Regime Risk

At a dinner recently with some financial guys, one said the regional head of a national investment group was buying two months of food to store in his basement. The table laughed. Then another story was told of another man in a similar executive position doing the same.

There was less laughter.

The term "Regime Risk" is used often to describe the potential downside in an investment market based upon that nation's leadership--or lack thereof--and has always been reserved for those inadequate soundtruck democracies or countries flirting with capitalism but hampered by a uniformed junta. I have never heard it applied to the United States until now.

"I Don't Do Nuance"--George W. Bush

"Two years in prison is too long and we sincerely hope for the freedom of other political prisoners and other unjustly imprisoned people in America and Iran."

So spoke Shane Bauer upon being released from the notorious Evin Prison in Iran, a prison infamous as a site of sadistic torture of criminals of all stripes, political, religious, and civil. As a statement it is, by any standard, strange. There is a saintly acceptance and absence of bitterness, a vague nod to a community of suffering and injustice, and just a touch of insanity. This is a young man plucked off the border of Iran in Iraqi Kurdistan while hiking with his girlfriend and his best friend, buried in a horrible prison for two years by a capricious and malicious government on idiotic spy charges, subjected to God-knows-what and reading this statement one can hardly tell.

Mr. Bauer then went on to thank people for helping him obtain his release including Hugo Chavez, Noam Chomsky, Sean Penn and Yusuf Islam (nee Cat Stevens) but curiously omitted thanking President Obama (who made a public plea for his freedom) or Mrs. Clinton, the Secretary of State.

Thanking Mr. Chomsky was telling. Last year Chomsky wrote, in an appeal for the hikers, "These young people represent a segment of the U.S. population that is critical of [U.S.] policies, and often actively opposed to them. Hence their detention is particularly distressing to all of us who are dedicated to shifting U.S. policy to one of mutual respect rather than domination." So some innocent who supported the American Middle East position would be a more appropriate victim?

Can the American and Iranian legal systems really be compared side by side? Are there really American political prisoners? Who are they and how did they get there? The American justice system has its faults but it meets in public, has layers of appeals, has an aggressive free press that monitors it and people like Mr. Bauer who overtly and freely oppose it. It took the Americans ten years to execute Ted Bundy, an ersatz Prince of Darkness. This is quite unlike Iran and equating the two has an anger ridden and fantastic quality about it. In this fairy tale world, if "two years in prison is too long" for an innocent man, what would be too short and what would be just right?

This is a difficult statement to understand. It assumes an innocence in the Iranian perpetrators and a guilt in the American victims that is staggering. Perhaps Mr. Bauer, who has a degree in "Peace and Conflict Studies" from Berkeley, has become a truly enlightened man, full of forgiveness. But that does not explain his willingness to judge the Americans more than harshly.

That judgement seems to come from a harder core, a source unawakened by the cruelest of Iranian circumstances.

Marcellus #2

According to Pennlive.com this year, geologists at Penn State and the University of Wyoming released an petroleum industry-funded report on Marcellus Shale projections and economic impacts. It contained a disclaimer that none of the scientists or institutions “makes any warranty or representation, express or implied, with respect to the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of the information contained in the report."

What could this possibly mean? It means the good professors do not want an opponent of their opinion harassing their children in school or firebombing their garage. What it means is that even in academia honest debate and discussion are over. What it means is that scientific publications have become informational and nothing more. Concepts and hypotheses have become musings. And why not? What scientist in his right mind would want to put his name on a paper at Oral Roberts University that supports evolution? Does Obama's former economic advisor, Christina Romer, want to talk to the press about her concept of the tax multiplier when Obama is raising taxes? If you had a grant from NASA, would you argue with global warming?

What is happening in science is a microcosm if what is happening in the culture: Every single thing has become a singularity, a tiny individual black hole of self-righteous animosity. Everything that is done is done in isolation. Nothing has a connection to anything else. Global warming is not an interesting question or a possible problem that needs evaluated; it is a life threatening disaster of impending extinction or it is an academic scam created for the benefit of carbon credit traders. Fracking is a solution to our economic problems or a self-destructive act of mindless greed.

Amazingly in a postmodern world where nothing is felt to be clear or true, we are strangling ourselves with absolutes.

Marcellus #1

Marcellus Shale is not a college point guard, it is a huge petroleum deposit extending from western New York to West Virginia estimated from between 85 trillion to 480 trillion cubic feet, at least the second largest in the world. The implications, locally and nationally, are staggering. Richard Heckmann, the CEO of of the drilling service company Heckmann Corp. and who turned U.S.Filter from a multimillion dollar company into a multibillion dollar one, estimates that if liquid natural gas processed from this site could be used nationally by tractor trailers--which he estimates could be done in 5 years-- our dependence on Middle East oil would be over. Over.

And the spillover, if you will excuse me, would be unbelievable. On a single wellpad in western Pennsylvania 115 companies are involved in servicing it. Shell Corp. is considering a processing plant that will make the composite chemicals for plastic, tires and the like with the attendant growth of those industries around it. The growth of businesses and jobs would be enormous.

Yet there are nonprofit groups, politicians and anti growth groups that are rising to oppose this industry. They do not say "Let's figure out how to do this", they say "No."

I have a better idea: Let's put our money into Solyndra, solar companies and lithium battery companies and hope for the best.

India: Signs and Limits of Growth

There is a problem in India's GDP growth that gives an interesting insight to the way economies develop and how we must think. According to the Energy Information Administration, India has a population of 1.2 billion people and is growing, 40% of those people are not connected to the electric grid and 75% of Indians in rural communities use wood as their primary fuel. India's per capita energy consumption is 700 kilowatt hours; America's is 14,000.

India's annual growth rate is 8% and has been creating and developing a viable middle class. How much energy growth will be necessary in the next 5-10 years to support a continuing 8% annual growth? In other words, how much energy growth must India develop to prevent stifling their economic growth?

350,000 megawatts. To put that in context, the American grid, total, is 1,000,000.

Sunday Sermon: Carpe Diem

"The home run is not hit, it is pitched."

So said the esteemed philosopher and power hitter, Prince Fielder. Mr. Fielder is no ivory tower academician, he is a feared power hitter in Major League Baseball known for his athleticism, strength and intensity. But , according to Mr. Fielder, before he can bring his considerable skills to the athletic moment, the circumstances, i.e. the pitched ball, must be right.

Thus Mr. Fielder modestly sees the home run as an event dependent upon multiple factors and places the batter at the end of a series of evolving circumstances. The batter does not create the event, he completes it. But the philosopher does not imply the batter has no responsibility in some paean to postmodernism. What is crucial is what is not said. Every pitch is not a home run pitch and cannot be made one. But the home run pitch is always a home run pitch and it is the batter's responsibility to make it so. His success will depend upon his eye, his recognition, his training and practice, his strength and coordination, his mental preparation and his focus. The home run pitch will be completed depending upon the quality of the batter.

So the pitcher assesses the moment, what he knows of the batter's strengths and weaknesses and tendencies, what he has shown the batter, the pitcher's own strengths and weaknesses, training, scouting and planning, the count and what to stay away from. Then he winds and--with his strength and coordination--delivers the pitch which rockets towards the plate It is now the batter's time, his time to complete what the pitcher has put in motion..

In a fraction of a second the batter seizes the moment and becomes a hitter. Or not.

Should Caesar's Wife Have Taken the Fifth?

Solyndra. LightSquared. There have been a lot of mistakes by this administration but that is common enough. Some, like the Cash for Clunkers, were just stupid. Some, like the Guns for Cartels, were malignant. But supporting these companies, with administration financial ties and ownership, is the worst. It makes important leaders look sleazy. It makes them look petty. They are more than wrong; they are unworthy.

Caesar's first wife, Cornelia, died in childbirth delivering Julia who would later marry Pompey. Caesar then married Pompeia, Pompey's cousin. Caesar became Pontifex Maximus so the sacred rites of Bona Dea for "The Great Goddess" (whose name could not be spoken and whose rites are to this day obscure) were held in his house under the direction of his wife and his mother. (The rite was for women only, men forbidden.) Clodius, a famous rake and political leader, crashed the event dressed as a woman. He was discovered (and eventually tried in court which he bribed) It was felt by one and all that Pompeia had aided his entrance, likely because they were lovers. Caesar divorced her and, when pressed why, never gave his wife up as unfaithful. Instead he said "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion."

There is real nobility here in Caesar's protecting his wife. And the whole story is fascinating. But Caesar's statement is profound and should be basic for leaders.

But maybe Obama's above it.

Obama's Tax Suggestions

The strangely named "Buffett Tax" has some fine print in the discussion that is of value. No millionaire pays less taxes on income than his secretary does. But there is a way for a millionaire--or anybody--to pay 15% of their earnings in taxes. Through the capital gains tax, capital gains is taxed as regular income if it is gained in less than one year, 15% if more than a year. There are reasons for this distinction. First the money invested has already been taxed. Second, there is often significant risk involved and losses are poorly accommodated in the tax law. Similar taxation exists on dividends. That money has already been taxed previously at the company level. Municipal bonds are tax free so they don't compete with corporation bonds.

All the talk about this Buffett inequality omits these little facts. And there is good reason for that, too. Most of the people who have capital gains and dividends do it to supplement their income; this includes many retirees. Who wants to create conflict between Buffett's secretary and a bunch of old people on a failing Social Security System? Do we really want to restructure these tax systems? Do we really want the municipalities to compete on the open market. How will these markets react if we change the capital gains rules midstream? Clean up the deductions and get rid of mortgage deductions? What will that do to home sales?

Who do these people think they are kidding? The tax system is a mess but fixing it will be hard and likely will require grownup supervision. Buffett has done irreparable damage to his reputation by allowing himself to be associated with this scam. But it is a clever ploy. And it will likely work because the problem is a bit complicated for the news and there is nobody worse in an interview than a Republican politician.

Maybe we could bring back the late lamented AMT as well.

Style and the Lack of It

"Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants." ― Karl Lagerfeld
A recent article in the WSJ explained the Republican presidential candidates are trying to dress more casually to appeal to the average guy.



There is no single thing reminiscent of the 1960s as much as dressing down. It was de rigueur for the self respecting college student, men more than women because men will lean towards comfort and women will go braless and wear hotpants if it is flattering but disdain comfort that is not. (See "high heels".)

But all styles drift--especially when the revolution becomes the norm--and then gradually deteriorate; the best hang on as caricatures of what created them. In the 14th century long toed shoes became so long they had to be tied to the lower leg so the men could walk. The hop-hop, baggy and beltless stage is the 60's in their death throes.

But if Lagerfeld is right, the carelessness of our appearance as a nation may be more important than we know. Is our style a symptom of a national malaise? Perhaps the nation is in need of some real stimulus. Certainly high-mindedness and pride will not come from our political leaders. But cohesiveness and national unity can come from unexpected sources--like soccer or a lovely princess. Conan Doyle introduced his detective Sherlock Holmes in The Strand magazine in 1891 and, after 22 adventures, killed him off in 1893 in "The Final Problem". The nation was shocked. Women wept in the street, men wore black armbands to work.

Maybe raising the bar in style would be a good place to start.

No Giant Has Gentle Hands

The new Dodd-Frank Bill was a reaction to the problems created in 2008 resulting from public trading of financial derivatives. Among other things it creates over 500 laws and agencies. But derivatives are used by a lot of people and companies that are not financial houses. Farmers sell futures on the exchanges to lock in a price for their crops. Manufacturers will buy metal futures to guarantee the cost of their production. 180 companies have petitioned the government to be exempted from participating in Dodd-Frank, companies like Ford. These companies estimate their cost of compliance--for a peripheral part of their business--will be 250 million dollars a year per company. They estimate a loss of 100 thousand jobs.

When I was a child we played a game called "Telephone." One person at the end of a line or row of kids would write a single sentence on a piece of paper and hand it to the kid next to them. That kid would whisper what was written to the next kid and so on down the line. At the end of the row, the last kid would write down what he heard and everyone would compare what sentence started and what emerged at the end of the line. The difference between the two was usually quite funny.

That game is now called "Government."

Anger and the Myth of Power

One of the ironies of modern politics is the politicians, who believe they can do so much more than just transfer money from one group to another, are held responsible for broad failures they could not possibly influence by both the people who believe they have these great abilities and the people who do not. So poor Obama, who promises great and vague change in the nation, is held responsible for an economic decline that has been in the making for decades, that no individual is responsible for but is rather the glacial accumulation of bad practices, policies and judgments and that if Obama had dictatorial powers he could not reverse. So, on one hand, he is vilified by the naive supporters who have his great faith in government for his failure to use these presumed powers and, on the other hand, vilified for his failures by his opponents who really do not believe the presidential office has the ability to do very much.

Sunday Sermon: Virtues and Values

Virtues and values are different. Virtues are qualities, values are opinions. Virtues always precede the creation of values. If virtues decline, the principles that create values decline. One of the great problems in the West is that we have made values a virtue; that is, any opinion if firmly held is to be honored as if it were a virtue.

Regrettably this is a direct result of diversity. Diversity at one time was a spice in life, an enjoyable holiday, even if momentary, from the everyday. One put one's judgment on hold and immersed oneself to some degree in something different and foreign. You ate uncooked fish, listened to music played on a different scale, tried to watch soccer, exercised in a sitting and distorted position. But this was always diversion; the proponents of diversity now demand you not just know and perhaps try it, they demand you approve of it. After all, who is to judge? The only difference between the Eskimos and the ancient Greeks is the Greeks died out. Perhaps their survival proves the Eskimos superior to the Greeks. But we want no judgments; we'll settle for the equality between the two.

This demand of reverence for diversity rather than a simple appreciation of it will never be a successful social attribute because it denies personal aspiration. It denies ideals. And everyone has them; they are not always interchangeable and they sometimes are in conflict. It is the basic element of tragedy and the energy behind history. It is the nature of what we are. We always hope to negotiate these differences but denying them is futile, blind and dangerous.

A culture cannot be universally accepting. Open mindedness is, by definition, not a principle; it is the absence of principle and dangerously close to indifference. Without unifying principles the culture shrinks into smaller units, then becomes tribal, then familial, then individual. Shards of a former whole, nihilistic and alone.

And Sometimes the Decisive Guy Just Wants to Hide

1876 “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to
be seriously considered as a means of communication.”
–Western Union internal memo.

1895 “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”
–Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society.

1927 “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
–H.M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers.

1943 “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
–Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM.

1962 “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music
is on the way out.”
–Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

1981 “640 kilobytes of memory ought to be enough for anybody.”
–Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.

Health Care and Other People's Money

A key component of the health care debate is that people who are not receiving the care but are paying the bills begin to separate cost from care. Cost control becomes its own objective regardless of the health care delivered. This is why, in a survey done of British taxpayers, the first question, "Is health care under NHS as good as it was before NHS" the answer was "No" and to the second question, "Would you like to go back to the old system?" the answer could again be "No."

Here are some proposals to help solve the health care problem in America:
1. Allow any insurer to sell any policy in any state. Mandate a deductible that increases with age.
2. Create a workman's compensation for bad medical outcomes to be adjudicated by a medical court where injured patients would receive compensation similar to workman's compensation, if deserved, and end malpractice litigation.
3. Use the time honored "soil bank" concept to supplant fee-for-service and "pre-pay" the physicians. Take each physician's earnings for the last five years, average them and declare that the annual payment for each of his next five years, regardless of how much work he did, how many test he ordered, how many patients he saw. Just send him the check every month and see if the overall cost of medicine goes down.

A Voice in a Crowd

During the Republican debate a few nights ago a theoretical question was raised: Should an uninsured young man with a sudden life-threatening event have federal financial help or should he be abandoned? The question assumed, regardless of the institutional decision, that people would abandon him but the question is not totally irrelevant. Often people make the decision to buy something else other than health insurance; young men especially believe health care insurance is a bad investment. The more libertarian candidate emphasized this right--and responsibility--of choice and the acceptance of consequences. Two voices in the audience cried out the man should be allowed to die. It has been the talk of the news. What do these two voices mean? Does it say something about Republicans, or Tea Partiers or our culture?

Coarse? Yes. Insensitive? Yes. Funny? No. Can one generalize from this? How?

Life is extremely complex. We are extremely complex. It is astonishing how difficult it is to create representative samples from anything. Industries are based on it. Drug researchers are plagued by it. Phone canvassers slaves to it. But, nonetheless, it is extremely difficult to develop subsets representative of large groups.

We have a name for nonscientific generalization from small to large groups: Bigotry.

Solyndra and the Positives of Failure

Solyndra, the solar energy company, filled for bankruptcy this week and with it went the over half a billion dollars in U.S. taxpayers' subsidies. Those subsidies were subordinate to most debt, amazingly. Government officials apparently sat on the company board right through the protests of good financial health to the bankruptcy itself. The FBI is now going through the company's papers and through the homes of several company employees.

This will be a mess. The company was close to Obama and company officials visited the White House often over the last few years. More, a number of White House emails raised questions as to the wisdom of this support. This failure and Obama's proximity to it will make for mouthwatering Republican politics. Honest appearing questions will be followed by some committee with subpoena power. But what's the fuss? The government made their investment. It didn't work but it will show up in the GDP as a positive contribution for the year. It can honestly be counted as a stimulus of the economy.

Isn't that the idea? Isn't that what we want?

Control Health Care Costs!

According to a Kaiser study, of each dollar spent on health care in the United States, 31% goes to hospital care, 21% goes to physician/clinical services, 10% to pharmaceuticals, 4% to dental, 6% to nursing homes and 3% to home health care, 3% for other retail products, 3% for government public health activities, 7% to administrative costs, 7% to investment, and 6% to other professional services (physical therapists, optometrists, etc). 16% of the country's GDP is health care, the second highest in the world; the average Western nation spends 10% of GDP on health care. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not have a nationalized health system.

Those are the bare bones of medical care in the U.S. There are more facts: 66% of Medicare money annually is spent on the last two months of life, the FDA is famously hostile to new pharmaceuticals so that much of the research has moved overseas, insurance programs are restricted to states and cannot negotiate across state lines which creates byzantine monopolies, medical reimbursement has fallen annually while overhead has annually increased, lawsuits are responsible for 2% of direct medical costs but no one knows how much overhead is generated by the fear of lawsuits--it is estimated at 15% of testing.

Attacking medical costs tends to rest on the old chestnuts of fraud and abuse. Somehow the incredibly inefficient government believes that they can make the system more honest and efficient and save enough money to bring the U.S. into line with other nations.

But everyone else knows that this is untrue. There are only two ways to decrease the GDP contribution of health care from 16% to 10: Decrease health care services by 37.5% or grow the economy by 60% without growing medical expenses. Period.

Do either of these options look likely?

Sunday Sermon: Deadly Sins or Different Values

Pale Gas is the mnemonic for the seven deadly sins (vices): pride, avarice, lust, envy, greed, anger and sloth. These were originally listed by Pope St. Gregory the Great but, of course, redefined by Aquinas who felt they were rather vices which led to sin. It is a shame that lust so dominates our cultural prohibitions because the other vices are vibrating and alive. They all deserve some thought. And these old thinkers thought about them so well.

Five are of the "inordinate desire" variety: "For one's own excellence"--pride (Aquinas changed this to "vainglory", the desire for the recognition of one's own excellence), of "possession or riches"--avarice, "sexual pleasure"--the old reliable lust, "of food and drink"--gluttony, "for revenge"--anger (vs. the righteous anger of seeking justice.)

Anger, the Achilles killer, is surprising as only revenge, an interesting sharpened point. And the church fathers struggled over pride and where it fell among fulfillment, ambition and achievement which explains St. Thomas' modification away from excellence and into the recognition of same. Envy is defined as "sadness on account of the goods possessed by others." Envy is sadness! And sloth is "sorrow in the face of spiritual good", not just laziness but "a malady of the will which causes us to neglect our duties." (Sheen, Fulton not Martin) Sloth is more than slobbering weakness or self indulgence, at its core is sorrow! Therapists take note.

The world is the lesser for the absence of these thinkers, high-minded, confident and clear. And it misses the debate on these qualities--or lack thereof. There is a frisson in just the reading of them.

Tension, drama, fullness are all impossible without confines, without a fixed point, without the right of judgment.

Form and Substance

A new movie review about a film on the history of gospel singing included the rating: PG-13 for Incidental Smoking.

Incidental smoking. How precious. I'm no fan of tobacco but we are building little Potemkin Villages displaying our good intentions and motives. We are making our stand with symbolism and gestures. Perhaps we should start employing social censors/commentators to rate our proclamations and positions with grades like "insightful," "uninformed," "fatuous" and the like to guide the unwary. We probably shouldn't hire Moody's or S&P, though.

A Hollow Man Attacks a Straw One

The President's speech last night was full of fire and gestures. Actually the fire may have been a gesture. But it was worth the watching. In addition to a number of peculiar statements, including the mysterious reverence for that cheerleading mascot of liberalism, that sacred cow of modern American culture, that disaster whose grotesque failure we must not name, i.e. education, comes this strange quote:
"But what we can’t do -- what I will not do -- is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades. I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients. I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy."

Really? Let's find these miscreant mercury poisoners now! These worker killers! These credit card lackeys!

If this was sincere, this man needs medicated.

Solyndra and the Creativity of Need

Solyndra, a green company that develops solar power sources, has gone bankrupt and taken with it 500 million dollars in government subsidies.

Certainly there must be examples of government funding a successful business or technology before it was successful. But generally these decisions are distorted by favors owed, loyalties established and hope. The green energy problem is a wonderful example. We want to decrease our dependence on foreign energy. But we want at least the appearance of cleaner sources. So we create ethanol subsidies where we burn food for petroleum; even though it is more energy expensive, it satisfies some requirements as it gets farmer votes and it appears domestic. We are actually burning food for fuel and less efficiently than if we did nothing. Yet imagine trying to reverse that now.

Next is the electric vehicle. Again it sounds nice as there are no ugly fumes at the tailpipe--although there are plenty at the coal plant that charges the batteries. The problem is we do not have an electric system that actually is competitive. The cars are expensive, limited in range, don't run in the cold and tend to explode. But at its heart, the electric vehicle plan depends on hope, the hope the technology will catch up with our dreams. The hope that something will evolve.

Darwin and Marx have been very bad for these planners; they believe there is an improved endpoint towards which we, nations, leaders, batteries, ethnic groups, religions are progressing. In essence they believe in the inherent creativity of time. Not of us, but of time. If necessity is the mother of invention, the whole world must be pregnant with solutions.

We are cursed with misapplied or outmoded philosophies poorly understood by bureaucrats who were exposed to them in introductory humanities courses.

America's Greatest Threat

The next ten years the United States will try to come to grips with the financial problems we have and what compromises of which principles must be made to solve them. Charity, our military responsibilities and our admitted obligations to vulnerable citizens will all be on the block. But these new problems, as difficult as they are, pale before an old unresolved problem that corrodes the nation: Its history of slavery and the nation's relationship with Black Americans.

It some ways it is remarkable. The Americans have fought savage wars, two in Europe and one in the Pacific with brutal, ruthless and remorseless enemies all of whom have been accepted back as trading partners and military partners and who have been accepted as new citizens without difficulty.

The Japanese position would be expected to be worse than the German: A different race, a surprise attack, savage wartime behaviour that seemed cultural, a horrific American retaliation. Yet the Japanese have overcome this wartime animosity to be admired competitors in the nation and, in some areas, preferred marriage partners. And the American Japanese, segregated and interned during the last war despite being American citizens, seem unfazed; in my memory I have never heard an American Japanese suggest he deserved reparations for an unquestionably shameful and illegal act. All this in two generations.

The Black American community, however, seems captivated by their past and are unable to shake it. And it has been 150 years. Interned Japanese are still alive; so are American Pacific troops. How have these enemy races made peace--indeed become close--while the Black American still languishes in his history?

Sunday Sermon: Especially People Who Care About Strangers

Battle cries, bumper stickers and slogans are rarely as telling as those from the revolution of the last generation. One of the best is "No Justice, No Peace," a great admission of secularism and the devotion to the impossible.

Justice is a social concept in legal drag. It masquerades as an element of human life but changes with the culture. Justice in Missouri is a lot different from justice in Kabul. Justice in Renaissance Italy was different from now. Essentially it is a provincial concept, unstable but inspiring. And righteousness is a fierce force.

But unrewarding. There is little we can do to change our world that does not start within our immediate sphere. Global concepts almost always must be enforced militarily unless they evolve, gradually, by personal contact. Like a doctor, we must heal ourselves and those who are close by. Any national or global movement is vulnerable to those first steps.

And the basic rule is personal, biblical and a lousy bumper sticker. It entails both the relationship with one's self and one's neighbor. It is the great stepping off point for our personal, social and national lives.

No Forgiveness, No Peace.

Batteries and Cost

Cost and their implications are hard to analyze. A battery might cost 100 dollars to produce but what does it cost to charge? And test? And repair? And dispose of?

For example, Nickel Metal Hydride, NiMH, batteries are the preferred battery for mild and full hybrids but the "M" is lanthanum, produced globally at 5 gms per capita, so the industry has swung towards lithium batteries. Lithium is a more plentiful component of the newer batteries but it has a history of explosion and fire in small portable units. Has it been tested in cars? In actual car situations? Like wrecks?

Here is a clip of a battery recycling plant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfQwYKqmfk4

Not to worry because almost all of the Department of Energy's 170 million dollars in grants went to lithium battery makers this year.

Electric Vehicles and Seeking Alpha

A great battle has broken out on Seeking Alpha over the electric vehicle. Proponents see it as the answer to pollution and foreign oil dependence. Opponents see it as an unrealizable dream. Wonderful words and phrases have developed like "Hopium", "EVangelist" and Moore's Curse (vs. "law"). Acronyms are everywhere (ICE, EV and, of course, stock abbreviations.) The battle is heartfelt and clever.

The instigator is John Petersen, an investment lawyer with a long and deep history with battery companies. (He has an ax to grind; he owns a lot of a battery company.) He is also scornfully knowledgeable. His points: The information revolution has let the western cat out of the bag. Now 6 billion people know how the 600 million people live in the west and they want to play too. If only 10% are successful, that will double the demand on resources (water, construction materials, food, energy and commodities.) Consequently prices will rise. Since 80% of battery costs are raw materials and most are rare earth, those prices will rise as well. Already the price of metals is rising faster than oil. A single individual annually uses energy measured in metric tons, his annual use of metals is in kilograms. As alternative energy and electric power use metals as a base source of storage and conversion of energy, there is simply no way that metals will be able to accept the shift of the energy burden from oil. Oil is just too cheap and metals are too limited. So, when looking at energy, metals supplies are more constraining than petroleum supplies. Consequently conservation and improved efficiency of existing systems are the future; substitutions of new energy sources for petroleum are fantasies. (He loves eBikes and stop-start vehicle systems.)

An example: The UPS has just ordered 100 electric trucks. Each has a 72,000 dollar battery pack. The whole truck costs 180,000 dollars. If the electric plug-in cost is not considered--that is if the daily cost of charging the batteries is ignored-- each truck will save 5000 dollars a year in gasoline.

How long do you think that can go on?

The link.A bit technical. Be sure to read the comments.: http//seekingalpha.com/article/289828-it-s-time-to-kill-the-electric-car-drive-a-stake-through-its-heart-and-burn-the-corpse?source=yahoo