Here are my top 10 predictions for 2012. These are less readings of the tea leaves or the entrails of goats and chickens and more simple extrapolations of patterns in progress. Altho that may be the way effective oracles. They just masked their observations with hocus pocus, mumbo-jumbo, and guts.

This list runs a gamut from business and technology to energy, instability in the Middle East, micro-economics in the United States, politics, and not-yet-pop culture.

1.  Apple and IBM will continue to thrive. Microsoft will grow, slightly. Dell and HP will thrash. A share of Apple, which sold for $11 in December, 2001, and $380 in Dec. 2011, will sell for $480 in Dec. 2012.
2. The Price of oil will be at $150 to $170 per barrel in Dec., 2012. The price of gasoline will hit $6.00 per gallon in NYC and California.
3. There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China. 20,000 people will die.
4. There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea.
5. Wal-Mart will stop growing. Credit Unions, insurance coops and Food coops, however, will grow 10% to 25%.
6. The amount of wind and solar energy deployed in the United States will continue to dramatically increase.
7. The government of Bashar Al Assad will fall.
8. Foreclosures will continue in the United States.
9. Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will resign. Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from matters involving his wife’s clients will become louder, but Justice Thomas will ignore them. A prominent politician who says “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” or her husband, will be “outed” as gay. President Obama will be re-elected.
10. The authors of Vapor Trails will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. They will not win a “MacArthur Genius Award.” Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project.

Here are the details … Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Dell, & HP

Apple will continue to reinvent itself, bringing out “the best iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and MacBook – ever.” It won’t get Apple TV right, but no one will care. The Mac Mini will very quietly enter the server space, in workgroups, small companies and science and engineering labs. Software “apps” will be developed on iMacs and Minis for use in the field. It will continue grow by creating then exploiting new markets. It may even get Apple TV right one day. IBM will continue to thrive in computer hardware and software engineering and professional services.

As illustrated, their market capitalizations and stock prices will grow 25%. The valuation of Microsoft may grow 20%. Dell, and HP, however, will not grow more than 10% and will remain well below their historical peaks.

Financial analysts will come to regard Microsoft, MSFT, as analogous to an investor owned utility. They will note that it has completed it’s growth cycle and has leveled off, and will expect dividends, and continue to receive them. One way that it could grow dramatically would be to split into a three companies: a server software company, a business desktop software company, and a home software company, but that idea is 10 years old. They didn’t do it then; they won’t do it now.

HP will continue to gyrate without focus. They designed an inferior tablet, compared to the iPad, and an overpriced tablet compared to the Nook, Kindle and Kindle Fire, and face competition in the printer space from Canon, Sharp, and Xerox. HP will, in 2012, cede the laptop and workstation markets to Dell and Lenovo, and lose market share in the server market to Dell and IBM. They won’t care about the laptop and workstation markets because the margins are so thin, except for Apple, but the loss of the server market will be painful because there are margins and services there. HP needs a Lou Gerstener to make the elephant dance, and return to the “HP Way.” Fiorina didn’t do it. She tried to remake HP in her image rather than return to what Hewlett and Packard did that made HP great. I don’t know if Whitman will do it. She won’t do it in a year, and may wind up fired by a Board that is impatient and bored.

Dell will continue to take it’s customers for granted and treat them badly. While this may not rise to the level of the 2008 settlement between the Attorney General of New York and Dell Computer and Dell Financial, (NY AG Dell site here / NY Times coverage here) bad customer service will not get better. Dell is growing by acquisition, which is an expensive way  to gain customers, typically requiring tremendous leverage putting a heavy burden on staff. It will sacrifice morale for statistics.

This will reflected in the stock prices. Apple, and IBM will increase 25% to 480 (AAPL) and $225 (IBM). Microsoft may grow 20%. Dell, and HP will gyrate but end the year where they started. The Dow Jones Industrial Average will increase about 10% to 1320.

The price of oil will end 2012 at $150 to $170 per barrel. The price of gasoline will hit 6.00 per gallon in California and New York City. People will drive less, and when they buy cars, they will buy more efficient new cars.  Increased CAFE standards, click here for overview, 27.5 mpg, since 1990, which Obama will again try to increase, will continue to annoy Republicans and Tea Party faithful, who will buy more efficient vehicles anyway.  Meanwhile fleet efficiencies will climb faster than the CAFE standards mandate as businesses and municipalities factor in fuel and maintenance costs in the life cycle analyses they perform. Parking lot solar energy systems will spread from California, Texas, and New Jersey to other parts of the country. These will feed the grid and charge electric cars driven by commuters, and generate revenue for the owners.

Nuclear Power & Disasters.

There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea. If Russia, we will not learn of it for days. If China or North Korea we will not learn of it for weeks. If India, the government will blame Pakistan. If Pakistan, the government will blame India, the United States, and Israel. This will have the unintended consequence of driving stronger ties between Israel and India. We will see battery powered Tata Motors cars in Israel, as well as Europe. These will be commuter vehicles. They will not displace trains. We will continue to see high speed rail displace inter-city and regional airplane traffic. And trains will continue to grow, particularly in Europe and Asia.  We will look for evidence of leaked tritium at various nuclear power plants, and find it wherever we look.

There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China in which 20,000 people will die. This will take place in a coal mine, an elementary school, a railroad, a housing project or an airport, another example of unregulated totalitarianistic state capitalism.

Wal-Mart v Credit Unions and Food Co-ops.

Wal-Mart will stop growing. Part of this will be due to gas prices, and higher priced poor quality goods from China. People will stop buying cheap crap they need to replace quickly, and start demanding – and paying for – good, durable, locally sourced goods – goods that are good.

Credit Unions, Mutual Insurance Companies and Food Co-Ops will grow 10% to 25%. Credit Unions and Insurance co-ops will grow, in part, as a result of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. We will also see a slight increase in organic and sustainable farming.  The margins will increase because people will pay more for healthier and better tasting food, and manure will cost less than gas based fertilizers. Ranchers will also begin deploying manure to methane cookers, and will run farm equipment on manure. They – we – will also plant gardens, eat less meat, and get healthier.

Energy  Pundits (funded by coal, methane, and oil industry interests) will continue to call for fracking and carbon sequestration. Politicians will listen oblivious to the facts on water use or pollution costs that will be externalized to future generations. At the same time, conservative politicians will begin to re-assess energy subsidies for coal, oil, methane, and nuclear.

Solar energy capacity in New Jersey and California will increase by about a third, from 400 MW to 600 MW, in Jersey, and from 700 MW to 1 Gigawatt in California. Solar will spread to Florida, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, This will be accompanied by a price drop to below $5.00 per watt, and additional technology breakthroughs in manufacturing and design efficiencies. These phenomena will feed each other in another positive, or reinforcing feedback loop.  Small solar will spread to aboriginal communities in Africa, Australia, South and Central America, and remote parts of Asia.

Iowa gets 20% of it’s electric power from the wind today. This will increase to 25% over 2012.

Wind, hydro, solar hot water, and geothermal will increase by 25% in the Pacific Northwest.

1.0 gigawatts of nameplate capacity in one or two old coal or nuclear plants will be decommissioned, replaced with wind, solar, geothermal, and insulation. This will be done for reasons, having as much to do with economics as the environment.

1.0 million homes in the US will be retrofitted with R25 or better insulation in the walls and attic.

Ground – or water – will be broken as the first offshore wind farms in US waters will be started, either Cape Wind, in the Horseshoe Shoals off Nantucket, or the New Jersey wind farms.

There will also be design breakthroughs in offshore hydro-electric, or marine current generation, and deep geothermal.

The government of Syria will fall, but, as is happening in Egypt, the military will take or hold power. Bashar Al Assad will be killed, like Muammar Gadaffi, by the people at whos heads he has pointed his guns, or he will find refuge in Tehran, Iran, Baghdad, Iraq, or, like Idi Amin, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Iran and Turkey will compete to fill the power vacuum. Since the government of Iran is unstable – the people are hungry for democracy as well as food- this round will go to Turkey. Hamas will continue embrace the Palestinian Authority. It will also continue to call for the destruction of Israel. Without support from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the Saudis, these cries will grow louder, harsher, more shrill, yet less effective. The Israelis, however, will grow more frightened and will respond with harsher methods. It’s a reinforcing feedback cycle. Hamas will continue to execute people who call for peace with Israel. Calls for divestiture of Israel by the left in the US and Europe will be ignored.

Back in the US, foreclosures will continue, driving property values down. Many will remain unsold as credit will be expensive and speculators will be cautious.  However, as energy prices climb, and as effective insulation can be made from recycled cellulose (newspaper) treated with boric acid, people who have some equity will invest in negawatts, and nega-fuel-watts. And they will plant gardens.

The Republican Party will be divided over calls by Newt Gingrich and business owners for amnesty for undocumented workers (here), calls by Mitt Romney and Wall Street to allow “the foreclosure process to take its course” (here), and by citizens opposed to the appearance of a biases in favor of illegal aliens and Wall Street “Banksters.” People will turn away from the GOP as they will see adherance to Grover Norquist’s pledge as destructive and unpatriotic, and the focus by John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, on cutting taxes for the 1% while raising taxes on the 99%, which people will perceive as a transfer of wealth to the very wealthy. Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is said to have cost Maricopa County $43 million in lawsuits, will resign over his alleged bias against Latinos. The calls for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas, over conflict of interest for not recusing himself over business dealings of Ginny Thomas – Mrs. Justice Thomas – will get louder. Another two or three married members of the House or Senate will be involved in a ‘sexting’ scandal. There will be a scandal involving a prominent Republican politician or her husband involved in ilicit sexual liasons with a professional sex worker of the same gender. This will be immortalized with “Marriage is between a man and a woman. But with sin; anything goes!” The unemployment rate will drop below 8.2%. Elizabeth Warren will be elected Senator from Massachusetts, the Democrats will regain control of the House. Barak Obama will win re-election to the Presidency.

“Vapor Trails,” by Bob Siegel and Roger Saillant will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project. “It’s Rainin’ Outside the Cave” featuring “Sunbathing in Siberia” and other songs of peace, love, and global warming will not become a hit record. Neither Emenim nor Kanye West will do a ‘rap’ version. Rianna will not do a duet with me . Lady Gaga will not moan a version of it. Brittney Spears will not ask about covering any of my songs as part of her “Comeback Tour.” Neither will Justin Timberlake, Justin Beiber, Arlo Guthrie or Tom Paxton. Nor do Siegel, Sallant, or myself seem likely to win MacArthur “Genius Grants.” However, we will develop a screenplay of Vapor Trails which will feature some of my songs, and we ink a film deal.

Copyright, L. J. Furman, 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Tweet   In Part 1,  I criticized “How to Really Save the Economy“, an op-ed in the New York Times, published Sept. 10, 2011. So how do we really save the economy?

“One of the best kept secrets in New York City,” I wrote, “is the existence of a 40 kilowatt (KW) photovoltaic solar array on the Whitehall Street terminal of the Staten Island Ferry,” pictured above, and first covered in Popular Logistics  in 2007, here.

There are 90,000 public schools in the United States. Suppose we were to install a 40 KW solar energy system on each of them. PV solar modules require very little maintenance over their 35 to 45 year life expectancy. My initial thought was $5 per watt or $5,000 per kilowatt, but $4,000 per kilowatt is more realistic for the near term price of solar, particularly at the utility scale. This is where we expect the cost of solar in the Q4 2012 timeframe, without subsidies.

At $4,000 per KW of nameplate capacity, each of these 90,000 systems would cost $160,000. This 3.6 gigawatts of distributed daylight-only capacity would cost about $14.4 billion.

It seems to make sense to use taxpayer monies to finance these systems; taxpayers pay the electric bills for public schools and other public infrastructure, so rather than pay a utility to burn coal, oil, or gas, or harness nuclear fission, we could buy solar modules, put them on the roof and transform sunlight into electricity.  But what are the other implications? What would it give us? And what do we do at night? How much juice do we get?

The US Dept. of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL) PV Watts solar energy calculator tells you the power you can expect from a given solar system anywhere in the US. Regarding night-time; solar is effective in conjunction with other sources of energy, and other clean, renewable, sustainable sources include wind, geothermal, micro-hydro, biofuel.

Every public school in the country would have a power plant that generates power, during the day, with no fuel cost and no waste., and no associated mining, processing, transportation, fuel costs and no waste management costs. At $5.00 per watt, or $5 billion per gigawatt, the capital costs are lower than the costs of new nuclear and significantly lower than the costs of coal with carbon sequestration, with none of the risks or hazards associated with the systems: no arsenic, mercury, lead, thorium, uranium, zinc, or carbon.

The systems would be tied to the electric grid, after all, while most of their operations are during the day, schools need power at night. If these systems could be disconnected from the electric grid, then we would have 90,000 structures distributed all over the United States, with power during the day in the event of power outages from storms, earthquakes, accidents, etc. Even if we lost 10% of them in a disaster like Katrina, or an event like Irene or the recent earthquake, we would still have 81,000 all over the country. Coupled with efficient refrigeration systems, we would have shelters with power to keep food and medications cold during emergencies; and these would be distributed across the country.

The solar systems would obviously have to be installed here, which would stimulate the economy, and we could even require the components to be manufactured here, further stimulating the economy.

Why not business as usual?

As reported here the North Anna nuclear plants in Virginia were shut down during the earthquake a few days before hurricane Irene. The Dominion plants in Virginia, and the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey were shut down and the Millstone 2 & 3 plants in Connecticut and the Brunswick plants in North Carolina were brought to reduced capacity during Irene, and the Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska has been shut down due to flooding, and losing $1 million per day, since June 6, 2011.

In Part 1, I criticized “How to Really Save the Economy, “an op-ed in the New York Times, published Sept. 10, 2011. “The United States,” according to Robert Barro, who teaches economics at Harvard and is a “fellow” at the Hoover Institution, “is in the third year of a grand experiment by the Obama administration.”

“This is inaccurate,” I wrote, Obama is the President, but the US Constitution provides a framework in which power is divided into three branches of the Federal government, and the power of the each of the branches is checked and balanced by the others, and “all power not expressly granted to the federal government is held by the states and the citizens.” It would be more accurate, therefore, to say,

“The United States is in the third year of an experiment in governance between the Obama administration, the Congress, the Judiciary, the Republican Party, various special interests, and the citizens. This appears to be an experiment in governance by not-governing. Due to significant differences of opinion with regards to the direction in which to drive the ship of state, the ship of state appears to be floundering. Governance by not-governing doesn’t work!”

In parts 3 and 4 I hope to present feedback from the telecommunications and wind industries. Meanwhile, another radioactive nail in the nuclear coffin – an explosion in a low-level waste management facility in France killed one person and injured four. DC Bureau, Associated Press reports “An explosion at a nuclear waste facility in southern France killed one person and injured four on Monday. Authorities said there was no radioactive leak, but critics urged France to rethink its nuclear power in the wake of the catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima plant.The Nuclear Safety Authority declared the accident “terminated” soon after the blast at a furnace in the Centraco site, in the southern Languedoc-Roussillon region, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the city of Avignon. One of the injured suffered severe burns…. the body was burned so badly it was carbonized”

  Tweet  To Say “I hope he fails” about the President is to advocate treason. To question the wisdom in his decisions is citizenship.  This post outlines 10 things we think Obama has done right, and three things we think Obama has not done right, at least not yet.  We hope Obama’s presidency is successful and effective, if for no other reason than when the President is successful and effective then the nation will be strong and prosperous.

(As noted previously, Popular Logistics is a POLICY blog, not a POLITICS blog. But, to make Policy, you must be effective at Politics.)

Obama Presidency – First Term – What he’s done right.

1. At his inauguration, Obama corrected Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court on the text of the Oath of Office.
2. Obama delivered incremental changes to health insurance. These are steps in the right direction, however, our lack of a single payer system puts the United States at a competitive disadvantage compared to Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, and basically all other industrialized countries.
3. Obama took steps to allow gay people to serve alongside straight people in defense of our country, which I view as a Second Amendment right.
4. Obama rescued GM, Chrysler, AIG and Wall Street, which was and remains good for the economy.
5. Obama took steps to more strongly regulate banks and financial institutions.
6. Immediately after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Obama ordered a moratorium on deep water drilling for oil.
7. FEMA today is arguably more professional and more competent under Obama’s watch than it was under his predecessor.
8. Obama ordered the CIA to find bin Laden, which it did. Subsequently ordered a “Capture or Kill” mission against bin Laden; which was flawlessly executed and, it was reported, gathered a treasure trove of actionable intelligence against Al Queda.
9. Obama ordered US armed forces to help the Libyan rebels remove Gadaffi from power. People on the far left appear to believe that we have invaded Libya for oil. People on the far right appear to believe that we should have. I think Obama took a reasonable approach: to provide cover and support to a legitimate insurgency.
10. Obama extended tax incentives for residential and commercial solar energy, which have since lapsed.

What Obama has not done right.

1. Obama did not develop public works programs to shift the energy paradigm away from fuel based technologies such as coal, oil, methane, and nuclear power, to one based on solar, wind, geothermal, wave, and other clean, renewable, sustainable energy systems and efficiency. As Amory Lovins said, “The cheapest unit of energy is the one you don’t have to pay for, the Negawatt.” The next cheapest unit of energy is the one which consumes no fuel, which might be called the “Negafuel power.” And as Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Maynard Keynes proved, during economic times such as these, when private sector employers are able but unwilling to risk capital to hire, the only employer able and willing to hire is the government.
2. Obama did not create a single-payer health care system, or extend Medicare to cover every American.
3. Obama did not end what he has previously described as the “Paris Hilton Tax Breaks.” Altho it is Congress’ responsibility, he is not demanding Congress raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

Treason versus Wisdom

It’s one thing to question the President’s judgment, wisdom, intelligence, capabilities and character. We should do that, not just for this president, or his predecessor, but for each president and every viable candidate for every elected office. That is our right as citizens of the United States, and it is a right not granted to “citizens” of Iran, N. Korea, or China, or subjects to the King of Saudi Arabia. More than our right, it is our obligation.

Further, it is one thing to say “I am concerned that the President has made a decision that will have disastrous consequences… I am concerned that the President will fail.” Because when the President fails the country suffers; we the citizens – and our children – suffer. But saying “I hope he [the President] fails” is the same as saying “I hope the country fails.” (Not because the President is King – he isn’t – but because the President is, by the power vested in the President by the Constitution, the Chief Executive of the Federal Government and the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.) This, “I hope he fails” is to advocate treason. People who say that should be recognized for what they are.

Tweet    Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Chinese Spokesman for Foreign Affairs

If, on August 2, 2011, the United States defaults on various debt obligations, then historians may well consider that date as the date on which the United States of America ceases to occupy the position it has held since the end of World War II.  However, August 2, 2011, may be the end of the beginning. If so, it will mark a point of inflection in a curve that maps processes that has been in motion for a long time. The trends in personal debt, bankruptcy, home foreclosures, unemployment, and the disparity of income and assets between the wealthiest 10% of the population and the other 90% have developed over years.

July 14, 2011, Bastille Day in France, may be considered to mark the coming of age of the successor to the United States as the superpower of the 21st Century, and that would be China.  In “China Urges U.S. to Protect Creditors by Raising Debt,” Bettina Wassener in Hong Kong and Matthew Saltmarsh in Paris report in the New York Times, that “Hong Lei, a Chinese foreign affairs spokesman, urged the United States to protect the interests of foreign investors.” As one of the United States’s biggest creditors, China, which holds over $1.0 Trillion in US Treasury bills, “urged American policy makers on Thursday to act to protect investors’ interests, highlighting rising concerns around the globe about the protracted budget talks taking place in Washington.”

These mark gradual processes of waxing and waning of cultures and economies. These did not happen overnight. It did not happen with the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States, as spokespeople of the Tea-Republican Party, and News Corp (some of whom are in both) may assert. Nor did it happen in 2000 with the Presidential Election, the Supreme Court decision which decided the election, and the subsequent inauguration of George W. Bush as the 43rd President.

The development of the US as a superpower at the end of World War II was facilitated by the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the office of President in 1932, and his reelections in ’36, ’40, and ’44.  However, it was less President Roosevelt himself than the progressive economic policies of the New Deal that he put in place.  Similarly the descent from superpower status and the crumbling of American infrastructure have been slow processes. Perhaps it began with the conflation of news and entertainment and the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 under President Reagan.

In order, therefore, for the United States to continue to be a superpower, we need to return to the progressive economic policies that build infrastructure and finance infrastructure projects by taxes, rather than by mortgaging our children’s futures to potentially unfriendly foreign powers such as Communist China.

The wisest, but least easy course would be to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and increase taxes. Everyone should pay their fair share.

Finally,

If we increase the debt ceiling, will China continue to buy U.S. Treasury Bills?

China holds over $1 trillion of US Treasury Bills, about 7.5% of our debt.  Is that in our national interest?

What would I #AskObama (on Twitter or in person)?

1: #AskObama Economists think in terms of resources. How do we change the conversation to think in terms of processes, systems, interactions?

2: #AskObama Neoclassical Economics: Resources & Wastes. Ecological Economics: Systems: Stocks, Flows, Processes. Burn Coal: Fuel ergo Waste. Solar: No fuel ergo no waste.

3: #AskObama Ecological Economics: “Like neoclassical but a better understanding of time and costs.” Marlboro MBA Managing for Sustainability.

At 2pm EDT, July 6, 2011, President Obama will participate in the first Twitter town hall at the White House to discuss the economy and jobs with Americans across the country. The entire event will be streamed live at WhiteHouse.gov. Right now, thousands of people are talking about the event and asking questions on Twitter, using the #AskObama hashtag.  Take a moment to join the conversation and ask your own question.

Tweet President Obama’s speech on Fiscal Policy was summarized by Hans Nichols and Roger Runningen on Bloomberg.com here.”

“President Barack Obama vowed to cut $4 trillion in cumulative deficits within 12 years through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, setting the stage for a fight with congressional Republicans over the nation’s priorities.

“In presenting his long-term plan for closing the federal budget shortfall, Obama set a target of reducing the annual U.S. deficit to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2015, compared with 10.9 percent of GDP projected for this year. He reiterated his support for overhauling the tax code to lower rates while closing loopholes and ending some breaks to increase revenue.

“We have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt,” Obama said in a speech today at George Washington University in the capital. “And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery.”

The full text can be found at Whitehouse.gov.

Extract of Remarks by the President on Fiscal Policy, George Washington University, April 13, 2011.

“One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates.  It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.

“Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve.  But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history.

“A 70% cut to clean energy.  A 25% cut in education.  A 30% cut in transportation.  Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year.  That’s what they’re proposing.  These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget.  These aren’t the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed.  These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in.  And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.

“It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them.  If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them.  Go to China and you’ll see businesses opening research labs and solar facilities.  South Korean children are outpacing our kids in math and science.  Brazil is investing billions in new infrastructure and can run half their cars not on high-priced gasoline, but biofuels.  And yet, we are presented with a vision that says the United States of America – the greatest nation on Earth – can’t afford any of this.

“This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit.  And who are those 50 million Americans?  Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid.  Many are poor children.  Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome.  Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care.  These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.

“Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy.  Think about it.  In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined.  The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each.  And that’s who needs to pay less taxes?  They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs?   That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.

“The fact is, their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.  As Ronald Reagan’s own budget director said, there’s nothing “serious” or “courageous” about this plan.  There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.  There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.  And this is not a vision of the America I know.”

As we consider the Centennial of President Reagan’s birth, it is important to note that while he cut taxes on some taxpayers, he raised taxes on other taxpayers. As the graph, presented by Barry Ritholtz at Business Insider, shows, the deficit shot up under President Reagan, as it did under Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

See also CNN Money Report.

The deficit shot up under Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt and Truman because of World Wars I and II. The deficit also increased under Roosevelt because GDP dropped during the Depression. The deficit dropped under Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon and Ford because they listened to John Maynard Keynes and used government spending as a tool to lower unemployment and stimulate the economy by building infrastructure. As President Nixon said, “We are all Keynesians now.” (Click here or here).

Under Reagan, the maximum income tax rate dropped from 70% to 28%.The top rate is the rate paid by the people who have the highest incomes – major league baseball, football, and basketball players, musicians, actors, investment bankers, and hedge fund managers. If they pay less taxes, the difference is made up by people with lower incomes.  I respect Warren Buffett, Aaron Rodgers, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Douglass, and others.  But I don’t understand why I should be compelled to subsidize their lifestyle or the lifestyles of people like Brittney Spears, Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton.

Be that as it may, President Reagan didn’t cut spending. He had to raise taxes to cover spending. Despite his tax hikes, however,  the deficit climbed. It continued to climb under G. H. W. Bush. It dropped under Clinton, who famously, balanced the budget and presented G. W. Bush with a surplus.  The rest, as is said, is history.

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“Join me in setting a new goal:  By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.”  – President Barack Obama, State of the Union, January 25, 2011.

When a mouse makes noise, only other mice and local cats take notice. When a lion roars, however, everyone notices; other lions, elephants, zebras, gazelles, smaller cats, mice ….

New Jersey is one of 27 states, which, like the District of Columbia, have a Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS, mandating that by a certain date, a specific target of a renewable energy capacity will be deployed. An additional five states have non-binding goals. (This are listed by the U. S. Dept. of Energy at Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.)

In New Jersey the RPS is 22.5%, about 1.6 gigawatts (GW), by 2021. New Jersey today, in January, 2011, has about 300 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.  I am confident that New Jersey will meet, and possibly exceed its RPS goal. We started with 9.0 kilowatts (KW) of photovoltaic solar in 2001. We were up to 211 megawatts (MW), by the end of September, 2010, and we added an additional 24 MW in December, 2010. Even when you factor in 30 MW of biomass, 8 mw of wind power, and 1.5 mw of fuel cells, this is less than 20% of the goal of 1.6 gw. (This is shown at the NJ Clean Energy Program Renewable Energy Technologies page.) However paradigm shifts are systems phenomena. They occur at exponential rates.  We went from 9.0 kw in 2001 to 211 mw in mid-2010, to 360 mw  by the end of 2010.  In December, 2010, we added an additional 10% – moving from 236 mw to 260 mw.  We are hitting the handle of the hockey stick.

California’s RPS is 33% by 2030. In Texas, the RPS calls for 5,880 MW by 2015. California , New Jersey and Texas are the roaring mice in domestic US clean energy policy. And a cat – the lion in the Oval Office – the President of the United States – has listened to the mice in California, New Jersey, and Texas. Last night he roared.

Courtesy of the White House.

In his “State of the Union” address, January 25, 2011, President Obama set a lofty goal: “80% clean electric generation by 2035.” While I think we can do better – 100% clean renewable sustainable energy by 2025 – Obama’s goal is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. It’s SMART. It’s also wise.

As a President should, Obama is thinking, and thinking long term.  We at Popular Logistics wish him success because success for a President means a better future for the nation.

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Two observations.

1. There is no such thing as “Clean Coal.” Even if we capture and sequester all the carbon dioxide produced from burning coal, which is expensive, there are still impurities, such as arsenic, lead, mercury, uranium, zinc in coal. And mining and processing coal is a very dirty business.
2. Nuclear is heavily regulated. We exercise tighter control over the wastes. In practice, nuclear power is arguably cleaner than coal. But in reality, things happen.

One question is “Can we achieve Obama’s Clean Electricity Goal?” But a better question is “How can we achieve this goal? ” My back of the envelope response is:

• 100 gigawatts offshore wind,
• 100 gigawatts land based wind,
• 50 gigagwatts solar,
• 75 gigawatts stored micro-hydro or biofuel, for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

And as Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, says, “The cheapest unit of energy is the ‘Negawatt’ – the energy you don’t have to buy.”  How much can we reduce our energy requirements? How much can we gain by conservation?

President Obama

President Obama thinks that every American should have access to health care. Judge Henry E. Hudson in Virginia, however, ruled that compelling people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. (NY Times, New York Magazine, CNN)

President Obama is obviously correct. President Bush and Senator McCain might actually agree. Pres. ush, who appointed Judge Hudson to the Federal District Court, said in Cleveland, Ohio, July, 10, 2007, (1, 2), “People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” Sen. McCain repeated this during his 2008 campaign for the Presidency (click here). While this implies a form of universal health care, Pres. Bush and Sen. McCain, miss the nuance that emergency rooms are not primary care facilities (click here). Emergency rooms are designed for EMERGENCIES. They are not equipped to handle primary care (click here).  (This is a ‘nuance’ big enough for an aircraft carrier to sail thru.)

Judge Hudson, however, may have a point. While it’s one thing to mandate that everyone have access to health care, it’s another to mandate that everyone patronize a set of investor owned or privately held enterprises.  It’s like saying that every child must go to school, and must also go to a private school.

But if both Pres. Obama and Judge Hudson are right, is there a common ground?

Let’s look first at the uninsured.

They’re not the wealthy, because wealthy people can afford the $8,400 per year for individual insurance, and $2,500 per year for family coverage that an insurance company charges for their “low cost” in-network only plan, or the $10,416 to $27,996 the insurance company charges for their higher coverage individual and family plans.

President Clinton

They are not the children, covered thanks to President Clinton, or young people out of college, without a job covered thanks to President Obama.

They are not the elderly, who are covered by Medicare, thanks to Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson.

Nor are they the poor, who are covered by Medicaid, thanks to President Johnson.

They are not people with good jobs or union contracts.

They are not men and women who wear or wore the uniforms of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or National Guard and other armed forces who defend our country, and who are covered by the Pentagon, the Armed Forces, or the Veterans Administration.

They are not Senators, Representatives of Congress or Representatives to state and local governments or Judges. Nor are they former representatives who have been voted out of office. Our noble and honorable civil servants have voted themselves a privilege they deny the people who pay their salary, and pay for that privilege.

Even prisoners incarcerated because of crimes they have committed have access to health care.

President Johnson

That leaves working people between 18 and 65 who are not in college and who have neither a good job nor a union contract.

So how can we provide medical care to people who work, who’s taxes contribute to health care for politicians, soldiers, children, the elderly, criminals in jail, and others? If and when they get sick, in addition to lost productivity on their jobs, they present a clear and present danger to the health of the public.

Pres. Franklin Roosevelt

The answer seems to be to expand Medicare, Medicaid, and the health care system that covers elected Representatives, Judges, soldiers, union teachers and other civil servants to include citizens. And what about medical practitioners who don’t want to take new  Medicare and Medicaid patients? Expand the Veterans Administration – call it the Veterans and other Citizens Health Care Administration.

What about undocumented workers? They clean our houses, clean tables in restaurants, mow our lawns, work on factory farms, and in slaughterhouses. If and when they get sick, in addition to lost productivity, they present a clear and present danger to the public health.

Thus the system should be expanded, on national security and public grounds, to include undocumented workers. Call it the National Public Health System. Or Health Care for All Americans.

The other thing is, access to health care for people who don’t pay for it – the poor, the elderly, the incarcerated, and the politicians, is paid for by people who also pay double for their own health care. How is it logical and right that I should pay for someone else’s health care via taxes, yet pay for my own via an insurance premium?

Satellite Photo of Hurricane Alex, courtesy NOAA

Hurricane Alex has temporarily halted cleanup efforts (Reuters).  Yet the oil continues to gush unabated. Using the Government’s “Improved Estimate,” 2.8 to 4.8 million barrels have gushed into the Gulf in the MONTHS since the April 20 explosion which killed 11 workers. The explosion and spill have destroyed fisheries, tourism, and profoundly disrupted the ecology of the Gulf. Given that the spill of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day continues unabated the extent of the damage is unclear.

In “Blow Up the Well to Save the Gulf,” in the NY Times, 6/22/10, Christopher Brownfield, a former nuclear submarine officer, wrote, “President Obama needs to create a new command structure that places responsibility for plugging the leak with the Navy, the only organization in the world that can muster the necessary team. Then the Navy needs to demolish the well. … At best, a conventional demolition would seal the leaking well completely and permanently without damaging the oil reservoir. At worst, oil might seep through a tortuous flow-path that would complicate long-term cleanup efforts. But given the size and makeup of the geological structures between the seabed and the reservoir, it’s virtually inconceivable that an explosive could blast a bigger hole than already exists and release even more oil.”

President Obama instituted a 6-month  moritorium on deepwater drilling. Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of United States District Court, appointed by President Reagan in 1983, stopped the moritorium, writing that the Obama administration had failed to justify the need for such “a blanket … moratorium” on deep-water oil and gas drilling. “The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.” NY Times.

With all due respect to Judge Feldman, the editors at Popular Logistics think that oil, coal, natural gas, mining, drilling, and transport, do present an imminent danger

. Look at the evidence in the Gulf of Mexico, Ecuador, Nigeria, Prince Edward Sound, Montcoal, W. V, upriver of Kingston, Tenn, in the coal mines of China, and in the mercury levels in fish, shellfish, dolphins, and whales. The “Precautionary Principle”  dictates that we must stop drilling and figure out to move off fossil fuels.

Notes

1. The “improved estimate of the Flow Rate Technical group, of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day, announced by Energy Secretary Chu, Interior Secretary Salazar, and Director of the U. S. Geological Survey and Chair of the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) Dr. Marcia McNutt on June 15, 2010, is consistent with a scientific analysis of the 70,000 barrels per day reported one month earlier by  NPR May 14, 2010  and a “back-of-the-envelope” estimate of 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day reported in this blog on May 15, 2010.
2. The “Precautionary Principle” implies a social responsibility to protect the public and the environment from harm.  In general, the burden of proof that an action or policy is not harmful falls on those taking the action. This allows policy makers to take action in the face of limited scientific data.
3. The series began after Earth Day and includes Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, Magnitude, Part 1, One Month After, The Chernobyl of Fossil Fuel?, Magnitude, Part 2 and The Deepwater Horizon after the Macondo Well Spill. It will continue indefinitely.