthur Dent]

I just think the maintenance will be higher for green energy. Let alone the cost of converting people. For example: right now one big giant coal plant on the Missouri river, Labadie, generates 2300megawatts of power. Ameren employs about 300 people to work in that plant. It's the biggest power plant in Missouri. Do you think it'll only take 300 people for Ameren to build and maintain an alternative power source to replace a plant that burns 8.5million tons of coal annually?

If you look at solar power on wiki, the big example power plants are bringing in 10-20 megawatts of power. Even if solar power, or some equivalent, manages to increase efficiency ten fold, you're still going to have to build more than one power plant to replace that much energy produced. If they have to build 5 solar plants to equal the production of that one coal plant, and it takes 300 people to maintain that plan, then 1,200 jobs were just created.

Obviously there's tons and tons more variable than what I mentioned that go into it, and i'm pretty ignorant on the subject as a whole, but it seems to me just due to the sheer efficiency of fossil fuels any sort of alternative that is used will require more man power to develop and maintain.

Why would increased maintenance costs represent a net economic benefit? Sure, more jobs would be "created" maintaining such facilities, but that means people are being diverted from performing other tasks. It's "good" if you are plant engineer (a few), but "bad" if you pay to consume energy (most).

[PujolJunkie]

Not completely off topic, but does anyone actually believe anything Michael Moore writes/says anymore? I just read what he wrote this morning about the bailout.

Who was the rich person when he was smaller that called him fat?

I think you have to take what he says as 60% truth, 40% [expletive]. I thought SiCKO was a damn good documentary, along with the other two, but once again, I'm not sure that I believe all of the subject matter. He's informative and very intelligent, but I do wonder sometimes how much truth is there.

[TheoSqua]

I just think the maintenance will be higher for green energy. Let alone the cost of converting people. For example: right now one big giant coal plant on the Missouri river, Labadie, generates 2300megawatts of power. Ameren employs about 300 people to work in that plant. It's the biggest power plant in Missouri. Do you think it'll only take 300 people for Ameren to build and maintain an alternative power source to replace a plant that burns 8.5million tons of coal annually?

If you look at solar power on wiki, the big example power plants are bringing in 10-20 megawatts of power. Even if solar power, or some equivalent, manages to increase efficiency ten fold, you're still going to have to build more than one power plant to replace that much energy produced. If they have to build 5 solar plants to equal the production of that one coal plant, and it takes 300 people to maintain that plan, then 1,200 jobs were just created.

Obviously there's tons and tons more variable than what I mentioned that go into it, and i'm pretty ignorant on the subject as a whole, but it seems to me just due to the sheer efficiency of fossil fuels any sort of alternative that is used will require more man power to develop and maintain.

Why would increased maintenance costs represent a net economic benefit? Sure, more jobs would be "created" maintaining such facilities, but that means people are being diverted from performing other tasks. It's "good" if you are plant engineer (a few), but "bad" if you pay to consume energy (most).

I started typing this stipulation at the end but couldn't find a way to word it well and just dropped it, but the same could be said for the IT field. Wouldn't the cost of hiring entire departments and millions upon millions of computers raise the cost of the average product for the consumer?

I should also mention that I forsee an overhaul of the U.S. Infastructure as part of this. It'll cost tons of money. But it will create millions of jobs (constructing infastructure / building new plants / maintaining plants / converting equipment to use new energy sources / tearing down old infastructure and plants / recycling / etc.) and create tons and tons of production. The government (ie taxes) will probably end up footing a lot of the bill. But I think it's the next thing to spur our economy.

[obucard]

For the household of 2 working parents and 2 kids, that number swells to $4667 per taxpayer. The 7K number was based on taking the non-taxpaying population out of the equation.

That's not correct either. Even if the money were all to come from a cash contribution from tax payers (and it won't), the median household would pay far less than this.

I'd like to know the source of the $7k number. Maybe they specified per household (rather than per individual), but that still only comes to ~$6200. Anyway, people pay tax proportionate to their income, so the median household will pay far less. Specifying costs per household or per individual is much more meaningful than just throwing around large numbers like $700 billion, but it's extremely dishonest to imply that the bailout would cost each person $7000. It won't.

I believe the 7K was a rough estimate based on far more rounding than necessary.

Mean average is typically used because of its simplicity. Median is more accurate, but requires a lot more figures.

[UK]

The 4 things this country needs to do, IMO:

1)Create regulations to eliminate the trade deficit, reduce spending (Iraq, oil, foreign goods, etc). The US has to tax countries that mainpulate the value of their currency by purchasing the dollar. China's Yuan is so undervalued right now as well as raising their GDP, which allows them to export job to China, raising unemployment and that deficit.

2)Innovation and dependence on oil. Oil is a huge reason why we have the trade deficit which has partially led to where we're at now. We need to reduce our consumption and we're unable to do so. We need the gov't to further impose restrictions as far as automakers and fuel eff. cars, we need to reward conpanies involved with greener solutions and we need to reward those consumers for greener cars with trade in allowances towards those green cars based on the life of their current car. Innovation is going to be led thru alternative mtethods of fuel, we need to create job and lead this revolution, we cannot afford to be importing alternative fuel like we have with oil.

3)Banks-they should have to allocate money towards the tax payers to receive any for of profit from the bailout. They need to reform their banking practices towards taking responsibility.

And number 4 is....

Innovation and dependence on oil are two different things but are somewhat combined.

[BW23]

The 4 things this country needs to do, IMO:

1)Create regulations to eliminate the trade deficit, reduce spending (Iraq, oil, foreign goods, etc). The US has to tax countries that mainpulate the value of their currency by purchasing the dollar. China's Yuan is so undervalued right now as well as raising their GDP, which allows them to export job to China, raising unemployment and that deficit.

2)Innovation and dependence on oil. Oil is a huge reason why we have the trade deficit which has partially led to where we're at now. We need to reduce our consumption and we're unable to do so. We need the gov't to further impose restrictions as far as automakers and fuel eff. cars, we need to reward conpanies involved with greener solutions and we need to reward those consumers for greener cars with trade in allowances towards those green cars based on the life of their current car. Innovation is going to be led thru alternative mtethods of fuel, we need to create job and lead this revolution, we cannot afford to be importing alternative fuel like we have with oil.

3)Banks-they should have to allocate money towards the tax payers to receive any for of profit from the bailout. They need to reform their banking practices towards taking responsibility.

And number 4 is....

Innovation and dependence on oil are two different things but are somewhat combined.

I thought so, but I wanted to make sure. Thanks.

[UK]

I don't think it's only people with bad credit. But, I thought you said that the larger banks were no longer lending money? That's what I said was untrue and you then said I was wrong. I'm not wrong. They are still lending money. They are still looking for good investments (always have been) even though they supposedly don't have any. What they want now is someone (namely you and me at 7K a piece and every body else on the board for the same price) to buy all their screw ups which I don't want to do. Imo, there are two options right now:

1) The government takes over and probably screws up the companies beyond what they are now becasue let's be honest, the government is a monumental screw up.

2) European banks come in and buy out what is left of these screwed up companies that have claimed bankruptcy but are still lending money as we speak (because it would cost them money not to). People that aren't going to give out stupid loans take over and they start loaning money again to good investments....because that is how they make money.

I'm all for option #2 as opposed ot #1.

You're being semantical if you thought I was saying the bolded part literally b/c there will be loans, but there won't be enough handed out to avoid a credit crisis for putting enough people in homes and small businesses to survive with a credit crunch followed by an economic crisis.

I simply don't buy it. Period. They're not going to stop giving out loans to good investors because that is how they make money. That would be like McDonals saying they aren't going to sell fries anymore. If the potato company they got the fries from went out of business, they would find another place to get their potatoes. Similarly, if all these "larger banks" go outof business, that only opens the door for other banks to step in and provide the capital. Someone will do it because it's how they make money.... regardless of what is going on around them, they're not going to stop trying to do that.

So you think all this talk about the credit crunch is fictional?

[Arthur Dent]

I started typing this stipulation at the end but couldn't find a way to word it well and just dropped it, but the same could be said for the IT field. Wouldn't the cost of hiring entire departments and millions upon millions of computers raise the cost of the average product for the consumer?

Only if the computers were a bad investment. If companies bought computers that were only used to screw around, then yes, it would cost consumers money. If computers allow people to communicate more easily, have better access to information, perform more complex calculations, or better manage resources, then they can be a good investment.

I should also mention that I forsee an overhaul of the U.S. Infastructure as part of this. It'll cost tons of money. But it will create millions of jobs (constructing infastructure / building new plants / maintaining plants / converting equipment to use new energy sources / tearing down old infastructure and plants / recycling / etc.) and create tons and tons of production. The government (ie taxes) will probably end up footing a lot of the bill. But I think it's the next thing to spur our economy.

There seems to be a belief that the economy is some sort of magic beast to which the rules of common sense don't apply. Tearing things down and building them back up provides no more benefit to the economy than digging a hole in my yard and refilling it benefits me. It creates work, but that is not intrinsically good. Replacing infrastructure is good if the new infrastructure is better than the old. Green technology is likely to be less productive in the traditional economic sense, however I still think it is "better" because it will allow us to avoid the many costs of using fossil fuels which are not included in that analysis.