Nega-Watts, Nega-Fuel-Watts, Mega-Bucks

On Dec. 21, 2012, I launched the Popular Logistics Sustainable Energy Portfolio Simulation. After 6 weeks, as of the close of business 2/7/13, the results are:

The Sustainable Energy Portfolio is UP 12.6%
The Fossil Fuel Reference Portfolio is UP 5.09%

In comparison,

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is UP 6.52%
The S&P 500 is UP 5.52%

While six weeks is a very short time frame, except for fruit flies and Day Traders, the Popular Logistics Sustainable Energy Portfolio outperformed the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Fossil Fuel Reference Portfolio by a wide margin. In the same time frame the Fossil Fuel Reference Portfolio also underperformed these indices.

Details are below

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Forget the Great Wall – Meet The Great Haze

Image 1. Beijing from space, Jan., 2013, courtesy NASA

忘了长城 – 我们现在有大的雾度

“Forget the Great Wall – We Now Have the Great Haze”

– Translation by Google

In the 1960’s and 1970’s astronauts showed that we could see the Great Wall of China from space. Today, it’s the Great Haze of China that we can see from space . The New York Daily News, here, published this image, taken by NASA in January 12, 2013 (here) when the Air Quality Index, AQI, reached 775.

The AQI was established by the US EPA. AQI above 300 is considered dangerous. AQI at 775 is probably deadly.

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Buono for New Jersey

Popular Logistics is a Policy Blog, not a Politics Blog. However, as Deborah Stone wrote in “The Policy Paradox,” ISBN 0393-976-254, In order to make policy you need to win at politics.

NJ State Senator Barbara Buono, a progressive Democrat, has a diametrically opposed political philosophy – and a very different leadership style, compared to Gov. Chris Christie. She has been fighting for the middle class since starting her career, and promises to continue to fight for the middle class if elected Governor.

When I called the election for Senator Buono (here) and criticized Gov. Christie (here) it was less an endorsement of Buono than a statement that we need to change direction. Based on the policy statements in her press releases, her statement at the Campaign kick-off, Saturday, Feb. 2, and very brief conversations I had with Senator Buono, as Governor, Barbara Buono would lead New Jersey in the right direction.

The most important questions are:

What would a Governor Buono do to develop a sustainable energy infrastructure and a healthy, sustainable economy?

How can she wield the power of the Governor’s office to strengthen the middle class and help the poor – to create good jobs, to lower the unemployment rate, lay a strong foundation for the future?

These are really the same question. Stay Tuned. I think we will find out over the next four to eight years.

Politics, Policy, & Jersey

Popular Logistics is a Policy Blog, not a Politics Blog. However, as Deborah Stone wrote in “The Policy Paradox,” ISBN 0393-976-254,

In order to make policy you need to win at politics.

Chris Christie, left, who is good at politics, seems to have made several serious policy blunders during his first term as Governor of New Jersey. I have questions about his capabilities in areas including Law & Order Fiscal Responsibility, Leadership, Mass Transit and Infrastructure and the Environment, and the intersection of these domains – the ‘Bio-Humano-Sphere’.

Law & Order: I am concerned about the concept of privatizing prisons and law enforcement agencies. Gov. Christie’s ties to his former boss and former partner Bill Palatucci, left, formerly of Community Education Centers, the company that operates most of the half-way houses in New Jersey’s privatized prison system, from which, as Mitt Romney might say, convicted felons “Self-Pardon”.
Fiscal Responsibility: there are Gov. Christie’s management of the “Race to the Top”, his supports of tax cuts for millionaires, and tax hikes on the middle class. He refuses to raise the minimum wage. He claims to not have raised taxes, yet he cut $7.4 million from woman’s health care, he is misusing Clean Energy funds to meet other obligations, and deferring funding on pensions.
Infrastructure & Mass Transit: we need more investment in infrastructure and mass transit. Gov. Christie killed the proposed new tunnel between NY and NJ.
The Biosphere / Environment / Bio-Humano-Sphere: while Gov. Christie may understand that global warming is a real problem, and while he vetoed the “Purgen” coal with sequestration plant; he pulled NJ out of the Regional Greenhouse Gases Initiative, RGGI and has not articulated a plan to modernize our electricity and energy infrastructure, or develop a renewable sustainable energy infrastructure.
Leadership: Rather than taking responsibility for the Race to the Top debacle, Gov. Christie blamed one-time rival Bret Schundler, who he appointed to head the team. He is, simply put, a bully. This is leadership at its worst.

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What Next? – For the 21st Century

What should we do now?

Strengthen the safety net.
Reverse the Citizens United and Florence v Burlington rulings.
Place reasonable restrictions on Second Amendment rights, as reasonable restrictions exist on First Amendment rights. And tax properties and income of religious institutions.
Address Climate Change.
Develop a Renewable & Sustainable Energy Infrastructure – Clean & Green within 15.

As President Obama said, in his Second Inauguration, (White House . Gov / The Atlantic)

“The commitments we make to each other … do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.

“The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. “

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Dare to Be Great, President Obama

Close to One Million people were in Washington to celebrate President Obama’s second inauguration. As Rachel Maddow commented on her show, you can catch a glimpse of the character of the man in his unscripted moments. She showed footage of Barack the man, with Michelle and their children. Maddow also showed that on the occasion of his Second Inauguration, President Obama turned, as people walked past him, to regard the crowd, estimated on The Hill, to over 1,000,000 people, and said “I’ll never see this again.”

But we can also infer the character of the man from his speeches. He said “We” 65 times. He said “I” four times, including the phrase “you and I” twice.

Obama’s greatest accomplishments for his first term, according to an NBC Poll:

Ending the War in Iraq
Killing Osama bin Laden
Raising taxes on the wealthiest while not raising taxes on everyone else.

I would add passing the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare and thwarting the Republican efforts in the House and Senate to be a One Term President.

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Barbara Buono will Win, Apple will Grow, Assad will Die and other forecasts for 2013

In “The World Will Not End and Other Predictions for 2012,” I developed a set of predictions for 2012, the accuracy of which were described by me in 2012 Revisited. Here are my predictions for 2013. As noted last year, I am extrapolating from patterns that I see – also known as reading tea leaves.

New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie will lose his re-election campaign to NJ Senator Barbara Buono, pictured with me, above. The Tea Party Republicans will not compromise with President Obama, Democrats in the House and Senate, or the Republican Leadership in the House and Senate. They will, again, threaten to shut-down the U. S. government.
A major hurricane will batter the Gulf Coast or the Eastern Seaboard, causing $25 to $80 Billion worth of damage. FEMA will be there to help.
Apple will continue to report record sales and record profits. It will close out the year with a market capitalization around $650 Billion, up from today’s level of $470 Billion. If HP‘s Board doesn’t fire CEO Meg Whitman, HP may return to profitability. Dell‘s market share and market capitalization will fall.
The wind and solar industries will increase in the US and globally, particularly Japan, which is now planning to have 100% renewable energy by 2040, and India, which is learning from the mistakes being made in China, Japan, and the West.
Large industrial conglomerates will continue to design and sell wind turbines, LED lighting, PV solar modules and more energy efficient medical devices, etc.
Assad will fall – and will die – by the end of 2014.
Mohammed Morsi and the Moslem Brotherhood will consolidate power in Egypt, but will not abandon the Egypt – Israel peace treaty.
Iran will provide weapons and support to Islamists in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.
Israel, feeling threatened, and very concerned regarding Iran, Syria and Egypt, will ignore pressure to negotiate with the Palestinians.
Roger Saillant and RP Siegel will not win any awards for their novel, Vapor Trails.

For an overview of the details see below.

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How To Fix Social Security

Social Security will be solvent until 2038. (Social Security Adminstration, Summary of 2012 Annual Reports). Social Security is completely funded by the Social Security Tax and the payouts add nothing to the deficit. Reducing Social Security benefits will not reduce the Federal deficit one cent. Social Security benefits are fully funded until 2038. However, there are five changes to the structure of the Social Security tax that could, and I think should, be made.

First, eliminate the ceiling. Currently the Social Security tax is 6.2% of the first $110,000 of income. Everyone who makes $110,000 or less pays 6.2% of his or her income into the Social Security fund. People who make $50,000 pay $3,100. People who make $100,000 pay $6,200. People who make $110,000 pay $6,820. But people who make $1,000,000 also pay $6,820, as do people who make $100 million, or $1 billion. This makes Social Security a regressive tax. Eliminating the ceiling would make it flat tax.

Second, impose a floor, perhaps $25,000 per year. This would transform the tax from a regressive tax into a slightly progressive tax for the lower 80%.

Third, transform the structure of the tax to a fully progressive tax, as illustrated below.

Progressive Structure for Social Security
Income	Tax Rate
Under $25,000	0.00%
$25,001 to $50,000	2.50%
$50,001 to $100,000	3.50%
$100,001 to $250,000	4.50%
$250,001 to $500,000	5.50%
$500,001 to $1.0 Million	6.50%
over $1.0 Million	7.50%
Table 1

Fourth, REQUIRE, elected and appointed representatives in all branches and at all levels of Federal government to participate in the program. That would include the President, Representatives in the House and Senate, the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Court, lower courts, as well as elected representatives in the governments of the states of the Union and territories.

And Fifth, consider Capital Gains, distributions from Trust Funds, and other distributions that are not “W2 Income” as defined by the Internal Revenue Service to be treated like “W2 Income” for the purposes of funding Social Security.

1950s British underground shelter

We assume that this facility – or at least that part pictured – was intended as a short-term refuge. Via The National Archives Image Library (UK).

BombSight.org: using current geo data information to illustrate the London Blitz`

We’ve excerpted just a slice of a single view of Bombsight.org’s interactive map of the London Blitz. Our screen grab doesn’t do it justice – no scrolling, zooming, no selection of time slices. Check it out.

This is a project of the United Kingdom’s National Archives Image Library; we can imagine this map as a point of departure for other datasets, such us as overhead images of the damage and recovery. Compare this to one of the first iterations of the very first data map, Dr. John Snow’s mapping of cholera in London.

Dashboard Camera Captures Airplane Falling

httpv://youtu.be/3Zaqi5DwCYE

Via Kottke.org, a Russian dashboard cam captures a plane crash. Apparently, according to Kottke, dashboard video is very popular in Russia. See Kottke’s earlier post Russians are dashboard-cam crazy.

I would disagree with Kottke. The Russians are not crazy. Apparently their legal and insurance systems are in such a state of failure that vehicle owners must be prepared to capture their own evidence in order to prove their claims. Thus a driver with a dashboard camera can provide proof of the facts of a case.

Maybe that’s a good outcome – better evidence, more accurate outcomes – but a sad way to come to it. On the other hand, as we have seen here in the United States, after members of the LA Police were filmed beating Rodney King, citizens with video have prompted the police to change their behavior.

Securing Our Schools, Part 2

(18 of the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook. Image courtesy of Island 106.)

In response to the killing of 20 children and four teachers, Dawn Hochsprung, the school’s beloved principal, and school psychologist Mary Sherlach at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre’s proposed stationing armed police, at taxpayer’s expense, in every school. We at Popular Logistics, think this wasn’t thought through – or is a “red herring” meant to distract people from the real problem – close to 300 million weapons in the hands of roughly 80 million people in the United States. given the number of weapons in the USA, the number of people with weapons, the ease and lack of oversight with which people can obtain weapons, the editors of Popular Logistics, as discussed here, believe that we need to think seriously about securing our schools.

(Note that the NRA’s executive offices are at 11250 Waples Mill Rd, Fairfax, VA, 22030. The NRA can be reached via telephone to 703-267-1250, via Fax to 703-267-3985, and via e-mail at nracrdf@nrahq.org)

As with commercial aviation safety, we should start by securing, or hardening our schools. Our “back of the envelope” calculation suggests that we can do this for about $40,000 per school, and therefore $5.6 Billion for the 140,040 schools in the United States. That will be explored in Part 3 of this series. This post continues the discussion of development of a squad of officers/agents for each school, begun in Part 1.

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An Armed Police Presence in Every School

Police officers, image courtesy of Bureau of Labor Statistics

Police Officers, Image courtesy of BLS.

Following the December 14, 2012 killing of 20 children, four teachers, the principal and psychologist in Sandy Hook Elementary School, and his mother by Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut (CNN), Wayne LaPierre (bio) of the National Rifle Association gave a “Press Conference” (in which the Press were not allowed to ask any questions). He suggested that the Federal Government hire police officers for every school in the USA (full transcript: Daily Caller, Washington Post).

Left unsaid is how many new police officers we would need, and what it would cost to hire, train, and equip them. Continue reading →

2012 Revisited

In “The World Will Not End & Other Predictions for 2012, here, I wrote:

“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.” (Mostly Correct, except Apple did better than I expected.)
“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.” (Wrong)
There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China. 20,000 people will die. (The number of accidents was underestimate. Their magnitude was overestimated – however … )
There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea. (Wrong)
Wal-Mart will stop growing. Credit Unions, insurance co-ops and Food co-ops, however, will grow 10% to 25%. (Wrong on WalMart, right on Credit Unions, altho the numbers were off.)
The amount of wind and solar energy deployed in the United States will continue to dramatically increase. (Right. Very Right!)
The government of Bashar Al Assad will fall. (Wrong – but there’s still time.)
Foreclosures will continue in the United States. (sadly, true, but not as bad as it could have been – thanks to Obama)
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.” (Right on Obama and the American voter. Wrong on Arpaio)
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. (Right, tho I would have like to have been wrong on this one.)

Here are the details. Continue reading →

Popular Logistics Sustainable Energy Portfolio

This portfolio is composed of companies in the solar, biofuel and LED lighting industries.

I think these are disruptive technologies, like personal computers and workstations and client server software architecture in the 1980s and aircraft in the mid-20th and automobiles in the early 20th Century. We may be approaching, or may have recently crossed a “tipping point” in the Wind, Solar, LED lighting and Bio Fuel industries.

As points of reference, this “Sustainable Energy Portfolio” will be compared to an “UnSustainable Energy Portfolio,” composed of oil industry stocks, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.

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