Re: GM says it disappointed and betrayed consumers

[Guest guest]

I don't buy any of this. This false contrition is all part of the lobbying effort to get a bailout, surely just one of many they will be clambering for. What they are trying to do with this statement is to give the politicians who want to vote for this bailout, even though the majority of voters are against it, cover. Those politicians can point to this statement and tell the voters "hey, they admitted their mistakes and say they are going to do better."

Now, this isn't entirely the Big 3's fault nor even fully the unions' fault. In the 1970's, our weakness in depending on foreign oil was clearly demonstrated. However, the government utterly failed to act to correct this weakness. Rather than expand domestic oil supplies, more land and sea areas were made off limits. Rather than encourage more fuel efficient engines, limitations were applied in terms of "pollution control" and other things. Sure they tried with fleet gas mileage requirements, but that didn't work too well. They could have just put bounties for better engines or simply purchased the right for European designed gasoline and diesel engines that were more efficient, but this wasn't done either. Other efforts were equally ridiculous, like corn-based ethanol, which has only driven up the cost of corn-based food items and caused hardship and riots in poor nations because people can't afford the corn at the new, higher prices.

So much useful that could have been done by government, but of course it wasn't because being useful is the antitheses of government, which is purely about control and power.

Anyway, a gradual approach to improve fuel efficiency and domestic supply and real alternative fuels would have solved this issue. By the same token, the big SUVs could have been built with the more efficient engines and we wouldn't have much of a problem.

That said, the Big 3 still did have management issues. In particular was their branching out into credit cards, mortgages, and other things aside from making cars. They forgot that they were car makers and tried to do too much. Diversification is fine, so long as it isn't overdone. The Big 3 over did it and it added to their current problems.

In a message dated 12/8/2008 5:17:57 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp on Monday unveiled an unusually frank advertisement acknowledging it had "disappointed" and sometimes even "betrayed" American consumers as it lobbies to clinch the federal aid it needs to stay afloat into next month.Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now.

[Guest guest]

Maybe they shouldn't have killed the EV1, then.On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 4:17 PM, environmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/081208/us/usreport_us_gm_ad_1

GM says it " disappointed " and " betrayed " consumers

Mon Dec 8, 8:31 AM

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp on Monday unveiled an

unusually frank advertisement acknowledging it had " disappointed " and

sometimes even " betrayed " American consumers as it lobbies to clinch

the federal aid it needs to stay afloat into next month.

The print advertisement marked a sharp break from GM's public stance

of just several weeks ago when it sought to justify its bid for a

U.S. government on the grounds that the credit crisis had undermined

its business in ways executives could never have foreseen.

It also came as Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, who has led the

automaker since 2000, faces new pressure to step aside as GM seeks up

to $18 billion in federal funding.

" While we're still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have

disappointed you, " the ad said. " At times we violated your trust by

letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs

became lackluster. "

The unsigned open letter, entitled " GM's Commitment to the American

People " ran in the trade journal Automotive News, which is widely

read by industry executives, lobbyists and other insiders.

In the ad, GM admits to other strategic missteps analysts and critics

have said hastened its recent decline.

" We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point

where we lost adequate focus on the core U.S. market, " the ad

said. " We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs. "

But GM also says in the ad that it was hit by forces beyond its

control as it tried to complete a restructuring earlier this year.

" Despite moving quickly to reduce our planned spending by over $20

billion, GM finds itself precariously and frighteningly close to

running out of cash, " the ad says.

A failure of GM would deepen the current recession and put " millions

of job at risk, " according to the ad, which also highlights the

automaker's pledged restructuring and intention to begin repaying

taxpayers in 2011.

GM spokesman Greg said the ad was an attempt by the automaker

to present " a pledge directly to the public. "

" We believe we need to deliver this commitment unfiltered since quite

a bit of media commentary has not kept pace with our actual progress

to transform the company, " said.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Dodd, a Democrat from

Connecticut who is central to the effort to craft an auto bailout

bill, on Sunday said GM should replace Wagoner.

GM says Wagoner has the support of the company's board.

(Reporting by Krolicki, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

-- -Jade http://castcast.podbean.com

[Guest guest]

If only the government would learn from GM's example! :POn Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 16:17, environmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote:>> http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/081208/us/usreport_us_gm_ad_1

>> GM says it " disappointed " and " betrayed " consumers>> Mon Dec 8, 8:31 AM>> DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp on Monday unveiled an> unusually frank advertisement acknowledging it had " disappointed " and

> sometimes even " betrayed " American consumers as it lobbies to clinch> the federal aid it needs to stay afloat into next month.

[Guest guest]

On Dec 8, 2008, at 4:17 PM 12/8/08, environmental1st2003 wrote:

> http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/081208/us/usreport_us_gm_ad_1

>

> GM says it " disappointed " and " betrayed " consumers

If only I could believe them and their corporate jets were sincere.

I'd love to take them to task for the EV1 vs. Volt thing.

--

Mike

In the end the journey only matters if you've helped someone along

the way.

[Guest guest]

All the automotive technological improvements possible in the world

won't be nearly enough to remove enough demand for foreign oil,

because all that an automaker can do is make autos, no matter how

efficient they are, it still doesn't change some very important

details about our oil usage and what would be far more cost-effective

and viable to remove our dependence on foreign oil sources. That

being said, it would have definitely been wisest to see just how

efficient cars could be made, and generally speaking, that wasn't

done. A large part of that is while people claim to want more fuel-

efficient cars, they also want cars with options that are explicitly

contradictory to that goal, and amongst those items are safety

equipment that didn't exist in the 70's, that adds weight (and thus

lowers overall vehicle fuel efficiency) and other things, such as

more powerful cars. Well, engineering is all about budgeting reality.

And towards engineering, the very fact that the US has clearly

decided with a deeply ingrained sociopolitical long-term goal of

making the infrastructure less efficient over time has contributed

greatly to our dependence on foreign oil: we've created an

infrastructure over time that has a rather high cost to maintain for

municipalities, as well as the fuel used for the vehicles on it, that

is far more expensive than what exists elsewhere in the world that's

well-proven and time-tested: mass transit. Mass transit takes more

than one form, and for the best overall tradeoff, really, there needs

to be more than one single simplistic solution, from long distance

travel, to shorter distance travel, to delivery of items, etc. and

the most effective way to do that is to have a society that lives

mostly in a manner that has become considerably different in

expectations and settling habits than the US does as a whole: greater

population density, with a transportation grid designed for flow, and

proper location of useful mixes of commercial retail, factories,

restaurants and other service industries, residential, farming, and

green spaces. We have in north america become so accustomed to using

the car for everything, that most places have little or no serious

planning done to make them viable to get daily activities done

without explicitly having a car, because distances are too great, and

people are rather attached overall with having their own private yard

and house, and all that goes with it.

Here's a link supporting mass transit with trains as a quickly-found

example: CSX advertises they can move a ton (US weight, a metric ton

is 2200 US pounds, an old ton like we're using is 2000 US pounds) 420

miles on a US gallon of fuel. Before people get too excited about

that, and think surely cars should be able to achieve similar

efficiencies, you need to remember that while trains tend to have

about the aerodynamics of a brick, after the leading end breaks the

air flow, you can think of most of the rest of the train as being a

bunch of cars that are closely drafting every other car or engine in

front of it. Thus, there's a huge efficiency gain from that, but

wait, that's not all! Except in really rare cases (and if things are

that extreme, narrow gauge trains and tracks tend to be used) trains

also tend to take the closest to level courses they can for roads.

often along river beds, or nearby. Retired railroad right-of-ways

make for the easiest running trails ( A lot of them are kept as

running trails or similar, with no intentions of releasing the land

back for regular sale, just in case there's some future need to use

the right-of-way again for railroads: if oil gets costly enough, that

just might happen). The net result is this: whether light rail,

heavy rail (typical railroads) or large buses, for land travel, the

larger the vehicle, the more efficient it is possible to make it, all

assuming you have a sufficient load to have it bear fruit: a semi

truck that's empty is a horribly inefficient thing, but heavily

loaded, far more efficient than any passenger car for moving lots of

stuff, but locomotives on tracks beat the crap out of the best trucks

for efficiency of fuel, and especially of manpower to deal with them:

again, economies of scale.

Sadly, a lot of people have the NIMBY problem, and don't want noisy

trains around, and " think of the children! " also comes up. For mass

transit, there are quite a few great success stories where many

people strenuously object to light rail going in, and when it does

finally go in, they're won over, or at least it's much harder to

fight it... because when it is planned out well, it works, and works

very well. A great example of that is Salt Lake City, Utah, where

not only did it turn out to be used more than the worst estimates the

naysayers were predicting, but it actually has had an overabundance

of success, with several times the number of people riding it than

they predicted. Sure, there have been some accidents involved in the

whole thing, people in cars being hit, etc. but then again, good luck

having any transportation solution where people don't find a method

to get seriously hurt or killed, regardless of safety measures in

place

I can't begin to give a full educated guess as to when things will

get expensive enough for fuel that north america changes its

infrastructure on a large scale, but unless we perfect technology to

replace oil with something like nuclear or solar or other non-fossil

fuels, sooner or later it'll have to happen, if people are to

maintain a given standard of living and freedom to not be slaves to

their transportation. With currently existing technology, by far the

cheapest and least disruptive would be that of building nuclear power

plants all over the place, using electric/hybrid cars, but even then,

that'll require a massive rebuilding of our electrical grid, because

our current electrical grid, even if we had all the nuclear power

plants in place, simply isn't capable of transporting that much power

over the grid, and with the best solar and other renewable power

people can harness on their own properties, there's not enough

economy of scale to power all the cars, or even in many cases the

power needs of a regular household: the technology isn't up to par

yet, and just isn't cost-effective.

Now, just imagine how much our fuel and power requirements would be

reduced if all we wanted/needed was within ready walking distance

(for those able to walk, and even those not able to: electric

wheelchairs also do much better in such situations) and everything

was engineered for walkability, with vehicles mostly used for longer

distance travel, and delivery of larger items than are comfortably

carried on foot. Not only that, but it'd contribute greatly to

reducing the so-called " obesity epidemic " which is almost entirely a

net result of having an overall infrastructure that greatly

discourages efficient foot-based travel, combined with other things.

I know of a place that's very walkable: downtown Bellevue,

Washington. How walkable? While I was living in downtown Bellevue,

and working 2 blocks away, there were times when I actually didn't

even look at my car for over a week, and I didn't use a bus or other

transportation, either: most things I did on a regular basis were

less than a mile away. It's a pity that a lot of the city isn't

nearly as walkable for efficiency, though. But, there are

communities being built that are designed for such walkability: there

just aren't many of them in the US.

>

> I don't buy any of this. This false contrition is all part of the

lobbying

> effort to get a bailout, surely just one of many they will be

clambering for.

> What they are trying to do with this statement is to give the

politicians who

> want to vote for this bailout, even though the majority of voters

are against

> it, cover. Those politicians can point to this statement and tell

the voters

> " hey, they admitted their mistakes and say they are going to do

better. "

>

> Now, this isn't entirely the Big 3's fault nor even fully the

unions' fault.

> In the 1970's, our weakness in depending on foreign oil was

clearly

> demonstrated. However, the government utterly failed to act to

correct this weakness.

> Rather than expand domestic oil supplies, more land and sea areas

were made

> off limits. Rather than encourage more fuel efficient engines,

limitations

> were applied in terms of " pollution control " and other things. Sure

they tried

> with fleet gas mileage requirements, but that didn't work too well.

They could

> have just put bounties for better engines or simply purchased the

right for

> European designed gasoline and diesel engines that were more

efficient, but

> this wasn't done either. Other efforts were equally ridiculous,

like

> corn-based ethanol, which has only driven up the cost of corn-

based food items and

> caused hardship and riots in poor nations because people can't

afford the corn

> at the new, higher prices.

>

> So much useful that could have been done by government, but of

course it

> wasn't because being useful is the antitheses of government, which

is purely

> about control and power.

>

> Anyway, a gradual approach to improve fuel efficiency and domestic

supply

> and real alternative fuels would have solved this issue. By the

same token, the

> big SUVs could have been built with the more efficient engines and

we

> wouldn't have much of a problem.

>

> That said, the Big 3 still did have management issues. In

particular was

> their branching out into credit cards, mortgages, and other things

aside from

> making cars. They forgot that they were car makers and tried to do

too much.

> Diversification is fine, so long as it isn't overdone. The Big 3

over did it

> and it added to their current problems.

>

>

>

> In a message dated 12/8/2008 5:17:57 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

> no_reply writes:

>

> DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp on Monday unveiled an

> unusually frank advertisement acknowledging it had " disappointed "

and

> sometimes even " betrayed " American consumers as it lobbies to

clinch

> the federal aid it needs to stay afloat into next month.

>

> **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email,

and

> favorite sites in one place. Try it now.

> (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-

dp & icid=aolcom40vanity & ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010)

>

[Guest guest]

" Rather than expand domestic oil supplies, more land and sea areas

were made off limits. Rather than encourage more fuel efficient

engines, limitations were applied in terms of " pollution control " and

other things. Sure they tried with fleet gas mileage requirements,

but that didn't work too well. They could have just put bounties for

better engines or simply purchased the right for European designed

gasoline and diesel engines that were more efficient, but this wasn't

done either. "

As a speculator in energy, I suppose I ought to go into a more

detailed synopsis of the world's oil supplies than I usually do when

we rehash the arguments we all have about fuel in-efficient cars.

I just want to start off by saying that there is no oil crisis except

in the heads of the media, and certain ignorant politicians, and the

majority of the everyday Joes and Janes who get up in the morning and

go to sleep at night.

1) Nearly all the oil in the oil producing countries has been found.

2) What hasn't been found is probably as much as all the KNOWN oil in

the world and more.

3) Most of the exploratory wells where millions and billions of oil

are known to exist are capped -deliberately.

Think of the diamond market. There are TENS OF MILLIONS of diamonds

in valuts that are released very slowly to keep prices at a premium.

There are semi-precious rocks that are less abundant than diamonds

that are selling for a fraction of the cost. If you're talking about

rarity, diamonds are not the lest rare gem of all the gems.

Oil is very abundant.

4) Capacity to bring up oil from wells is sufficient to meet the

demands of peak consumption. As evidence of this, many nations, not

just the US, have strategic petroleum reserves which are brimming.

5) Refining capacity is finite, but not as finite as everyone thinks.

Many refineries are down for repairs.

-Some were damaged in hurricanes, etc.,

-But lets keep in mind that a whole world exists outside of the US

and Russia is building its own refineries so that it can refine the

oil it gets. This is less a venture in profit as it is to further

strangle European countries who are increasingly coming to rely on

them for oil.

-Further, it is building refineries to sell gasolines of various

types to China.

-Additionally, China will be building its own refineries soon. It's a

matter of national security. They cannot rely on countries that hate

them to supply their gasoline anymore.

-Both Russia and China don't give a rabid dog in the dog days of

August for pollution control restrictions, so they'll just churn out

as much gasoline as they want.

-There always has been loads of oil sitting around in storage, and

some of these storage depots are owned by speculator conglomerates

who bought low and are waiting to sell high.

The problem comes when people begin to think there might be a

shortage as speculators drive the price up, and so they fill their

SUVs to the brim with the result being a very short shortage due to

only a finite amount of trucks and trains to ship the gas. This

accelerates the panic.

Meanwhile, existing refineries pump up their refining of oil to meet

the supposed demand even while there is no place to put it thanks to

chock-full supply depots.

The bottom line is that if you want to avert this sort of thing, a

temporary solution is to have more fuel efficient cars on the road,

but business will catch up. More wells will be capped which means

less oil drilled. Less oil drilled means less oil stored. Less oil

stored means less oil refined. Less oil refined means less gas

shipped. Less gas on the market means higher prices.

So cars ought to convert to some other fuel entirely.

Thing is, being a speculator in energy, I know that energy companies

will be preparing well in advance to rook consumers as best they can.

Stricts idea of moving people to public transportation is a good one,

expecially from a cost perspective because most public transportation

is subsidized by local, county, state, and federal governments who

won't want to incur huge debts with outlandish fuel expenditures.

Thus you can almost guarantee a relatively stable cost of public

transportation.

But most people will not go for that.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

More public transportation wouldn't be a bad idea.

However, I don't like the idea of using it as a social engineering experiment to force people to move into the cities. Putting people into the cities might save energy in one regard, but all that new building would take up a lot of resources and money, and would have hidden costs such as increased need for police and other services, which naturally increase with population density. More people in cities also means that they are easier to control by the government.

It would be more cost effective to help supply rural residents with solar panels and such to help offset the power costs. Maybe even help them get at least one hybrid car that could be run on electricity most of the time. As it stands though, sending power through the grid isn't that great of an issue. Most infrastructure already exists and is maintained. Putting in new powerlines for a house in rural areas is balanced by the cost of doing so, which is up to the land owner to pay, if the lines are more than a certain length. I don't recall the specifics, but its wasn't cheap.

Anyway, such massive population resettlements have been attempted before and they have all failed miserably. We probably are headed that way because of government's growing desire for control and power, just like all the previous attempts.

In a message dated 12/8/2008 10:57:27 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

Thing is, being a speculator in energy, I know that energy companies will be preparing well in advance to rook consumers as best they can. Stricts idea of moving people to public transportation is a good one, expecially from a cost perspective because most public transportation is subsidized by local, county, state, and federal governments who won't want to incur huge debts with outlandish fuel expenditures. Thus you can almost guarantee a relatively stable cost of public transportation.But most people will not go for that.AdministratorMake your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now.

[Guest guest]

Some states do have a plan that helps pay for the cost of putting up solar or other power systems on homes. My place didn't qualify under the old rules though because I didn't live there full time. I'll have to check again and see if the rules have changed.

In most of the country, even rural people live within 20 miles of a decent sized town. My place is about 8 miles from a small town with a decent convenience store which carries the basics. The nearest city is about 20 miles beyond that, but the new road should shorten that by a couple of miles. So, a hybrid with a 50 mile battery range would mean I could just about make a round trip without using the gasoline engine. Since I'd probably make 1 or 2 trips per week, I would actually have to worry about the gas going bad in the tank. Trips to the small town would be daily, but at 16 mile round trips, the gas engine would see little use. Then again, if I get a place in town, then I could walk to the store and post office and not have to drive, save maybe bad weather days.

My point is that there are alternatives that would be cheaper and more efficient than mass building of city housing.

In a message dated 12/9/2008 12:16:37 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

That's a good idea.One thing to remember though is that there once was a day when even smaller towns had trollies and inter-urban transport. They were effective and fairly cheap.AdministratorMake your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now.

[Guest guest]

That is how the suburbs really got started. Trolleys and light rail allowed the middle and upper classes to move out of the crowded city into outlying areas.

Some of the roads around my place in Alabama are very hilly and winding. It can be a real white knuckle experience, especially riding with some of the locals since they take the roads rather fast.

In a message dated 12/9/2008 12:21:32 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

I grew up in such a place: they were known as "trolley suburbs" and from the accounts, because of how hilly it was in the local area, it was a roller coaster ride more exciting than many amusement parks ;)Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now.

[Guest guest]

You may call it cynical, I call it studying history and thereby having a healthy distrust of government.

Yes, there are some problems with the power grid. Part of that problem is political in that certain areas, like California, would not allow enough new power plants to be built, not enough carry capacity to meet demand from out of state. Since supply could not meet demand, there were brownouts and rolling blackouts. Similar situations have cropped up in other places.

The interconnectedness of the system is also a problem. Problems in one region can ripple through the entire network causing power outages over a very wide area, potentially a multi-state region. The system is also vulnerable to EMP attacks and even hackers. These matters should have been addressed by now but haven't been.

Yes, there is some loss of "efficiency" for long powerlines and roads into the countryside. However, that is the cost of allowing people the freedom to live where they want. People out on those electric lines do pay a cost of more expensive electricity and more frequent outages from storms and such. Most of the roads are in fairly decent shape. The one near my place was recently resurfaced after 20 years or so but even then it had been in better shape than most of the city streets here.

What I do find cynical is how many people object to having others push their views on them, but at the same time would have no problem at all pushing their own views on someone else.

In a message dated 12/9/2008 1:16:11 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

This is both a very cynical (though it may be somewhat warranted) and mathematically incorrect response.Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now.

[Guest guest]

" It would be more cost effective to help supply rural residents with

solar panels and such to help offset the power costs. Maybe even help

them get at least one hybrid car that could be run on electricity most

of the time. "

That's a good idea.

One thing to remember though is that there once was a day when even

smaller towns had trollies and inter-urban transport. They were

effective and fairly cheap.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

I grew up in such a place: they were known as " trolley suburbs " and from the

accounts,

because of how hilly it was in the local area, it was a roller coaster ride more

exciting than

many amusement parks

>

> " It would be more cost effective to help supply rural residents with

> solar panels and such to help offset the power costs. Maybe even help

> them get at least one hybrid car that could be run on electricity most

> of the time. "

>

> That's a good idea.

>

> One thing to remember though is that there once was a day when even

> smaller towns had trollies and inter-urban transport. They were

> effective and fairly cheap.

>

>

> Administrator

>

[Guest guest]

" I grew up in such a place: they were known as " trolley suburbs " and

from the accounts, because of how hilly it was in the local area, it

was a roller coaster ride more exciting than many amusement parks "

The only trolly rides I have had to date were at the Illinois Railway

museum. I was once on the South Shore Line in Chicago which runs on the

ground, but that's more of a train than a trolly.

Administrator

[Guest guest]

This is both a very cynical (though it may be somewhat warranted) and

mathematically

incorrect response.

Population density isn't what increases demand for police: population, period,

is. While

you may argue (and I'd like to see someone actually be able to come up with

valid studies

for it) that rural areas require less police, the fact of the matter is that

with everyone

spread farther apart, a single person can be far less effective on patrol, and

far more

expensive to pay for while doing that patrol, or responding to accidents or

other

emergencies. On the one hand, a rural environment makes it less convenient for

robbers

going from house to house: on the other hand, if things are that rural, they'll

literally be

able to get away with murder with much less chance of being caught, or of

cleaning out a

place without anyone noticing. You see this all as a social engineering

experiment: what is

the modern suburb, if not its own form of social engineering experiment, writ

large? If

you look at the topology of a modern suburb and subdivisions that are in them,

compared

to the simple grid pattern before the suburb popped up, and analyze it all

strategically, a

modern suburban subdivision is far easier to block off from the outside world in

terms of

vehicle control: there's very few interfacing roads on average onto main roads.

Most

subdivisions are engineered purposely to slow down drivers, as it's all about

" think of the

children! " and discouraging speeders from whizzing through there, so they put in

very

short distance sharp curves all over the place, islands, weird intersections,

etc. which are

also supposed to be more attractive.

Now, for the power density thing: you are so wrong about our current grid, it's

scary how

wrong you are. When we get to high power requirements, we're subject to

brownouts and

blackouts because things are so marginal right now, that a single very hot day

has in

recent history caused large sections of the grid to effectively collapse. There

are two

factors to deal with for the grid: the power plants, and the wires themselves.

The longer

the distance that power needs to travel, the more power that is lost by

resistance losses

from merely traveling through the wires themselves, and this is a rather

meaningful

percentage already. Why do you think there are high tension wires? It's

because the

higher the voltage, the greater total of power can be sent through a single

wire. For a

given gauge of wire, regardless of the voltage, about the same amperage can be

sent

through, tops, before things burn out, and the wires become electric stove

heating

elements and all that entails. The highest percentage of losses occurs between

the local

poles and the stepdown transformers going into a house: house wiring loses a

heck of a

lot of power efficiency, in comparison. This is also why most electric stoves

aren't 120V

but are 240V: 120V makes wiring going through the walls way too close to being

like an

electric stove in order to heat things up, and the power efficiency is way down.

Now,

consider what you'd be plugging electric cars into: either 240V (if you're

lucky, as a lot of

residences don't have that currently wired in) or 120V (240V costs a little more

to wire in

at the circuit breaker box, twice as much when new to wire in the walls, and a

costly

upgrade to run new wires in an existing place) which still really isn't all that

time/energy

efficient for the purposes of charging up an electric car. I'm betting you were

unaware

that in electrical terms, one horse power is equivalent to around 737 watts.

That means,

to have about 1.5 horse power for an hour, that requires 1 kW of power, or about

8 amps

at 120 volts, and oh, there's going to be power loss between the wall and the

car's system.

In other words, the power grid capacity in terms of both wires and generation

stations

won't be a mild incremental upgrade to switch everyone over to electric cars:

it'll be a

massive capacity upgrade required. The longer distances that people commute,

the

greater the need for the power grid upgrade for capacity will be.

I assure you, I need my space and time alone as much as anyone: but if done

correctly,

population density as well as such spaces can be done very practically. Suburbs

are largely

based around everyone being in a sea of loneliness, of having privacy: look

around, and

tell me how well that's worked for society as a whole. People have a hard time

getting to

know their neighbors (granted, not everyone is worth knowing) because they're so

far apart

(in the richer suburbs: the trolley suburb where I grew up, the lots are 41 feet

wide by 160

feet long, on rectilinear blocks) and spend a heck of a lot of their time and

energy in cars,

and being dependent on them, and everyone is going every which way to/from work,

etc.

so they only see each other occasionally. In the vast sprawling suburbs, on

average,

there's very little wildlife, because the manicured lawns (which are incredibly

wasteful for

maintenance via mowers and other power tools, from an energy standpoint) and all

the

streets don't lend themselves well to blending in with nature: there are vast

wastelands

where native species are completely gone as a result, and things are horribly

unbalanced.

What if instead of this systematic destruction of the landscape for houses that

are all

expensive to maintain, heat and cool, we used land far more efficiently for

housing, and

had large naturally-treated (or very close to it) swathes of land for parks,

with plenty of

trees, both for beauty as well as their other natural functions of cleaning the

air and

holding the ground together to prevent erosion? As much as a higher population

density

is more efficient for all involved, we're all creatures, too, and we all need a

sufficient

amount of green space: this is probably one of the biggest mistakes made in the

past for

many large cities, is not having proper green space available. Small city parks

are nice for

all that they're worth, but we really need green space that we can't see across

from any

side to the other side. Inevitably, there will need to be farms: they would

most logically be

on the periphery of the population centers. They might be on the far side from

the denser

population from the green spaces, of which many may be on the outer edges of the

city

(for the bigger ones). Also, by not stupidly occupying so much land by housing,

the

farmers could easily have the choicest farmland, that's close to population,

meaning

everyone wins as a result: what do you think will happen long-term with all

these suburbs

currently being built over arable land? Surely you don't think that the

population in the US

will stop growing by fiat of people's collective choices, do you? While the US

population

probably currently doesn't grow all that fast from natural reproduction of

people living

here after several generations, it's still an immigrant's paradise (relatively

speaking) and

that's a large part of the population growth, legally or illegally.

An intermediate step that I strongly suspect will happen over time towards

building up

population density in the suburbs that currently exist will be that of doubling

up houses

or doubling their size and dividing them up into

apartments/duplexes/multidwelling units.

If built properly, privacy is no big deal: if built cheaply, everyone will hate

i, because you'll

be able to hear everything through the walls and floors. Curiously enough, the

best ways

to make something energy efficient (lots of insulation) also makes it better for

privacy.

There are also enough older houses that aren't all that energy-efficient, and

are likely not

as easily repaired cheaply: as those are identified, you can expect market

forces to tear

them down and build something newer and more energy efficient as well. I've

seen that

sort of thing happen, again, in the trolley suburb where I grew up, where my

house was

built around 1913, and other houses in the neighborhood are a similar age,

though by

today's standards, the house I grew up in is structurally built like a rock: it

was built of

hard yellow pine, and when I say *hard* I mean " Can destroy electric drills when

trying to

make a hole " hard (always disconcerting to see smoke coming from a drill like

that!).

Cities and even rural areas are regenerated over time, usually not all at once,

with such

upgrades. Unless there's a massive energy crunch for supply versus demand, this

process

will likely take 40-50 years, I'm guessing, but I could be wide of the mark

either way. It

need not be instant, and it'd still be within the range of what it is now.

The happiest medium probably isn't that of megalopolis communities, but rather,

a

patchwork of decent-sized communities in a network: a large part of this would

be

controlled by the desire to have the green space (the larger ones) nearer the

outside

edges, and some amount of cultivated land between as well. They can start with

relatively

low-rise houses and such, and grow vertically in a controlled manner: there are

cities that

are forward thinking in such ways, even now: Bellevue, Washington is an

interesting study

in trying to avoid repeating the mistakes in the past, with a controlled growth

plan, where

the downtown business district is by design meant to do the primary vertical

growth, first.

Really, you should do more investigation of it: you shouldn't be so incredibly

cynical and

paranoid, thinking that the biggest reason for cities is controlling the

population, and if

you do, then you have no room to complain about all the gas/oil prices, and all

the overly

expensive taxes you pay for a crumbling infrastructure that's extended out

farther than

can reasonably be maintained per capita, because that's the price of that form

of freedom,

all while the general population gets obese from being cooped up in cars and not

interacting, all being on private little islands in a sea of suburbia not

designed for

pedestrians and getting things done on foot.

>

> More public transportation wouldn't be a bad idea.

>

> However, I don't like the idea of using it as a social engineering

> experiment to force people to move into the cities. Putting people into the

cities

> might save energy in one regard, but all that new building would take up a

lot

> of resources and money, and would have hidden costs such as increased need

for

> police and other services, which naturally increase with population density.

> More people in cities also means that they are easier to control by the

> government.

>

> It would be more cost effective to help supply rural residents with solar

> panels and such to help offset the power costs. Maybe even help them get at

> least one hybrid car that could be run on electricity most of the time. As it

> stands though, sending power through the grid isn't that great of an issue.

Most

> infrastructure already exists and is maintained. Putting in new powerlines

> for a house in rural areas is balanced by the cost of doing so, which is up

to

> the land owner to pay, if the lines are more than a certain length. I don't

> recall the specifics, but its wasn't cheap.

>

> Anyway, such massive population resettlements have been attempted before and

> they have all failed miserably. We probably are headed that way because of

> government's growing desire for control and power, just like all the previous

> attempts.

>

>

>

>

> In a message dated 12/8/2008 10:57:27 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

> no_reply writes:

>

> Thing is, being a speculator in energy, I know that energy companies

> will be preparing well in advance to rook consumers as best they can.

> Stricts idea of moving people to public transportation is a good one,

> expecially from a cost perspective because most public transportation

> is subsidized by local, county, state, and federal governments who

> won't want to incur huge debts with outlandish fuel expenditures.

> Thus you can almost guarantee a relatively stable cost of public

> transportation.

>

> But most people will not go for that.

>

>

> Administrator

>

>

> **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and

> favorite sites in one place. Try it now.

> (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-

dp & icid=aolcom40vanity & ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010)

>

[Guest guest]

"When we get to high power requirements, we're subject to brownouts and blackouts because things are so marginal right now, that a single very hot day has in recent history caused large sections of the grid to effectively collapse. "

Yes, but going back a bit. most of those outages on the west side of the US were caused by companies deliberately and illegally parcelling out less power than they were capable of generating or sending. Those companies have federal suits against them.

"Now, consider what you'd be plugging electric cars into: either 240V (if you'relucky, as a lot of residences don't have that currently wired in) or 120V (240V costs a little more to wire in at the circuit breaker box, twice as much when new to wire in the walls, and a costly upgrade to run new wires in an existing place) which still really isn't all that time/energy efficient for the purposes of charging up an electric car. I'm betting you were unaware that in electrical terms, one horse power is equivalent to around 737 watts. That means to have about 1.5 horse power for an hour, that requires 1 kW of power, or about 8 amps at 120 volts, and oh, there's going to be power loss between the wall and the car's system."

There is enough electromagnetic energy being lost as it is. I do not relish the earth turning into a big microwave. However, there are newer -but of course, more expensive- transmission lines which carry electricity for longer distances without losing as much, but to put them up would be cost prohibitive. Probably they would be put up only in cases where downed lines needed to be replaced.

"What if instead of this systematic destruction of the landscape for houses thatare all expensive to maintain, heat and cool, we used land far more efficiently forhousing, and had large naturally-treated (or very close to it) swathes of land for parks, with plenty of trees, both for beauty as well as their other natural functions of cleaning the air and holding the ground together to prevent erosion? As much as a higher population density is more efficient for all involved, we're all creatures, too, and we all need a sufficient amount of green space: this is probably one of the biggest mistakes made in the past for many large cities, is not having proper green space available. Small city parks are nice for all that they're worth, but we really need green space that we can't see across from any side to the other side. "

We are seeing a proliferation of townhomes and duplexes these days in urban and suburban areas already. As for green space, in Ontario, if a sub-division goes up, there has to be a significant amount of green space to offset it. We're talking many acres. Not a city block or two. Pity the US does not follow this idea.

"Surely you don't think that the population in the US will stop growing by fiat of people's collective choices, do you?"

In 1980, no one knew that HIV/AIDS existed. 40 million people have since died of it and 40 million more have it. What do you suppose the world is going to look like in another 25 years if the exponential spread of HIV/AIDS continues. To say that it will slack off is probably not the case as newer, easier to spread strains keep mutating. Keep in mind also that for as many known cases as there are, there are many more unidentified cases that have not come to light yet because no symptoms have shown up in seemingly healthy people, so they will keep spreading it around for ten or twenty years before getting sick with AIDS.

"While the US population probably currently doesn't grow all that fast from natural reproduction of people living here after several generations, it's still an immigrant's paradise (relatively speaking) and that's a large part of the population growth, legally or illegally."

As far as legal immigration goes, certain countries will not let HIV/AIDS people in because they will tax nNational Healthcare Systems. This is something the moron pro-immigrant legalization/pro National Healthcare System Democrats should have thought about when they voted Obama in. We will HAVE to prevent sick people from immigrating, and if we grant amnesty to HIV/AID infected illegals, they will tax our NHS. But Democrats are utter and absolute idiots and don't have enough forethought to see this.

"An intermediate step that I strongly suspect will happen over time towardsbuilding up population density in the suburbs that currently exist will be that of doubling up houses or doubling their size and dividing them up into partments/duplexes/multidwelling units."

We've got that already in the Chicago area.

"Really, you should do more investigation of it: you shouldn't be so incrediblycynical and paranoid, thinking that the biggest reason for cities is controlling thepopulation, and if you do, then you have no room to complain about all the gas/oil prices, and all the overly expensive taxes you pay for a crumbling infrastructure that's extended out farther than can reasonably be maintained per capita, because that's the price of that form of freedom, all while the general population gets obese from being cooped up in cars and not interacting, all being on private little islands in a sea of suburbia not designed for pedestrians and getting things done on foot."

is not that far off the mark though. Look at lionesses and their cubs. Or any female animal that has "dens" for example. They move the cubs around periodically so that predators do not pick up their scent, but they also move them to get them away from the fleas and the bodily waste. Were they to stay in one spot, they would get sick from disease and insect bites.

How often do people move out of an old house that isn't worth saving into a new one for the same reasons?

People without means to do this are stuck where they are and inevitably wind up living in "slums" and this is where society likes them. One area which can be avoided and sealed off if necessary. the worst rabble in all one place. It's why certain areas of the country -the same areas- have riots every twenty years or so, while the rest of us go on watching it on TV an eating popcorn.

Integrating these people into the general populace has failed demonstrably. They lower the value of the neighborhood. Thus society controls them by keeping them where they are.

It's also why they shut up the "mentally ill" - like autisics for instance, and with most autistics who are capable of standing up for some of these folks not giving a rip, it's where they stay.

Raven and I now have 490 organizations linking to us, our podcasts have been downloaded 2,700 times on one venue alone. We have held awareness campaigns and fundraisers.

Two people can make a difference.

Not many autistics can say they do the same. It's the same with society. They either want other segments of society controlled, or they want to be the controllers.

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