My Father and Solar Power in Lowndes County

My father was a civil servant. He had to pass a civil service exam to become an employee of the City of Detroit to go to work for the Public Lighting Commission, a municipal entity that was tasked with providing electricity to light the city's street lights. He was a trained engineer, who's last job was to run a power plant. Here's a photo of Mistersky Power Plant that my father ran a shift overseeing electrical production (It had six smokestacks when I was growing up and it burned coal. They changed to gas in the early seventies.).

My father made less than his private sector peers for working in the public sector. He traded it off for the security of knowing that if he did his job, he was assured of a job. My father did his job well. He was able to live the American Dream as one who had it pretty rough during the Depression. He was able to retire at sixty two with a decent pension. Even though it was barely five years later when he passed away, I was glad that he'd had that time to do pretty much whatever he wanted.

What's all that have to do with Lowndes County, Georgia? Right now, all the people and businesses and institutions of Lowndes County are dependent on Georgia Power to provide their electricity. If you'll just let your mind remember what it's like when the power goes out, you can see what part Georgia Power plays in our lives. Our lives and civilization literally run on electricity, and without it, just like pulling the plug, our lives come to an abrupt halt. How secure do you feel knowing that your entire lifestyle relies on some faceless corporation that sees Lowndes County as some miniscule piece in their grand scheme of things, while they extract tens of millions of dollars a month from us?

Why should we people of Lowndes County have to be dependent upon some giant corporation that couldn't care less about us here beyond what fees they can extract, when we can be self-sufficient in electrical production if we wanted to be? We could probably not just be self-sufficient, but actually a net exporter of electricity. Econ 101 taught me, the way to wealth is to produce something. Just like the City of Detroit, the City of Valdosta , or the County of Lowndes, could come together and produce our own electrical energy for ourselves, and it would be cheaper and more secure than if we simply trust in Georgia Power.

Unfortunately, an archaic Georgia state law from 1973 stands in the way of a municipal entity, that is, the citizens of some city, attempting to provide their own power. I assume it applies to a county effort. I don't know what your idea of freedom is, but being subject to the whims of Georgia Power is not my idea. Why isn't this considered tyranny?

The Story of Bain Capital and Mitt Romney

David Stockman is hardly a radical leftist, He was budget director from 1981-1985 for President Ronald Reagan, when he left the White House because he knew Reaganomics wasn't working. He also spent a lot of time in the private equity business, the same thing Mitt Romney was doing at Bain Capital.

Check out this article at The Daily Beast by Stockman. He eviscerates the myth Romney pushes that because of his business experience he knows what to do to get the economy going better than Obama. Stockman answers:

Except Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way—out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups,” and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale—the faster the better.

This was Mitt's business model. What were his results?

Accordingly, Bain’s returns on the overwhelming bulk of the deals—67 out of 77—were actually lower than what a passive S&P 500 indexer would have earned even without the risk of leverage or paying all the private-equity fees. Investor profits amounted to a prosaic 0.7X the original investment on these deals and, based on its average five-year holding period, the annual return would have computed to about 12 percent—well below the 17 percent average return on the S&P in this period.

By contrast, the 10 home runs generated profits of $1.8 billion on investments of only $250 million, yielding a spectacular return of 7X investment. Yet it is this handful of home runs that both make the Romney investment legend and also seal the indictment: they show that Bain Capital was a vehicle for leveraged speculation that was gifted immeasurably by the Greenspan bubble. It was a fortunate place where leverage got lucky, not a higher form of capitalist endeavor or training school for presidential aspirants. [Emphasis mine]

Then Stockman goes on,

The startling fact is that four of the 10 Bain Capital home runs ended up in bankruptcy, and for an obvious reason: Bain got its money out at the top of the Greenspan boom in the late 1990s and then these companies hit the wall during the 2000-02 downturn, weighed down by the massive load of debt Bain had bequeathed them. In fact, nearly $600 million, or one third of the profits earned by the home-run companies, had been extracted from the hide of these four eventual debt zombies.

He goes on to describe a number of Bain deals. My takeaway is this: Mitt Romney was not your classic capitalist. Someone with a good idea for a product that brings it to market and makes boucou bucks. He's no Steve Jobs. Mitt Romney practiced a form of vulture or parasitic capitalism, all designed to channel tens of millions to his personal wealth. There was never any regard for the workers (and their lives) of the companies he trashed.

How could this man have any idea what it takes if the goal is increased number of good paying jobs in America?

Newt Gingrich: Scumbag Exemplar

Filed under "Holy Crap! Can You Believe the Audacity!":  Newt Gingrich came to the defense of Mitt Romney's remarks that 47% of Americans will vote for Obama because they're on the dole.

“You have people who had extraordinary opportunities in the most open society in the world who explain how they’re victimized and government should take care of them. It’s the heart of the Obama majority, people who would like someone to take care of them.”

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1oeGq) 

This, from one of the greatest con men of all time. He was actually able to rise to Speaker of the House of Representatives before it was found out how corrupt he was, after which he was hounded out of office - he'll say resigned and didn't run again.

Hey Newt! Here's a concept I'd like for you to wrap your head around: The problem is not that we aren't smart enough, or skilled enough, the problem is  that the jobs aren't there. You Republicans always side with management, I understand, that's who finances your campaigns. But just Fuck You if you think we want to be dependent and not profitably exercise our talents and skills. That is just some arrogant bullshit reminiscent of the English and French aristocracy or the American Robber Barons. It's not what I get from our founding fathers.

Mitt Romney: American Aristocrat

Mother Jones obtained recording of Mitt Romney at a private fundraiser. It's truly revealing. This is what he says to his own people when he thinks no one else is listening. 

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the President no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you-name-it... These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect.

There are so many things wrong with this, one hardly knows where to start. The 47 percent meme has been popular lately with Republicans. I would wager that at least 25 points of that 47 are families in which the deductions for mortgage and dependents and the child tax credit zeroes out their tax liability. The rest have no income tax liability because they don't make enough. They are the working poor. Don't forget though, that all these people pay over seven and a half cents on every dollar they do earn into social security and medicare. Mitt Romney's social security and medicare liability? Something like 0.00003 cents on every one of his [un]/earned dollars.

Then he goes on to say:

I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their own lives.

How positively condescending and insulting! However, this has always been the go-to justification of the rich for their wealth, everyone else is just too lazy, only they have the proper work ethic.

Mitt is the quintessential aristocrat, along with Lady Ann - at least, our American version of it. For all their professed adherence to our Founding Fathers, it doesn't dawn on them that it was the idea of monarchy, and the aristocratic system that supported it, that the FF's fought against. I've felt for a long time now that our present day Republicans have more in common with the Tories than the Revolutionaries.

Ryan: Rape is a Method of Conception

"I'm very proud of my pro-life record, and I've always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn't change the definition of life," - Paul Ryan, Republican VP candidate.

It matters not to him that the "method of conception" was rape. How any woman could vote for one of these people is beyond me.

Willard's Involved With CCA

If there was cash to be had, there was Willard. Gawker's document dump pulled up this ditty.

Don't forget, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) gets all of it's income from government entities. They suck at the government teat that supposed conservatives rail against.

Law enforcement, of which correctional institutions are a part, is a function of government, not private enterprise.

The Natives Get Restless

Wow! Two hundred show up to be a thorn in the side of these plutocrats. Good for them! I notice how it's local police, state police, and secret service providing security at this private event. Our tax dollars at work.