@dbmhoosier Bondi and Noem are no longer Secretaries. Noem was supposedly given a new job, but there is little evidence she's actually doing anything and it's not a job where she can do harm besides getting a paycheck for doing little to nothing. Bondi is out completely. Heard she had a bout with cancer. Congress most likely won't go after Bondi and probably not Noem either.
The ones that deserve attention from Congress are Hegseth and Patel.
@squeakyclean What kind of bills do you expect them to craft?
Expect or hope? Unfortunately, those are two very different things.
If it were me.
1) Reinstitute the offshore wind farm (South Carolina, I think?). We've already paid for it. Energy costs are rising (and will continue to rise) and our demand is starting to creep up. We are literally going to pay those people a billion dollars to NOT make more energy.
2) I'd also throw more subsidies at nuclear. The biggest detriment to nuclear is the up-front costs. Between subsidies for updating / expanding existing plants and repurposing closed coal plants to be nuclear (the turbines in coal plants can be used in nuclear steam output), we could start help keep prices down for everyday power and then let the data centers work out their own power needs.
3) Gotta work on getting housing down. Whether it is fixing the import costs to bring down steel and lumber to reduce construction costs or create better financing options, the average age of first-time home ownership is the highest it's ever been. The government still has LEED and Green projects that they are subsidizing. While I get, and approve, of the concept, from personal experience the process is 10x more difficult than it needs to be. Those restrictions could be relaxed and the paperwork halved to help create the all-you-need neighborhoods that they are striving to make in the suburbs. City housing pricing is ungodly through the roof. I'd concentrate on developing more suburb spaces to get the pricing down. People will flee the cities for the cheaper housing (they already are) and city properties will have to adjust accordingly.
4) I'd actually push to get more of the data centers into cities. The biggest problem with the data centers right now is that they are loud, large, and bright. The data centers I have seen are all of these massive facilities that take up 1000's of acres of farmland. It makes sense, it is easier to build out there on an empty plot, and it is more efficient to have one massive center, but the needs for infrastructure that require massive amounts of additional power lines, expanded highway widths, water drainage, etc., coupled with pissed off farmers, I'd look into going with more small-scale areas in the city but at greater quantities. More distributed power requirements. Cities are already bright and noisy. I don't know, maybe the scaling doesn't work as well for some reason, but we are getting to an impasse point with the need versus the pushback that is going to require some outside-the-box thinking to solve.
@dbmhoosier Bondi and Noem are no longer Secretaries. Noem was supposedly given a new job, but there is little evidence she's actually doing anything and it's not a job where she can do harm besides getting a paycheck for doing little to nothing. Bondi is out completely. Heard she had a bout with cancer. Congress most likely won't go after Bondi and probably not Noem either.
The ones that deserve attention from Congress are Hegseth and Patel.
It doesn't matter. They'll both be hauled before Congress. Blanche is still running same pay for play scam Bondi was running. And Kristi and Corey are in trouble.
https://twitter.com/BrandonStraka/status/2102084887872147730
https://twitter.com/DailyMail/status/2023362374397292573
@squeakyclean What kind of bills do you expect them to craft?
Expect or hope? Unfortunately, those are two very different things.
If it were me.
1) Reinstitute the offshore wind farm (South Carolina, I think?). We've already paid for it. Energy costs are rising (and will continue to rise) and our demand is starting to creep up. We are literally going to pay those people a billion dollars to NOT make more energy.
2) I'd also throw more subsidies at nuclear. The biggest detriment to nuclear is the up-front costs. Between subsidies for updating / expanding existing plants and repurposing closed coal plants to be nuclear (the turbines in coal plants can be used in nuclear steam output), we could start help keep prices down for everyday power and then let the data centers work out their own power needs.
3) Gotta work on getting housing down. Whether it is fixing the import costs to bring down steel and lumber to reduce construction costs or create better financing options, the average age of first-time home ownership is the highest it's ever been. The government still has LEED and Green projects that they are subsidizing. While I get, and approve, of the concept, from personal experience the process is 10x more difficult than it needs to be. Those restrictions could be relaxed and the paperwork halved to help create the all-you-need neighborhoods that they are striving to make in the suburbs. City housing pricing is ungodly through the roof. I'd concentrate on developing more suburb spaces to get the pricing down. People will flee the cities for the cheaper housing (they already are) and city properties will have to adjust accordingly.
4) I'd actually push to get more of the data centers into cities. The biggest problem with the data centers right now is that they are loud, large, and bright. The data centers I have seen are all of these massive facilities that take up 1000's of acres of farmland. It makes sense, it is easier to build out there on an empty plot, and it is more efficient to have one massive center, but the needs for infrastructure that require massive amounts of additional power lines, expanded highway widths, water drainage, etc., coupled with pissed off farmers, I'd look into going with more small-scale areas in the city but at greater quantities. More distributed power requirements. Cities are already bright and noisy. I don't know, maybe the scaling doesn't work as well for some reason, but we are getting to an impasse point with the need versus the pushback that is going to require some outside-the-box thinking to solve.
What evidence do you have that they are planning to act on this any more than Pubs have?
@squeakyclean What kind of bills do you expect them to craft?
Expect or hope? Unfortunately, those are two very different things.
If it were me.
1) Reinstitute the offshore wind farm (South Carolina, I think?). We've already paid for it. Energy costs are rising (and will continue to rise) and our demand is starting to creep up. We are literally going to pay those people a billion dollars to NOT make more energy.
2) I'd also throw more subsidies at nuclear. The biggest detriment to nuclear is the up-front costs. Between subsidies for updating / expanding existing plants and repurposing closed coal plants to be nuclear (the turbines in coal plants can be used in nuclear steam output), we could start help keep prices down for everyday power and then let the data centers work out their own power needs.
3) Gotta work on getting housing down. Whether it is fixing the import costs to bring down steel and lumber to reduce construction costs or create better financing options, the average age of first-time home ownership is the highest it's ever been. The government still has LEED and Green projects that they are subsidizing. While I get, and approve, of the concept, from personal experience the process is 10x more difficult than it needs to be. Those restrictions could be relaxed and the paperwork halved to help create the all-you-need neighborhoods that they are striving to make in the suburbs. City housing pricing is ungodly through the roof. I'd concentrate on developing more suburb spaces to get the pricing down. People will flee the cities for the cheaper housing (they already are) and city properties will have to adjust accordingly.
4) I'd actually push to get more of the data centers into cities. The biggest problem with the data centers right now is that they are loud, large, and bright. The data centers I have seen are all of these massive facilities that take up 1000's of acres of farmland. It makes sense, it is easier to build out there on an empty plot, and it is more efficient to have one massive center, but the needs for infrastructure that require massive amounts of additional power lines, expanded highway widths, water drainage, etc., coupled with pissed off farmers, I'd look into going with more small-scale areas in the city but at greater quantities. More distributed power requirements. Cities are already bright and noisy. I don't know, maybe the scaling doesn't work as well for some reason, but we are getting to an impasse point with the need versus the pushback that is going to require some outside-the-box thinking to solve.
Drill baby drill and mass deportations are the 2 things the government can do to get costs down significantly in the near future and that's about it. Dems will never support either. We couldn't even get mass deportations under Trump despite 60% support because his donors want cheap labor.
The America we once knew is never coming back without 20M+ deportations.
@dbmhoosier just saw a funny tweet
The bedrock of the American economy are the middle aged guys sitting in the airport lounge wearing corporate branded polos for companies no human has ever heard of
@squeakyclean What kind of bills do you expect them to craft?
Expect or hope? Unfortunately, those are two very different things.
If it were me.
What evidence do you have that they are planning to act on this any more than Pubs have?
Very little. Did you miss the part where I said "Expect or hope?......if it were me"?
I don't have hope for this actually happening, but Democrats need to spend time crafting bills and not just wasting time doing investigations.
Crafting bills for Trump to veto?
@hhlurker what bill are you so hopeful for? something that will redistribute other peoples' earnings to you? help support you? there's nothing else dems want that makes sense. killing full term babies? open borders? defunding cops? so that has to be the bag. you need financial support right?
Good question. As a citizen I ought to know what I want. Problem for me is neither party really represents me. I suppose my main desire is for economic fairness for all who are willing to lead productive lives. I also want the environment far more protected than currently so. I’d like to see sensible and comprehensive immigration legislation so that’s no longer a political ping pong ball. I’d like to see political reform, eliminating corruption and earmarks.
Off the top of my head…
I’d like to see our military become far more efficient while remain effective. Ukraine showed how cheap and effective drone force can be. I believe there’s a lot of innovations like that that could save us a lot of money. Right now I think there’s a lot of companies that are getting high off the hog making weapons and charging far too much for them.
And I’d like to know where the missing $20 trillion are.
my main desire is for economic fairness for all who are willing to lead productive lives.
what does that mean? what does that look like. not hte amorphous statement you put out. specifically. environ doesn't mean shit without the buy in of ten other contributing filthy countries. i'm recycling my coke can while my pakis are throwing there's in river. our cfo fucked up and sent $7 too much in our last payment to our factory and four of operations team over there went out for chicken burgers on it. you think they give a shit about the climate. they are trying to survive. their city is a massive trash dumpster. i digress. what does economic fairness look like?