crb
06-26-2008, 11:18 AM
One thing I hate about politics is how, and while I'm sure both parties do it, to me it seems Democrats do it more, when the other side has a genuinely good idea they still attack it and make political capital out of it.
They attacked Bush when he tried to reform social security. He had a very fair a reasonable plan. Make payments progressive (aka, weighted to wealth) which is usually something liberals love. Keep benefits in place for older Americans, but for younger ones, like most of us I'm sure, allow us to put a portion of our payments into private accounts (regulated against risk) so that we can be sure we'll always have something.
If you're under 40, you should realize that if something is not done all those tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars you're paying into SS you will never get back. On this issue alone I cannot imagine young people voting for a candidate who doesn't favor SS reform (but then again, most young people don't understand issues, so they vote Obama).
They also attacked Bush when he proposed $10 billion for hydrogren car research. You'd think the environmentally trendy crowd would love that, but no...
Obama likes to say Democrats don't have a monopoly on good ideas, but he sure acts like it, it was no surprise really that his campaign instantly criticized John McCains idea of a bounty on a new car battery design that would allow us to move to an electricity fueled transportation system.
A few weeks ago I was thinking the exact thing. If you follow space technology at all you'd likely have heard of the X-Prize, this was a private $10 million dollar prize for building a renewable space vehicle. The competition finally ended a couple years ago when I forget who won, but I was thinking, what if we could do that for batteries?
You see, the one main thing preventing us from having full scale electric cars is battery technology, the thing that is preventing GM's Volt from coming out sooner, the thing making it expensive, the thing making it heavy, the main hurdle with that entire car is the battery. We just don't have batteries that can power a car long distance that are light and efficient and don't get too hot, and perhaps most important, don't contain dangerous substances and last a long time through many recharge cycles.
$300 million for a battery to get us off oil, I think it is well worth it. Also, the contest method really works, it brings out ingenuity you might not otherwise find, and it is cheaper. It is like the US Open in that anyone can go, you don't have to be pro, just good enough. Or like the site 99designs.com, where a business can get a new logo or other graphic work done in a contest format, allowing them to pay once, but get 20 or 30 designs to choose from.
But no, the Democrats attacked it.
I'm also a big believer in science & technology research. People complain about things like NASA and DARPA and say they waste money because they don't see how the space program generates revenue. But these things help the economy through inventing new technologies. Contact lenses, ball bearings, microwave ovens, computers, the Internet, etc. What if the computer hadn't been developed and modernized in the US? What if Germany had started the Internet? How shitty would our economy be then without so many big tech companies that were born here?
This is also, consequently, when I think Bush was an idiot for vetoing the stem cell bill. Why not let American drug companies come up with stem cell products to sell to the rest of the world, helping our economy? Instead of letting the British and South Koreans get a huge head start and then in the future we'll be buying from them? Thank god both McCain and Obama support it.
So, I'm for government funded research, and in the end this contest would be that. Whichever company develops the perfect car battery is going to be the oil company of the future, but not just any oil company, they'll be like all the oil companies combined. I'd much rather that company be a US company than from elsewhere. I'd much rather that help our economy.
Consequently I'm also for research or subsidies in further developing certain green energy technologies for the same reason. Lets develop clean coal, lets develop better solar panels, lets develop better wind turbines, lets develop wave power, geothermal, fuel cells, (not ethanol or biofuels though, that isn't technology, that is a waste of arable land, biofuels only make sense as recycling (ie, recycling farm waste or food waste or used cooking oil)). Lets develop all these things and then sell them to China, sell them to Europe, sell them back to the middle east.
We missed the boat on nuclear. We have some companies here in the US with nuclear abilities, like GE, but really, France's Areva is the world leader, and if we develop new nuclear plants (and we NEED (http://www.forbes.com/energy/forbes/2008/0630/038.html) to) we'll likely be buying a lot of technology from them, all because we got scared of nukes in the 70s and we let our irrational fears prevent what is probably our country's greatest resource, our scientists & engineers, from doing what they do best.
There is a reason Arnold Schwarzenegger had california pledge like what? $10 billion for stem cell research? And why he supported that million solar roofs project they have out there which I think cost $3 billion. It is all about the economy, he wanted solar panel manufacturers to build plants in california, they did, they do, California has a ton of solar manufacturers now, those are good jobs, and he wanted new stem cell research to be born of California universities so that new drug companies get born in california and also help their economy.
That is the type of attitude we need for scientific research in the whole country, and as such I think John McCain's idea for a $300 million bounty on a next generation electric car battery is a very good idea.
They attacked Bush when he tried to reform social security. He had a very fair a reasonable plan. Make payments progressive (aka, weighted to wealth) which is usually something liberals love. Keep benefits in place for older Americans, but for younger ones, like most of us I'm sure, allow us to put a portion of our payments into private accounts (regulated against risk) so that we can be sure we'll always have something.
If you're under 40, you should realize that if something is not done all those tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars you're paying into SS you will never get back. On this issue alone I cannot imagine young people voting for a candidate who doesn't favor SS reform (but then again, most young people don't understand issues, so they vote Obama).
They also attacked Bush when he proposed $10 billion for hydrogren car research. You'd think the environmentally trendy crowd would love that, but no...
Obama likes to say Democrats don't have a monopoly on good ideas, but he sure acts like it, it was no surprise really that his campaign instantly criticized John McCains idea of a bounty on a new car battery design that would allow us to move to an electricity fueled transportation system.
A few weeks ago I was thinking the exact thing. If you follow space technology at all you'd likely have heard of the X-Prize, this was a private $10 million dollar prize for building a renewable space vehicle. The competition finally ended a couple years ago when I forget who won, but I was thinking, what if we could do that for batteries?
You see, the one main thing preventing us from having full scale electric cars is battery technology, the thing that is preventing GM's Volt from coming out sooner, the thing making it expensive, the thing making it heavy, the main hurdle with that entire car is the battery. We just don't have batteries that can power a car long distance that are light and efficient and don't get too hot, and perhaps most important, don't contain dangerous substances and last a long time through many recharge cycles.
$300 million for a battery to get us off oil, I think it is well worth it. Also, the contest method really works, it brings out ingenuity you might not otherwise find, and it is cheaper. It is like the US Open in that anyone can go, you don't have to be pro, just good enough. Or like the site 99designs.com, where a business can get a new logo or other graphic work done in a contest format, allowing them to pay once, but get 20 or 30 designs to choose from.
But no, the Democrats attacked it.
I'm also a big believer in science & technology research. People complain about things like NASA and DARPA and say they waste money because they don't see how the space program generates revenue. But these things help the economy through inventing new technologies. Contact lenses, ball bearings, microwave ovens, computers, the Internet, etc. What if the computer hadn't been developed and modernized in the US? What if Germany had started the Internet? How shitty would our economy be then without so many big tech companies that were born here?
This is also, consequently, when I think Bush was an idiot for vetoing the stem cell bill. Why not let American drug companies come up with stem cell products to sell to the rest of the world, helping our economy? Instead of letting the British and South Koreans get a huge head start and then in the future we'll be buying from them? Thank god both McCain and Obama support it.
So, I'm for government funded research, and in the end this contest would be that. Whichever company develops the perfect car battery is going to be the oil company of the future, but not just any oil company, they'll be like all the oil companies combined. I'd much rather that company be a US company than from elsewhere. I'd much rather that help our economy.
Consequently I'm also for research or subsidies in further developing certain green energy technologies for the same reason. Lets develop clean coal, lets develop better solar panels, lets develop better wind turbines, lets develop wave power, geothermal, fuel cells, (not ethanol or biofuels though, that isn't technology, that is a waste of arable land, biofuels only make sense as recycling (ie, recycling farm waste or food waste or used cooking oil)). Lets develop all these things and then sell them to China, sell them to Europe, sell them back to the middle east.
We missed the boat on nuclear. We have some companies here in the US with nuclear abilities, like GE, but really, France's Areva is the world leader, and if we develop new nuclear plants (and we NEED (http://www.forbes.com/energy/forbes/2008/0630/038.html) to) we'll likely be buying a lot of technology from them, all because we got scared of nukes in the 70s and we let our irrational fears prevent what is probably our country's greatest resource, our scientists & engineers, from doing what they do best.
There is a reason Arnold Schwarzenegger had california pledge like what? $10 billion for stem cell research? And why he supported that million solar roofs project they have out there which I think cost $3 billion. It is all about the economy, he wanted solar panel manufacturers to build plants in california, they did, they do, California has a ton of solar manufacturers now, those are good jobs, and he wanted new stem cell research to be born of California universities so that new drug companies get born in california and also help their economy.
That is the type of attitude we need for scientific research in the whole country, and as such I think John McCain's idea for a $300 million bounty on a next generation electric car battery is a very good idea.