Romney & Bain

[bae]

... stop selling gas/diesel for transportation in 15. Older cars can be retrofitted. Trucks and trains can run on it. Planes probably need to stick with liquid fuel.

Sorry, I'm not going to convert my boat to diesel, or the truck I use out in the back-of-beyond. The stone-age reliability of diesel is crucial for these applications.

[freein05]

We need to take a look at what Germany's doing. They're up to 25% of energy from renewable sources, according to reports.

My German utility stocks have taken a big hit because of the law. The Germans are also finding the storage of energy is a problem. They conserve a lot more than Americans. A cold or warm apartment is the norm. Almost no A/C in Germany. In my opinion conservation is the most important way to make energy available.

[Gregg]

Sorry, I'm not going to convert my boat to diesel, or the truck I use out in the back-of-beyond. The stone-age reliability of diesel is crucial for these applications.

Lol. I forgot about boats. That happens when you live 1000 miles from the beach.

Seriously, I can't foresee a day when gas and diesel aren't available at all. I was just being melodramatic (when in Rome and all). Maybe we will get to a point where they are less common than other options, like natural gas or battery charging stations, but with the gigantic infrastructure that has been built and hundreds of millions of cars and trucks running on petrol I think it will be a very long time before anyone is forced to trade in the Unimog for a lack of fuel.

[Gregg]

In my opinion conservation is the most important way to make energy available.

Spot on free. If we keep banging that drum maybe it will catch on.

[bae]

Spot on free. If we keep banging that drum maybe it will catch on.

Doesn't seem to be working :-(

[peggy]

Doesn't seem to be working :-(

Yeah you're right! They vilified Jimmy and he was right all along! Put on the sweater and turn down the thermostat! And he was laughed out of office!

I think if we seriously explore alternatives, and not just for the rich who can afford it, but for everyone, then all energy sources could be used as they are useful. Solar where it is best used, and oil or natural gas where it is best used. Petroleum is very useful in it's best applications, but burning it up in our cars and for heating our homes is wasteful. The days of one source for everything is over. Conservation is fine, but it can only take us so far. We need to move beyond that. There will always be certain applications where oil is the best source of energy, and wasting it on secondary uses just because we are lazy is pointless, and destructive in the long run.

Natural gas may be plentiful, but that's just not the direction auto makers are going. They are going in the direction of electric cars. OK, fine, we can work with that. We can produce out own electricity, and more importantly, I can produce my own electricity. I can't produce my own natural gas, so I'm actually excited in the direction of autos. (this is kind of what I'm talking about with the big energy. I can't produce my own natural gas, so I'm not actually getting excited about natural gas cars, but I can produce my own electricity. Which makes me kind of suspicious of anyone who champions natural gas run cars)

[Yossarian]

Fiscal responsibility trumps all for me.

Not a hard choice then.

[catherine]

Not a hard choice then.

Here's another statistic, from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga...-barack-obama/

[Alan]

Here's another statistic, from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickunga...-barack-obama/

"So, how have the Republicans managed to persuade Americans to buy into the whole “Obama as big spender” narrative?
It might have something to do with the first year of the Obama presidency where the federal budget increased a whopping 17.9% —going from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. I’ll bet you think that this is the result of the Obama sponsored stimulus plan that is so frequently vilified by the conservatives…but you would be wrong.
The first year of any incoming president term is saddled—for better or for worse—with the budget set by the president whom immediately precedes the new occupant of the White House. Indeed, not only was the 2009 budget the property of George W. Bush—and passed by the 2008 Congress—it was in effect four months before Barack Obama took the oath of office"


The thing is, that is not true. The Democrat controlled House and Senate refused to pass the FY '09 budget in 2008. They waited until after Barack Obama was in office and sent it to him for his signature in March of 2009. That's the budget that increased by nearly 18% and is also the one used as a benchmark for the subsequent non-budgets (the Senate hasn't allowed a formal budget since that FY '09 one) which supposedly prove how frugal the current administration has been.

That '09 budget resulted in a $1.4T deficit which has continued with slight deviations for each subsequent year.

To say that the FY '09 budget was "the property of George W. Bush" is one the the most blatant, and oft repeated lies I've seen in a long time.

[Gregg]

To say that the FY '09 budget was "the property of George W. Bush" is one the the most blatant, and oft repeated lies I've seen in a long time.

For a crowd that would have Mitt Romney brought up on capitol murder charges for a death caused by a disease he did not inflict and treatment he did not deny, by a company he did not control, through a deal he did not initiate... No, trying to dump a spending spree on a predecessor seems to be just a little white trillion dollar lie.