Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Tag Archives: Research and development

When Green Energy Just Isn’t Green

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On Friday, an ABC affiliate in Iowa posted an article about a windmill on a farmer’s property that was struck by lightning. This is the third time the windmill has been struck by lightning in a year and a half. A county ordinance requires that any windmill that is not producing energy must be taken down in a year. The owners of the turbine are responsible for taking the windmill down, but the farmer is responsible for the damage caused by the windmill fire.

The article notes:

While the turbine’s owners have to take care of that, the damage left behind is the responsibility of the land owner.

After the wind turbine’s blade fell to the ground, debris from the turbine coated the surrounding farmland.

“I don’t really know how you ever clean it up, especially since the longer you wait the harder it is to cleanup. And since there’s so much still here I don’t know what we’re gonna do with it,” said Sally Freeman, the farm’s owner.

Freeman is now dealing with her third turbine fire, and she’s learned from experience that cleanup takes forever.

…Previous cleanups left Freeman’s cornfield littered with wires and fiberglass, and the industrial equipment used to remove the last turbine is still taking up space.

All the fiberglass and waste in the field means she can’t use the land, a loss that loss costs a lot of money.

Green energy is not quite ready for prime time. A lot more research and development is needed before green energy becomes a viable alternative to fossil fuel. Getting the government out of the energy sector and letting the free market prevail would help encourage the research and development needed!

Crippling The Free Enterprise That Made America Great

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I am currently involved in a book study of a book called The 5000 Year Leap. The book is about the founding of American and the role that free enterprise played in the success of America. Just for the record, what we have now resembles crony capitalism more than it does free enterprise. Both Jamestown and Plymouth we started as socialistic societies which almost failed before they switched to a free market system. As flawed as America’s healthcare system is, when it is allowed to be a free market, it flourishes. Now the Biden administration is working to change that.

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Biden administration has proposed a new rule that would allow federal authorities to seize the patents of costly drugs that were developed using taxpayer dollars and to let third parties use those patents to make the drugs available more cheaply.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, on Dec. 7 published a set of draft guidelines for government agencies to evaluate when it might be appropriate to invoke what are known as “march-in” rights under the legal framework of the Bayh-Dole Act.

The Bayh-Dole Act, which is shorthand for the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980, grants the government the authority to suspend the patents of products of inventions that were developed with federal funding if those products or inventions are not made available to the public.

I agree that Americans pay too much for drugs, but this rule would have a serious impact on research and development and would eventually cause a downward spiral of healthcare in America.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. I realize that the pharmaceutical industry has not behaved well in recent years, but we need to clean up the industry–not destroy it.

How To Make Things Look Better When They Aren’t

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Yesterday the Financial Times posted an article explaining that Brent Moulton, who manages the Bureau of Economic Analysis, has told the Financial Times that in July, government statistics will be updated to include such things as royalties and spending on research and development. Including those things will increase the size of the United States economy by 3 percent–making it appear that the economy has grown.

The article states:

“We are carrying these major changes all the way back in time – which for us means to 1929 – so we are essentially rewriting economic history,” said Mr Moulton.

This move represents a new international standard for Gross Domestic Product accounting. Considering the state of the world’s finances in general, I can’t help but wonder if this is simply a step into denial of the fiscal collapse that surrounds us at the present moment.

There is one aspect of the changes being made that I think is positive. The article reports that deficits in pension plans will also have to be included–what is promised will be measured as well as what is paid. These unfunded liabilities are something that federal, state, and local governments have kept below the radar for years–it will be good to see them brought out into the open.

The changes coming in July move us closer to worldwide accounting practices. I have very mixed emotions about that. The changes in July will also lull the low-information voters in America into believing the economy is growing at at least 3 percent. Believing that should be a stretch for anyone.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is an interesting read.

 

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