Trump Official: We're Going To Cut The EPA In Half

[Flash]

[Q

Which were you, a bottom of the barrel scientist or an engineer that couldn't get a job anywhere else?

I worked for a Fortune 20 company. The weenies that couldn't get a good job like I had either went to work for the EPA or the state.

Governmental workers are not the best and the brightest. Good thing Trump wants to drain the swamp to get many of them off the public payroll.

 

[Winston]

Wow. Obviously I can see why you want to eliminate enforcement instead of change regulations. You are a real coward, and I am pretty sure you wouldn't call me a boy to my face.

You guys are stupid as hell. Obama didn't kill coal jobs, natural gas did. The EPA has PROPOSED new guidelines. I mean you guys do know what propose means, right?

Fact-checking Obama's rules on carbon and coal plants

So, the Chamber of commerce misinterprets the data, posts job loss predictions based on that misinterpretation, later retracts those predictions, and yet those numbers are posted everyday by internet dumbasses.

Read the study, the problem is coal is not as cost effective as natural gas and in some areas solar and wind. Coal accounted for half of all electricity produced from 2000 to 2008. Now coal is not even the predominant means of generating electricity, natural gas is.

Why the U.S. Coal Industry and Its Jobs Are Not Coming Back

Look, I am pretty sure the buggy whip industry got a little upset when the car came along. Should the government have propped up the buggy whip industry?

What most plants do is use whatever is cheaper. When gas goes up, they switch to coal. When gas prices go down, they switch to gas.

Remember too the reason gas prices are low: fracking. That's right, the same fracking leftists are against.

Converting a coal plant to natural gas runs about 150 million dollars. Nobody is going to pay to switch back even if coal were to drop in price. But it won't. All the easy to get coal is gone.

And think of this, natural gas is beating coal in an Obama EPA, even with restrictions being placed on fracking. The Trump administration plans to lift some of the restrictions on fracking giving natural gas even more of a competitive advantage.

So here is a prediction I can be pretty confident in. Trump will destroy more jobs within the coal industry than Obama. Coal will produce a lower percentage of our power after Trump leaves office.

And here is a bet. I bet for every coal job lost during the Obama administration we can find TWO JOBS within the energy sector, be it a solar panel installer or a mechanical engineer working on boiler design.

That's a pipe dream if I ever heard one. We have enough coal in this country to supply the world for the next century if we wanted. Fracking and domestic oil are great, but remember that DumBama reduced the amount of federal land for oil permits and exploration. Our new fuel comes from private land. When the prices get too low, the land owners put a halt to drilling until the prices increase again.

I didn't say power plants convert from gas to coal, what I said is that they can produce electricity from either. At least here, they were setup for both.

Sure, we have tons of coal. And yep, we have millions of barrels of oil reserves. But at what cost? Because that is the problem. The fossil fuel industry is fighting a losing battle and it is not with the EPA and regulations.

We have already gotten all the easy coal. We have already gotten all the easy oil. It will take increasingly more dollars to get those resources out of the ground. The cost curve is increasing But renewable energy is on the opposite end of the cost curve. Each additional output generated comes at a lower cost, not a higher one. It is a battle against MATH, the fossil fuel industry is destined to lose.

But that brings us to the EPA. That brings us to a decline in enforcement and a rolling back of standards. See, there is not only a cost of getting those fossil fuels out of the ground, there is a cost of burning them. There is a cost to spewing out emissions, and the dirtier the more expensive. If the fossil fuel industry can "externalize" those costs, that is, make you and me pay for it so they don't have to, they can perhaps postpone their inevitable defeat by the cost curve.

You will never find a replacement for fossil fuel that is just as cost effective and powerful in our lifetime. With the wrong leaders, they may be able to force us from fossil fuels, but not optionally.

In some places in the country we have already found replacements. Solar is huge here. But natural gas is absolutely kicking coal's ass. The only way coal can remain competitive is for it to become more efficient, not by externalizing costs. And it can be more efficient. The industry is moving in the direction of "clean coal", they are not even asking for the EPA to be dismantled or weakened further. They were fully prepared and ready to implement Obama's new standards on CO2. I have an inside source that is about as inside the industry as you can get.

This is about waste disposal. Keystone, coal-ash, even biological waste. It is getting increasingly hard to LEGALLY dispose of a massive amount of industrial waste within our society. Gut the EPA, cut enforcement by half, AGAIN, and it will be easier to dump those waste via illegal avenues. It really is that industrial pond over the hill.

One summer when my boys were young they begged and begged to go fishing at that pond. I hate ponds. Ponds are dangerous, even when they are clean. I finally relented but told them they better not get in that pond. The next evening I came home from work to find them cleaning some fish and grilling others over a campfire in the backyard.

I told them, "Guys, you weren't planning on eating those fish were you?" When they admitted they were I told them about all the nasty chemicals the foam manufacturing plant used, how the EPA had to come check the pond, how it had been a long time since I got a report, and how it was a "holding pond" because the water was not yet safe to release into the water table. I was still explaining what all those nasty chemicals could do when all three of them dropped what they were doing and tore out for the house. When I yelled, where you going they all responded still running away, "we got to take a shower".

 

[owebo]

[Q

Which were you, a bottom of the barrel scientist or an engineer that couldn't get a job anywhere else?

I worked for a Fortune 20 company. The weenies that couldn't get a good job like I had either went to work for the EPA or the state.

Governmental workers are not the best and the brightest. Good thing Trump wants to drain the swamp to get many of them off the public payroll.

Log 6 of government workers are worthless.....

 

[owebo]

What most plants do is use whatever is cheaper. When gas goes up, they switch to coal. When gas prices go down, they switch to gas.

Remember too the reason gas prices are low: fracking. That's right, the same fracking leftists are against.

Converting a coal plant to natural gas runs about 150 million dollars. Nobody is going to pay to switch back even if coal were to drop in price. But it won't. All the easy to get coal is gone.

And think of this, natural gas is beating coal in an Obama EPA, even with restrictions being placed on fracking. The Trump administration plans to lift some of the restrictions on fracking giving natural gas even more of a competitive advantage.

So here is a prediction I can be pretty confident in. Trump will destroy more jobs within the coal industry than Obama. Coal will produce a lower percentage of our power after Trump leaves office.

And here is a bet. I bet for every coal job lost during the Obama administration we can find TWO JOBS within the energy sector, be it a solar panel installer or a mechanical engineer working on boiler design.

That's a pipe dream if I ever heard one. We have enough coal in this country to supply the world for the next century if we wanted. Fracking and domestic oil are great, but remember that DumBama reduced the amount of federal land for oil permits and exploration. Our new fuel comes from private land. When the prices get too low, the land owners put a halt to drilling until the prices increase again.

I didn't say power plants convert from gas to coal, what I said is that they can produce electricity from either. At least here, they were setup for both.

Sure, we have tons of coal. And yep, we have millions of barrels of oil reserves. But at what cost? Because that is the problem. The fossil fuel industry is fighting a losing battle and it is not with the EPA and regulations.

We have already gotten all the easy coal. We have already gotten all the easy oil. It will take increasingly more dollars to get those resources out of the ground. The cost curve is increasing But renewable energy is on the opposite end of the cost curve. Each additional output generated comes at a lower cost, not a higher one. It is a battle against MATH, the fossil fuel industry is destined to lose.

But that brings us to the EPA. That brings us to a decline in enforcement and a rolling back of standards. See, there is not only a cost of getting those fossil fuels out of the ground, there is a cost of burning them. There is a cost to spewing out emissions, and the dirtier the more expensive. If the fossil fuel industry can "externalize" those costs, that is, make you and me pay for it so they don't have to, they can perhaps postpone their inevitable defeat by the cost curve.

You will never find a replacement for fossil fuel that is just as cost effective and powerful in our lifetime. With the wrong leaders, they may be able to force us from fossil fuels, but not optionally.

In some places in the country we have already found replacements. Solar is huge here. But natural gas is absolutely kicking coal's ass. The only way coal can remain competitive is for it to become more efficient, not by externalizing costs. And it can be more efficient. The industry is moving in the direction of "clean coal", they are not even asking for the EPA to be dismantled or weakened further. They were fully prepared and ready to implement Obama's new standards on CO2. I have an inside source that is about as inside the industry as you can get.

This is about waste disposal. Keystone, coal-ash, even biological waste. It is getting increasingly hard to LEGALLY dispose of a massive amount of industrial waste within our society. Gut the EPA, cut enforcement by half, AGAIN, and it will be easier to dump those waste via illegal avenues. It really is that industrial pond over the hill.

One summer when my boys were young they begged and begged to go fishing at that pond. I hate ponds. Ponds are dangerous, even when they are clean. I finally relented but told them they better not get in that pond. The next evening I came home from work to find them cleaning some fish and grilling others over a campfire in the backyard.

I told them, "Guys, you weren't planning on eating those fish were you?" When they admitted they were I told them about all the nasty chemicals the foam manufacturing plant used, how the EPA had to come check the pond, how it had been a long time since I got a report, and how it was a "holding pond" because the water was not yet safe to release into the water table. I was still explaining what all those nasty chemicals could do when all three of them dropped what they were doing and tore out for the house. When I yelled, where you going they all responded still running away, "we got to take a shower".

Solar is horrible for the environment.....we will be killing that first..,,

 

[beagle9]

What most plants do is use whatever is cheaper. When gas goes up, they switch to coal. When gas prices go down, they switch to gas.

Remember too the reason gas prices are low: fracking. That's right, the same fracking leftists are against.

Converting a coal plant to natural gas runs about 150 million dollars. Nobody is going to pay to switch back even if coal were to drop in price. But it won't. All the easy to get coal is gone.

And think of this, natural gas is beating coal in an Obama EPA, even with restrictions being placed on fracking. The Trump administration plans to lift some of the restrictions on fracking giving natural gas even more of a competitive advantage.

So here is a prediction I can be pretty confident in. Trump will destroy more jobs within the coal industry than Obama. Coal will produce a lower percentage of our power after Trump leaves office.

And here is a bet. I bet for every coal job lost during the Obama administration we can find TWO JOBS within the energy sector, be it a solar panel installer or a mechanical engineer working on boiler design.

That's a pipe dream if I ever heard one. We have enough coal in this country to supply the world for the next century if we wanted. Fracking and domestic oil are great, but remember that DumBama reduced the amount of federal land for oil permits and exploration. Our new fuel comes from private land. When the prices get too low, the land owners put a halt to drilling until the prices increase again.

I didn't say power plants convert from gas to coal, what I said is that they can produce electricity from either. At least here, they were setup for both.

Sure, we have tons of coal. And yep, we have millions of barrels of oil reserves. But at what cost? Because that is the problem. The fossil fuel industry is fighting a losing battle and it is not with the EPA and regulations.

We have already gotten all the easy coal. We have already gotten all the easy oil. It will take increasingly more dollars to get those resources out of the ground. The cost curve is increasing But renewable energy is on the opposite end of the cost curve. Each additional output generated comes at a lower cost, not a higher one. It is a battle against MATH, the fossil fuel industry is destined to lose.

But that brings us to the EPA. That brings us to a decline in enforcement and a rolling back of standards. See, there is not only a cost of getting those fossil fuels out of the ground, there is a cost of burning them. There is a cost to spewing out emissions, and the dirtier the more expensive. If the fossil fuel industry can "externalize" those costs, that is, make you and me pay for it so they don't have to, they can perhaps postpone their inevitable defeat by the cost curve.

You will never find a replacement for fossil fuel that is just as cost effective and powerful in our lifetime. With the wrong leaders, they may be able to force us from fossil fuels, but not optionally.

In some places in the country we have already found replacements. Solar is huge here. But natural gas is absolutely kicking coal's ass. The only way coal can remain competitive is for it to become more efficient, not by externalizing costs. And it can be more efficient. The industry is moving in the direction of "clean coal", they are not even asking for the EPA to be dismantled or weakened further. They were fully prepared and ready to implement Obama's new standards on CO2. I have an inside source that is about as inside the industry as you can get.

This is about waste disposal. Keystone, coal-ash, even biological waste. It is getting increasingly hard to LEGALLY dispose of a massive amount of industrial waste within our society. Gut the EPA, cut enforcement by half, AGAIN, and it will be easier to dump those waste via illegal avenues. It really is that industrial pond over the hill.

One summer when my boys were young they begged and begged to go fishing at that pond. I hate ponds. Ponds are dangerous, even when they are clean. I finally relented but told them they better not get in that pond. The next evening I came home from work to find them cleaning some fish and grilling others over a campfire in the backyard.

I told them, "Guys, you weren't planning on eating those fish were you?" When they admitted they were I told them about all the nasty chemicals the foam manufacturing plant used, how the EPA had to come check the pond, how it had been a long time since I got a report, and how it was a "holding pond" because the water was not yet safe to release into the water table. I was still explaining what all those nasty chemicals could do when all three of them dropped what they were doing and tore out for the house. When I yelled, where you going they all responded still running away, "we got to take a shower".

. Good post, and true. The waste issue is an issue, but many have taken steps to address that better than they did back when land seemed spreading out so far and wild, and dumping was a huge problem. Landfills are now using the best technology, and they are using liners etc. The thing that will happen is that a slowdown and equalization will become the norm in these industries. All technologies old and new are needed, because the grid needs various forms of back up power generation always. If a natural or man-made made disaster happens, then we may have to switch from one form to another, so for national security reasons alone we have to remain strong in all our industries, but smart about them as well.

 

[beagle9]

[Q

Which were you, a bottom of the barrel scientist or an engineer that couldn't get a job anywhere else?

I worked for a Fortune 20 company. The weenies that couldn't get a good job like I had either went to work for the EPA or the state.

Governmental workers are not the best and the brightest. Good thing Trump wants to drain the swamp to get many of them off the public payroll.

Log 6 of government workers are worthless.....

. I know that we have a State Transportation Dept. In our city that needs to fire the hell out of most the workers it has working there. You ought to see the paving jobs that they do.. pathetic. They also work about 4 hours out of an 8 hour day. Pathetic. Talk about clock riders.. good grief.

 

[Fenton Lum]

Sounds like we have an economic system that refuses to pay for labor what it takes labor in america to live.

It's not just labor. Labor is only part of the reason. A company won't move halfway across the world to pay workers $6.00 less per hour. Shipping costs would exceed such savings.

It's a lot of things that move jobs out of the country. We keep putting more straws on the camels back month by month, year by year, until the camel finally collapses. Then we blame rich people for the problem.

Why would we blame rich people, we bailed out Wall Street with socialism, we love the wealthy.

You're missing something, american wealth generation is no longer tied to work or production, it is created fictionally in the financial services sector. Growing wealth in this society is merely a growing of debt. And it is utterly unsustainable.

You people blame the rich for everything. You don't want to look at the big picture. Trump has the right message: buy American. How can you have a society with good paying jobs and cheap products? You can't. You have to choose one or the other.

In recent years, we chose cheap products. The cheaper, the better. None of those Walmart shoppers give a rats ass if they are putting Americans out of work through their purchases.

Since the US consumers demand cheap products, American manufacturers have to provide. They do that by getting rid of humans and replacing us with automation, they do that by keeping wages as low as possible, they do that by moving out of a state where they are trapped by a union and go to another state or even another country.

. Consumers can't do anything or choose anything without the rich providing the platform, goods and services recieved. If the rich have created some kind of get filthy rich system that no one can escape, then how does the consumer get blamed for that ?? The whole dam system of things we all have been experiencing was by design. Think tanks created this bull crap, and then it was slowly and precisely implemented over the years. Have to have lived through when America was better, products was better, and then watched as it all went down.

Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do. It's not a plot by any stretch of the imagination.

If we consumers decided we wanted more expensive American made products, that's what Walmart and their suppliers will provide. But Walmart became number one because they did sell cheap imported products, and the consumers responded.

Why can't you find many American made products in stores today? Because very few if any shoppers will buy them. Americans don't look at where the product is made, Americans look at price.

You see two 50 foot stands of Christmas lights; one is $5.99 made in China, and the other is $15.99 made in the USA, which strands do you think will sell the most?

"Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do."

Only when they have steady dependable jobs that pay them enough to participate in the mass consumption paradigm.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

It's not just labor. Labor is only part of the reason. A company won't move halfway across the world to pay workers $6.00 less per hour. Shipping costs would exceed such savings.

It's a lot of things that move jobs out of the country. We keep putting more straws on the camels back month by month, year by year, until the camel finally collapses. Then we blame rich people for the problem.

Why would we blame rich people, we bailed out Wall Street with socialism, we love the wealthy.

You're missing something, american wealth generation is no longer tied to work or production, it is created fictionally in the financial services sector. Growing wealth in this society is merely a growing of debt. And it is utterly unsustainable.

You people blame the rich for everything. You don't want to look at the big picture. Trump has the right message: buy American. How can you have a society with good paying jobs and cheap products? You can't. You have to choose one or the other.

In recent years, we chose cheap products. The cheaper, the better. None of those Walmart shoppers give a rats ass if they are putting Americans out of work through their purchases.

Since the US consumers demand cheap products, American manufacturers have to provide. They do that by getting rid of humans and replacing us with automation, they do that by keeping wages as low as possible, they do that by moving out of a state where they are trapped by a union and go to another state or even another country.

. Consumers can't do anything or choose anything without the rich providing the platform, goods and services recieved. If the rich have created some kind of get filthy rich system that no one can escape, then how does the consumer get blamed for that ?? The whole dam system of things we all have been experiencing was by design. Think tanks created this bull crap, and then it was slowly and precisely implemented over the years. Have to have lived through when America was better, products was better, and then watched as it all went down.

Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do. It's not a plot by any stretch of the imagination.

If we consumers decided we wanted more expensive American made products, that's what Walmart and their suppliers will provide. But Walmart became number one because they did sell cheap imported products, and the consumers responded.

Why can't you find many American made products in stores today? Because very few if any shoppers will buy them. Americans don't look at where the product is made, Americans look at price.

You see two 50 foot stands of Christmas lights; one is $5.99 made in China, and the other is $15.99 made in the USA, which strands do you think will sell the most?

"Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do."

Only when they have steady dependable jobs that pay them enough to participate in the mass consumption paradigm.

Not to worry, Trump is doing all he can to keep people out of here that take our jobs.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

[Q

Which were you, a bottom of the barrel scientist or an engineer that couldn't get a job anywhere else?

I worked for a Fortune 20 company. The weenies that couldn't get a good job like I had either went to work for the EPA or the state.

Governmental workers are not the best and the brightest. Good thing Trump wants to drain the swamp to get many of them off the public payroll.

Log 6 of government workers are worthless.....

. I know that we have a State Transportation Dept. In our city that needs to fire the hell out of most the workers it has working there. You ought to see the paving jobs that they do.. pathetic. They also work about 4 hours out of an 8 hour day. Pathetic. Talk about clock riders.. good grief.

They must be union.

 

[Timmy]

Cons act like it's one or the other . Fossil fuels or nothing .

Why wouldn't you be for investment in alternative fuels ? It's for the betterment of out future . Oh that's right... you are just slaves to your big energy masters .

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

What most plants do is use whatever is cheaper. When gas goes up, they switch to coal. When gas prices go down, they switch to gas.

Remember too the reason gas prices are low: fracking. That's right, the same fracking leftists are against.

Converting a coal plant to natural gas runs about 150 million dollars. Nobody is going to pay to switch back even if coal were to drop in price. But it won't. All the easy to get coal is gone.

And think of this, natural gas is beating coal in an Obama EPA, even with restrictions being placed on fracking. The Trump administration plans to lift some of the restrictions on fracking giving natural gas even more of a competitive advantage.

So here is a prediction I can be pretty confident in. Trump will destroy more jobs within the coal industry than Obama. Coal will produce a lower percentage of our power after Trump leaves office.

And here is a bet. I bet for every coal job lost during the Obama administration we can find TWO JOBS within the energy sector, be it a solar panel installer or a mechanical engineer working on boiler design.

That's a pipe dream if I ever heard one. We have enough coal in this country to supply the world for the next century if we wanted. Fracking and domestic oil are great, but remember that DumBama reduced the amount of federal land for oil permits and exploration. Our new fuel comes from private land. When the prices get too low, the land owners put a halt to drilling until the prices increase again.

I didn't say power plants convert from gas to coal, what I said is that they can produce electricity from either. At least here, they were setup for both.

Sure, we have tons of coal. And yep, we have millions of barrels of oil reserves. But at what cost? Because that is the problem. The fossil fuel industry is fighting a losing battle and it is not with the EPA and regulations.

We have already gotten all the easy coal. We have already gotten all the easy oil. It will take increasingly more dollars to get those resources out of the ground. The cost curve is increasing But renewable energy is on the opposite end of the cost curve. Each additional output generated comes at a lower cost, not a higher one. It is a battle against MATH, the fossil fuel industry is destined to lose.

But that brings us to the EPA. That brings us to a decline in enforcement and a rolling back of standards. See, there is not only a cost of getting those fossil fuels out of the ground, there is a cost of burning them. There is a cost to spewing out emissions, and the dirtier the more expensive. If the fossil fuel industry can "externalize" those costs, that is, make you and me pay for it so they don't have to, they can perhaps postpone their inevitable defeat by the cost curve.

You will never find a replacement for fossil fuel that is just as cost effective and powerful in our lifetime. With the wrong leaders, they may be able to force us from fossil fuels, but not optionally.

In some places in the country we have already found replacements. Solar is huge here. But natural gas is absolutely kicking coal's ass. The only way coal can remain competitive is for it to become more efficient, not by externalizing costs. And it can be more efficient. The industry is moving in the direction of "clean coal", they are not even asking for the EPA to be dismantled or weakened further. They were fully prepared and ready to implement Obama's new standards on CO2. I have an inside source that is about as inside the industry as you can get.

This is about waste disposal. Keystone, coal-ash, even biological waste. It is getting increasingly hard to LEGALLY dispose of a massive amount of industrial waste within our society. Gut the EPA, cut enforcement by half, AGAIN, and it will be easier to dump those waste via illegal avenues. It really is that industrial pond over the hill.

One summer when my boys were young they begged and begged to go fishing at that pond. I hate ponds. Ponds are dangerous, even when they are clean. I finally relented but told them they better not get in that pond. The next evening I came home from work to find them cleaning some fish and grilling others over a campfire in the backyard.

I told them, "Guys, you weren't planning on eating those fish were you?" When they admitted they were I told them about all the nasty chemicals the foam manufacturing plant used, how the EPA had to come check the pond, how it had been a long time since I got a report, and how it was a "holding pond" because the water was not yet safe to release into the water table. I was still explaining what all those nasty chemicals could do when all three of them dropped what they were doing and tore out for the house. When I yelled, where you going they all responded still running away, "we got to take a shower".

Talk about a joy kill.

 

[Fenton Lum]

Why would we blame rich people, we bailed out Wall Street with socialism, we love the wealthy.

You're missing something, american wealth generation is no longer tied to work or production, it is created fictionally in the financial services sector. Growing wealth in this society is merely a growing of debt. And it is utterly unsustainable.

You people blame the rich for everything. You don't want to look at the big picture. Trump has the right message: buy American. How can you have a society with good paying jobs and cheap products? You can't. You have to choose one or the other.

In recent years, we chose cheap products. The cheaper, the better. None of those Walmart shoppers give a rats ass if they are putting Americans out of work through their purchases.

Since the US consumers demand cheap products, American manufacturers have to provide. They do that by getting rid of humans and replacing us with automation, they do that by keeping wages as low as possible, they do that by moving out of a state where they are trapped by a union and go to another state or even another country.

. Consumers can't do anything or choose anything without the rich providing the platform, goods and services recieved. If the rich have created some kind of get filthy rich system that no one can escape, then how does the consumer get blamed for that ?? The whole dam system of things we all have been experiencing was by design. Think tanks created this bull crap, and then it was slowly and precisely implemented over the years. Have to have lived through when America was better, products was better, and then watched as it all went down.

Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do. It's not a plot by any stretch of the imagination.

If we consumers decided we wanted more expensive American made products, that's what Walmart and their suppliers will provide. But Walmart became number one because they did sell cheap imported products, and the consumers responded.

Why can't you find many American made products in stores today? Because very few if any shoppers will buy them. Americans don't look at where the product is made, Americans look at price.

You see two 50 foot stands of Christmas lights; one is $5.99 made in China, and the other is $15.99 made in the USA, which strands do you think will sell the most?

"Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do."

Only when they have steady dependable jobs that pay them enough to participate in the mass consumption paradigm.

Not to worry, Trump is doing all he can to keep people out of here that take our jobs.

No one took your jobs son, the "job creator" class outsourced them to places where they could more brutally savage workers and the environment. Your jobs are not coming back in this post-industrial society. That's what your private prisons are for. $40-50K per year per hominid, the system no longer needs manufacturing to generate wealth for Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and the rest. Wealth is now generated in the financial services sector by issuing more debt, the system no longer requires american workers or fat walleted consumers.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

More realistically: The guy came out, pumped your gas (dribbling the last quart down the side of the car), checked your oil (and sold you an overpriced quart you didn't need), checked the tire pressure (and set all 4 to the incorrect pressure), filled your windshield washer fluid (with water, so it froze solid the next cold night), took your cash or credit card into the station (wrote down the card number to sell), and brought back your change or receipt with green stamps.

Really? I never experienced that. In fact a few times, the mechanic warned me about things that I didn't know about. I loved full serve islands.

I would willingly pay a premium to pump my own gas. I will not deal with having to watch a stoned high-school dropout like a hawk to make sure he doesn't pump the wrong grade, dribble gas down the car I just spent 2 hours detailing, steal my gas cap, or clone my debit card!

Well I have some bad news for you, and that is credit card scammers use the credit card machines on the pump to steal your number. In fact we just had one here a couple of months ago. The maintenance guy came out to service a pump and found the credit card scanner inside of the pump.

Cuyahoga County Department of Consumer Affairs Issues Credit Card Skimmer Alert - Office of the Cuyahoga County Executive

Seriously? Dude...KFC "quality" has been rock-bottom for 20+ years, and if anything, their service is even worse

Nope, they taste the same as they did 30 years ago. Unlike most fast food places that kept reducing quality to keep prices low, KFC kept their same quality all of these years. But again, you have to pay for it.

. Hmmm, my credit card has insurance that keeps me from worrying about scammers doing anything.

Yes, that's true, but there is identity theft to worry about as well. They even have some sort of contraption that can scan your credit card right from your pocket. So now they sell metallic wallets to prevent people from doing that to you.

. That's why our cash system ruled, and it still should rule. Technology in this field has made us less safe not more safe.

That's what us older folks do. But then again, all my tenants pay rent in cash so I have to get rid of it somehow. I don't use my debit card for much of anything.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Fusion power might become viable in the next 20 years. They are making great strides lately. But that still wouldn't be as good as fossil fuels.

Fusion power is 10 years away.

Just like it has been for 50 years.

 

[Fenton Lum]

More realistically: The guy came out, pumped your gas (dribbling the last quart down the side of the car), checked your oil (and sold you an overpriced quart you didn't need), checked the tire pressure (and set all 4 to the incorrect pressure), filled your windshield washer fluid (with water, so it froze solid the next cold night), took your cash or credit card into the station (wrote down the card number to sell), and brought back your change or receipt with green stamps.

Really? I never experienced that. In fact a few times, the mechanic warned me about things that I didn't know about. I loved full serve islands.

I would willingly pay a premium to pump my own gas. I will not deal with having to watch a stoned high-school dropout like a hawk to make sure he doesn't pump the wrong grade, dribble gas down the car I just spent 2 hours detailing, steal my gas cap, or clone my debit card!

Well I have some bad news for you, and that is credit card scammers use the credit card machines on the pump to steal your number. In fact we just had one here a couple of months ago. The maintenance guy came out to service a pump and found the credit card scanner inside of the pump.

Cuyahoga County Department of Consumer Affairs Issues Credit Card Skimmer Alert - Office of the Cuyahoga County Executive

Seriously? Dude...KFC "quality" has been rock-bottom for 20+ years, and if anything, their service is even worse

Nope, they taste the same as they did 30 years ago. Unlike most fast food places that kept reducing quality to keep prices low, KFC kept their same quality all of these years. But again, you have to pay for it.

. Hmmm, my credit card has insurance that keeps me from worrying about scammers doing anything.

Yes, that's true, but there is identity theft to worry about as well. They even have some sort of contraption that can scan your credit card right from your pocket. So now they sell metallic wallets to prevent people from doing that to you.

. That's why our cash system ruled, and it still should rule. Technology in this field has made us less safe not more safe.

That's what us older folks do. But then again, all my tenants pay rent in cash so I have to get rid of it somehow. I don't use my debit card for much of anything.

When your cash is based on fiction it doesn't much matter.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

What most plants do is use whatever is cheaper. When gas goes up, they switch to coal. When gas prices go down, they switch to gas.

Remember too the reason gas prices are low: fracking. That's right, the same fracking leftists are against.

Converting a coal plant to natural gas runs about 150 million dollars. Nobody is going to pay to switch back even if coal were to drop in price. But it won't. All the easy to get coal is gone.

And think of this, natural gas is beating coal in an Obama EPA, even with restrictions being placed on fracking. The Trump administration plans to lift some of the restrictions on fracking giving natural gas even more of a competitive advantage.

So here is a prediction I can be pretty confident in. Trump will destroy more jobs within the coal industry than Obama. Coal will produce a lower percentage of our power after Trump leaves office.

And here is a bet. I bet for every coal job lost during the Obama administration we can find TWO JOBS within the energy sector, be it a solar panel installer or a mechanical engineer working on boiler design.

That's a pipe dream if I ever heard one. We have enough coal in this country to supply the world for the next century if we wanted. Fracking and domestic oil are great, but remember that DumBama reduced the amount of federal land for oil permits and exploration. Our new fuel comes from private land. When the prices get too low, the land owners put a halt to drilling until the prices increase again.

I didn't say power plants convert from gas to coal, what I said is that they can produce electricity from either. At least here, they were setup for both.

Sure, we have tons of coal. And yep, we have millions of barrels of oil reserves. But at what cost? Because that is the problem. The fossil fuel industry is fighting a losing battle and it is not with the EPA and regulations.

We have already gotten all the easy coal. We have already gotten all the easy oil. It will take increasingly more dollars to get those resources out of the ground. The cost curve is increasing But renewable energy is on the opposite end of the cost curve. Each additional output generated comes at a lower cost, not a higher one. It is a battle against MATH, the fossil fuel industry is destined to lose.

But that brings us to the EPA. That brings us to a decline in enforcement and a rolling back of standards. See, there is not only a cost of getting those fossil fuels out of the ground, there is a cost of burning them. There is a cost to spewing out emissions, and the dirtier the more expensive. If the fossil fuel industry can "externalize" those costs, that is, make you and me pay for it so they don't have to, they can perhaps postpone their inevitable defeat by the cost curve.

You will never find a replacement for fossil fuel that is just as cost effective and powerful in our lifetime. With the wrong leaders, they may be able to force us from fossil fuels, but not optionally.

Fusion power might become viable in the next 20 years. They are making great strides lately. But that still wouldn't be as good as fossil fuels.

I'm not against advancements in fuel, just more expensive less reliable alternative fuel. I don't think we'll ever see anything comparable to fossil fuels in our lifetime. But I can't see us using fossil fuels in sixty or seventy years from now.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Really? I never experienced that. In fact a few times, the mechanic warned me about things that I didn't know about. I loved full serve islands.

Well I have some bad news for you, and that is credit card scammers use the credit card machines on the pump to steal your number. In fact we just had one here a couple of months ago. The maintenance guy came out to service a pump and found the credit card scanner inside of the pump.

Cuyahoga County Department of Consumer Affairs Issues Credit Card Skimmer Alert - Office of the Cuyahoga County Executive

Nope, they taste the same as they did 30 years ago. Unlike most fast food places that kept reducing quality to keep prices low, KFC kept their same quality all of these years. But again, you have to pay for it.

. Hmmm, my credit card has insurance that keeps me from worrying about scammers doing anything.

Yes, that's true, but there is identity theft to worry about as well. They even have some sort of contraption that can scan your credit card right from your pocket. So now they sell metallic wallets to prevent people from doing that to you.

. That's why our cash system ruled, and it still should rule. Technology in this field has made us less safe not more safe.

That's what us older folks do. But then again, all my tenants pay rent in cash so I have to get rid of it somehow. I don't use my debit card for much of anything.

When your cash is based on fiction it doesn't much matter.

What's fiction about it?

 

[Jarlaxle]

Cons act like it's one or the other . Fossil fuels or nothing .

Why wouldn't you be for investment in alternative fuels ? It's for the betterment of out future . Oh that's right... you are just slaves to your big energy masters .

I am in favor of greatly expanding nuclear power. Are you?

If not, then you are not serious about reducing dependence on fossil fuels.

 

[Fenton Lum]

Converting a coal plant to natural gas runs about 150 million dollars. Nobody is going to pay to switch back even if coal were to drop in price. But it won't. All the easy to get coal is gone.

And think of this, natural gas is beating coal in an Obama EPA, even with restrictions being placed on fracking. The Trump administration plans to lift some of the restrictions on fracking giving natural gas even more of a competitive advantage.

So here is a prediction I can be pretty confident in. Trump will destroy more jobs within the coal industry than Obama. Coal will produce a lower percentage of our power after Trump leaves office.

And here is a bet. I bet for every coal job lost during the Obama administration we can find TWO JOBS within the energy sector, be it a solar panel installer or a mechanical engineer working on boiler design.

That's a pipe dream if I ever heard one. We have enough coal in this country to supply the world for the next century if we wanted. Fracking and domestic oil are great, but remember that DumBama reduced the amount of federal land for oil permits and exploration. Our new fuel comes from private land. When the prices get too low, the land owners put a halt to drilling until the prices increase again.

I didn't say power plants convert from gas to coal, what I said is that they can produce electricity from either. At least here, they were setup for both.

Sure, we have tons of coal. And yep, we have millions of barrels of oil reserves. But at what cost? Because that is the problem. The fossil fuel industry is fighting a losing battle and it is not with the EPA and regulations.

We have already gotten all the easy coal. We have already gotten all the easy oil. It will take increasingly more dollars to get those resources out of the ground. The cost curve is increasing But renewable energy is on the opposite end of the cost curve. Each additional output generated comes at a lower cost, not a higher one. It is a battle against MATH, the fossil fuel industry is destined to lose.

But that brings us to the EPA. That brings us to a decline in enforcement and a rolling back of standards. See, there is not only a cost of getting those fossil fuels out of the ground, there is a cost of burning them. There is a cost to spewing out emissions, and the dirtier the more expensive. If the fossil fuel industry can "externalize" those costs, that is, make you and me pay for it so they don't have to, they can perhaps postpone their inevitable defeat by the cost curve.

You will never find a replacement for fossil fuel that is just as cost effective and powerful in our lifetime. With the wrong leaders, they may be able to force us from fossil fuels, but not optionally.

Fusion power might become viable in the next 20 years. They are making great strides lately. But that still wouldn't be as good as fossil fuels.

I'm not against advancements in fuel, just more expensive less reliable alternative fuel. I don't think we'll ever see anything comparable to fossil fuels in our lifetime. But I can't see us using fossil fuels in sixty or seventy years from now.

The industry will continue to misinform and slow it all down as they alays have. Like the tobacco industry. Like the pharma and healthcare industries do.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

You people blame the rich for everything. You don't want to look at the big picture. Trump has the right message: buy American. How can you have a society with good paying jobs and cheap products? You can't. You have to choose one or the other.

In recent years, we chose cheap products. The cheaper, the better. None of those Walmart shoppers give a rats ass if they are putting Americans out of work through their purchases.

Since the US consumers demand cheap products, American manufacturers have to provide. They do that by getting rid of humans and replacing us with automation, they do that by keeping wages as low as possible, they do that by moving out of a state where they are trapped by a union and go to another state or even another country.

. Consumers can't do anything or choose anything without the rich providing the platform, goods and services recieved. If the rich have created some kind of get filthy rich system that no one can escape, then how does the consumer get blamed for that ?? The whole dam system of things we all have been experiencing was by design. Think tanks created this bull crap, and then it was slowly and precisely implemented over the years. Have to have lived through when America was better, products was better, and then watched as it all went down.

Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do. It's not a plot by any stretch of the imagination.

If we consumers decided we wanted more expensive American made products, that's what Walmart and their suppliers will provide. But Walmart became number one because they did sell cheap imported products, and the consumers responded.

Why can't you find many American made products in stores today? Because very few if any shoppers will buy them. Americans don't look at where the product is made, Americans look at price.

You see two 50 foot stands of Christmas lights; one is $5.99 made in China, and the other is $15.99 made in the USA, which strands do you think will sell the most?

"Manufacturers don't call the shots--consumers do."

Only when they have steady dependable jobs that pay them enough to participate in the mass consumption paradigm.

Not to worry, Trump is doing all he can to keep people out of here that take our jobs.

No one took your jobs son, the "job creator" class outsourced them to places where they could more brutally savage workers and the environment. Your jobs are not coming back in this post-industrial society. That's what your private prisons are for. $40-50K per year per hominid, the system no longer needs manufacturing to generate wealth for Wall Street, Goldman Sachs and the rest. Wealth is now generated in the financial services sector by issuing more debt, the system no longer requires american workers or fat walleted consumers.

There are some jobs you can't outsource such as service jobs. And yes, those foreigners are here taking those jobs thus keeping our wages down. If you think they only come here to pick grapes then you have another thing coming. They are in nearly every field of work in this country.