In addition to largely ignoring the pandemic, President Trump and his cabinet members have been out there proclaiming that there would be a V-shaped recovery. That simply isn't going to happen. A V-shaped recovery is possible where there has been just a pause in the economy. As with a machine, a V-shaped recovery is not possible where there has been substantial damage; and there has been substantial damage. Aggravating the economic situation: the pandemic has worsened, aggravated by Trump's negative example of not wearing a mask and criticizing his health officials, resulting in widespread disregard for health safeguards, particularly among his supporters and in southern states...which re-opened early because of Trump's insistence, despite what health officials were warning.
In October 2016, at the presidential debate against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas, Trump doubled down on his claims for potential for growth of the economy under his magical administration, where growth could reach 6 percent — which is well beyond what most economists say is sustainable or even possible. Proclaimed Trump: "But we're bringing it (the GDP) from 1 percent up to 4 percent. And I actually think we can go higher than 4 percent. I think you can go to 5 percent or 6 percent." The economists were right: in recent quarters, GDP growth had been about 2 percent. (It's in the basement now.)
The reality was that even before the recession, the economy was not in good shape. Trump continually pointed to employment figures as wonderful. The reality is that while there was a lot of employment, a huge number of people were stuck in low-paying "junk jobs", where many had to work multiple jobs (which boosted jobs numbers) to get by...or even seek government assistance because their job paid so little. A stark statement as to personal earnings can be found in statistics of real hourly earnings for production and non-supervisory employees in the U.S.: in February 1973, the wage number was $23.24. In March 2019 it was the same $23.24.
The Trump economy has been, as others have put it, "a house of cards". Trump hounded the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. Perceiving dangers to the economy, the Fed did just that, finally reducing the prime rate to essentially 0%. Aren't low interest rates good? No, low interest rates are horrendous, and have fed past recessions. Low interest rates are bad for at least three reasons. First, it incites people who could not normally afford to buy homes, to do so. As we saw in 2008, this is precarious because if anything goes wrong in the economy, these people can be in big trouble. And things have gone horribly wrong. Second, it means that people in fixed income situations have their income all but disappear. Consider that the common bank rate on savings accounts now is .01%. That's not 1 percent: that's one hundredth of one percent. This leaves people with no place to put what savings they have, so that it can grow. This has had the further result of inciting people to put their money into the stock market in seeking income; but this is horrible because, unlike a bank, your principal is entirely a risk where you can lose everything. The recent drop of stock trading commissions to zero (free) has exacerbated this migration, made worse by excessively convenient stock trading by apps such as Robinhood. As we have seen, the general public has no idea what they are doing in the market, even buying stock in bankrupt companies such as Hertz. The third reason that extremely low interest rates are bad is that it encourages corportate debt. If debt is almost free, why not gorge on it to greatly expand your company, to add more stores and enter new markets? As a result, entering the recession, many corporations and businesses were extremely "over-leveraged". Debt is not a remedy for lack of revenue. The party ends when economic conditions change, and then lenders become more stringent and insistent upon debt being paid back. This can result in what are called "zombie" companies, which are so in debt that they can just barely make interest payments on their debt, and make no progress on the principal outstanding. (20% of borrowing companies are "zombies". Also, 35% of the leveraged loan market was downgraded, to B- or worse, making it even more expensive for distressed companies to borrow money, and that makes for defaults a couple of quarters later.) The national debt-to-GDP ratio has been ever increasing, and is now about 107%.
Trump has been habitually pointing at the stock market as his measure of how good things are. However, it is well established that the stock market is divorced from conditions in the real economy. People live in the real economy. Consider that 85% of stocks are owned by 10% of the people. These are the people who know what they are doing in the market, and have experts to guide them both in the market and associated taxes. While the real economy is in dire straits, the stock market is soaring. Yes, the market is detached from reality, but how can it be soaring now? The underlying reason is that the Federal Reserve is propping up U.S. markets. They are fostering a "you can't go wrong" mindset. Well, isn't the Federal Reserve propping up the real economy? No: that's not their role. Their role is to provide funding to major banks and, as we've seen in recent decades, to buy Treasury securities when that's needed. More recently, however, the Fed has been more drastically buying corporate bonds...ostensibly those at higher bond ratings. The Fed created a list of 800 companies with investment grade bonds that they will be buying. The Fed is the central bank for the United States, but is not actually part of the government. The Fed lends funding to the U.S. government — hence the national debt. So where does the Fed gets its funds to do this? Out of thin air! Those Federal Reserve Notes you have in your wallet are issued by the Federal Reserve — though they are printed by the federal govenment and carry the signatures of the Treasurer of the United States and the United States Secretary of the Treasury. These issuances are liabilities of the Federal Reserve Banks and obligations of the United States government. It's all very strange, and based upon "because I say so": it's based upon the perceived value of the country as a whole. But back to the issue. The Fed is propping up the markets. Euphoric investors are buying stocks like crazy, driving up the market. However: this is the definition of a "bubble", so named because we all know what happens to bubbles. The stock market works because one party is willing to sell, and someone is willing to buy what they are selling solely because they believe that what they are buying will be worth more in the future. Run wild, this results in severe over-valuation of stocks...which we are seeing now. This is an unstable situation. Eventually it can get to the point of panic, where stock holders believe that values will no longer increase and, worse, that values will drop. Stock holders then rush to sell, to secure value from what they have been holding, so as not to lose a lot of money. Again, stocks have value if potential buyers see value in them; but if buyers sense that value is only decreasing, they will not buy. Devaluation in the market can result in a plunge which, if severe enough, results in a crash as the bubble bursts.
Back in the real economy, things are dire. The real economy is propped up by the government, rather than the Fed. Here, a Paycheck Protection Program was instituted to give loans to businesses who retain employees. However, that program was structured such that the loans would be issued through banks, meaning that the best-established (think best-financed) banking customers would get first access to what money is available. This left a lot of small businesses and restaurants without money. In any case, that money was a limited amount intended to be a short-term bridge over the recovery period. However, that period has become prolonged. Many businesses could not keep retaining employees, and hence we see the unemployment numbers. The government also issued direct payments to households to help them with expenses. However, both programs are of limited terms, and will expire. What happens at that point doesn't look good.
Things are getting frightening at the housing level. At the same time that personal debt is very high, a large fraction of the population has little or no savings to get by in crises. Recognizing the bind that their people are in, cities and states have enacted halts on renter evictions, and renters are being allowed to pay only a fraction of their rent...or none at all during this "period". Okay, that's great, right? No. This leaves landlords with little or no income. Many landlords are either individuals or very small companies who depend upon continued rental income to survive, having little in the way of reserve funds. The landlords have very large financial obligations in the form of property taxes, water bills, heating bills, insurance, and other expenses to meet; and some of them are still paying financial institutions mortgage payments for the properties they own. This leaves landlords in a severe bind. As to homeowners: Mortgage companies are engaging in what is called "forbearance" for struggling borrowers who can't meet their mortgage payments, which they can do at their discretion for commercially backet mortgages. (For federally backed mortgages, the CARES act specifies a period of up to 12 months.) In neither the renter nor homeower case are the missing payments "forgiven": they mount, and are due when the period expires. This is pushing the problem down the road, where there is going to be a scary amount due at that point. Banks don't like to have to engage in foreclosures, both because it is costly in terms of processing, and people being forced out of their homes have been known to trash the house as they depart, in "retaliation". However, at a certain point, foreclosure becomes necessary. Landlords have a tougher situation because they cannot immediately get new, paying tenants because the mandated eviction process can take months — which makes things even worse for the landlord. The evictions and foreclosures alone are going to constitute a very painful, slow motion train wreck.
So, all the programs and measures were intended to stabilize things until the worst of the pandemic is over and things can return to normal. Except, things will not return to normal. Huge numbers of restaurants and small businesses will have closed. Corporations will not return to original hiring levels because demand for their product is greatly diminished. Keep in mind that 70% of the U.S. GDP is based upon consumer spending, and that a large number of those "consumers" are the same former employees, who have no money to spend. (The pandemic showed us that some 70% of the workforce is non-essential.) Keep in mind also that the pandemic made clear to manufacturers that humans are liabilities in the manufacturing process. Manufacturers will certainly be looking to automate even further than before. Also, over previous years, executives have been reading articles and attending seminars on how AI can eliminate the need for people in various jobs. The execs didn't have to pursue such measures because the economy was good: there wasn't a lot of incentive to do so; but now there is. AI can review contracts: you no longer need people to review them. Similarly, AI can reduce the number of people needed in banking and financial companies. All of this is going to mean that there is a lot of unemployment in the future.
To touch on consumer spending a bit more... With over 140,000 coronavirus deaths in this country, and untold number of people having endured prolonged and frightening recoveries from this virus, the majority of the people in the country will know family members or friends or co-workers who either died or survived and are still impaired by the virus. Huge numbers of people have faced the prospects of having no food, and have lined up for hours at food banks. Large numbers are in fear of becoming homeless. In the face of all that, you can imagine that there will be little interest in discretionary spending. If you've experienced hardship, you're going to hold onto what money you have, and not fritter it away. And if this virus can come out of nowhere, something even worse can come along. There is that prospect, along with the guarantee of another flu season this fall.
With all this, you can expect that there will not be a return to "normal". Places where we used to shop and dine in will no longer be there. People we knew are now gone. There will be a new normal, and it will be much more subdued. The worst part is that so much of this could have been prevented if we had competent and caring national leadership.
Okay, you just know that anything that the Republican party puts forth is to benefit them and their richest donors, and this is no exception. What they are proposing here goes beyond insincere: it is underhanded. The planting of trees is meant to make you feel good about measures to do good for the environment. The reality here is that they are talking about trees being planted — somewhere — over a 30 year period, which is obviously a lame approach to a problem which requires as rapid a solution as possible. About the carbon sequestration in this plan: David Schweikert (R-AZ) and Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) introduced a bill that would cancel the 2024 sunset date for 45Q carbon capture tax credit eligibility and allow more projects to be able to claim the incentive. Carbon sequestration sounds beneficial, right? But, being Republicans, they have alterior motives. 45Q is a tax credit that is used by power plants, factories, ethanol producers and companies pulling greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. It's a boon to the oil industry: they pump the liquid-form CO2 down into their existing oil wells. In doing that, if you only store CO2 and don't produce any oil you receive no additional revenue from the credit. Carbon is injected back into existing wells, a process that increases the volume of oil and allows producers to extract more oil. So, the goal here is further profits for the oil industry as they pull more fossil fuels out of the ground, where that simply perpetuates pollution of the environment.
These ingenuous plans have no targets, by dates or amounts. As Electrek points out: What's missing from these plans? Green energy. Renewables. Solar. Wind. Electric vehicles. Republicans remain fixated on what can be summarized as greed over impact. They live in this environment, they bring up children in this environment, and they still don't care about it.
Please: Instead of this, take that $10 or $20 and donate it to a charity, where it can do long-lasting good, and meaningfully offset the tragedy involved. Place a placard at the tribute site saying that a donation was made in the name of the lives lost, where conveying that will inspire others to do likewise. This is remembrance and doing good, simultaneously.
Over the intervening decades, war was raged against cigarette companies for knowingly killing people with their cancerous products, proven to kill millions of smokers and those near the smoke, every year. We should be doing the same with automakers, knowingly producing millions of vehicles every year whose exhaust products poison everyone subjected to those pollutants. While vehicular accidents kill some 37,500 people each year in the U.S., 53,000 citizens die premature deaths each year from vehicle exhaust. Automakers should be held accountable for their egregious greed for profits over health.
One could dismiss this thing as being just a representational delusion which further extrapolates the already outlandish tale of a few people having created such an ark in a short period to save all the species we see today, in global flood for which there is no evidence. The real problem is that portrays all this as feasible, and as an historic event, and in doing so conditions people to turn off their brains and accept outlandish stories as reality. But it gets even worse, as the displays inside this outsized construct exemplify the worst of creationism, which absurdly portrays our planet at 6,000 years old, complete with dinosaurs co-existing with humans. Creationism is enormously harmful, as it requires brain-equipped human beings to stop using the intellects and accept tall tales as historical documentation, no matter the amount of logic contortion and dismissal of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Simply put, this is stuff that shuts down minds, excludes critical thought processes, and renders people intolerant in an us-versus-them mindset.
Consider the absolutely monumental irony in evidence here... Here we have over a hundred million dollars going to a construct to house a fictional depiction of saving all of earth's species at the same time that earth's species are being wiped out by endless human encroachment upon habitat and environmental pollution — which this sprawling thing and its parking lots is doing. Imagine what a hundred million dollars would do to actually help conservation and wildlife welfare.
Creationists represent a fanatical fringe of their own religion, whose overwhelming majority of members are contemptuous of this fringe, and are open to rationality and science. People who think and have a grasp on reality know that it's impossible to have created an ark large enough to contain every species, let alone round them all up in short order, at the same time creating a huge vessel to house and feed them for months. People with knowledge also appreciate that it takes more than one pair of a species to (re)establish a healthy, viable population. None of this matters to creationists who, like Donald Trump, merely have to believe their own myths for them to be "true".
What about the middle class? Ah, Republicans continue to regard you as the readily exploitable source of revenue to run the country, so that the rich can get richer. The tax plan they are proposing will place limits on the popular mortgage interest deduction and caps on the state and local tax deduction. Overall, the plan is expected to add about $1 trillion to the already huge deficit.
So, the Republican message to the middle class and working poor is the predictable "Screw you". All this so that the Republicans can claim some legislative accomplishment this year. Let's keep that income inequality increasing.
Worst of all, at many of the generalist sites the writers create articles by simply copying what they find online in articles from other generalist sites; and through this, misinformation is perpetuated. This is one way that media gets the reputation for "fake news".
Sadly, pseudo-journalism is an epidemic today, and it's dragging civilization down. Factual information is the bedrock upon which civilization can grow and flourish, making for healthy societies based upon reality. This is vitally important, and yet is disregarded by so many media outlets who feel no responsiblity to the support of knowledge.
I can tell you one very simple reason for retail stores failing: you can't go to the stores and buy what you need. Here's an example: I recently needed to replace my old desk and wall telephones. I did research and found that ATT is the principal maker of such phones, where they have attractive offerings, prominently available online. I decided to first try buying them locally. I stopped in at Best Buy. No such phones on their shelves. To Target. No such phones there, either. So I bought online, from another source. And this is hardly the first time experiencing shopping futility. This is why the public is not going to stores any more: they are a waste of time: they don't have what you need.
Retail stores in general are not failing — only the cluelessly run ones are. Apple's retail stores are always heavily trafficked. Online giant Amazon has taken over Whole Foods and is opening general retail stores. Adapt or perish.
And who underwrites all these incentives? The usual: the middle class tax payers, who get no incentives or breaks. States can readily abuse their own, captive citizens, as in Massachuetts hiking the already onerous sales tax rate from 5.0 to 6.25% on August 1, 2009. If you were thinking of relocating and asked a state if they would offer you a tax incentive for moving there, you certainly would not get it: they would laugh at you.
Do such deals yield the expected results for the municipalities? History is replete with examples of corporations promising a lot to states, and then renegging. Reuters reported on Boeing Company, which shed nearly 16,000 jobs in Washington state since winning the largest share of a 16-year, $8.7 billion incentive package, and cut nearly 1,200 jobs in South Carolina after securing multimillion-dollar incentives there.
Obviously, the Carrier deal was a "stunt", targeting a single company of the many moving jobs out of the United States, where many thousands of manufacturing jobs are irrevocably going to be lost. And there is nothing to prevent Carrier from resuming their plan to move the remaining jobs out of the country, particularly with their American workers getting an average $30.91 per hour. That number will gnaw on Carrier and UT, where it makes no sense for them to pour money into local jobs when they can get the same results from Mexican workers at far less cost, and remain competitive with their competitors who have already moved to Mexico.
While it is desirable to in general keep manufacturing viable in the United States, to prevent vulnerability to foreign suppliers, Trump is interfering with the natural inertia born of the international free trade movement. The much bigger picture is that the flow of jobs from one country to another is part of global economic balancing, which makes things better all around. For about a century, the United States was the pre-eminent industrial nation, with prodigious production and world-envying wages insured by powerful labor unions. The majority of the rest of the world was relegated to inferior status, struggling along with poverty and poor working conditions, uncompetitive with the powerhouse industrialized nations. But labor unions were too successful, perpetually increasing wages through the strong-armed tactic of shutting down production through acrimonious strikes. Further, management was fed up with union solidarity, protecting even the most incompetent and unproductive "workers". These conditions led corporations to shift production offshore, where they could enjoy the same production, but paying far less in wages, with no unions to contend with, at the same time appearing to still be "American" companies. As such, they still needed to get their foreign-manufactured goods back into the United States, without profit-depriving tariffs. This led to free trade agreements, written for (and sometimes even by) the corporations who would benefit from them. All this made it all the easier to move manufacturing out of the United States, and so the exodus elevated.
While the migration is disadvantageous to American workers, it is advantageous to the economies of disadvantaged countries. Though the wages the U.S.-managed corporations pay workers in those countries is much less than in the U.S., it is better and more reliable than what the populace has had. This allows the foreign country to improve conditions. This makes the country more stable, with a more content populace, and that's a good thing for the world, as it greatly reduces unrest and conflict. However, the shifting is dynamic. American citizens developed a mantra where they would point to their manufacturing going to China. Yes, China did benefit, initially: people moved from rural areas to live around factories, and income levels rose. Another element of the arrangment was that being part of an international company shines light on manufacturing, which resulted in numerous exposes as to the conditions under which workers labored. Improvements in conditions were mandated, along with wage improvements. This resulted in manufacturing in China becoming more expensive. As a result, international coporations looked beyond China to less costly countries, giving rise to manufacturing in Vietnam and like countries. Jobs then started flowing out of China to these other countries, just as they had from the United States, resulting in hardships in China, with the millions of people who had migrated now stuck in places with few opportunities.
All of this is is a painful but healthy process of global balancing, like water flowing and sloshing to eventually come to a calm level. Trump is attempting to interfere with what, in this new world, is a healthy rebalancing of incomes, where "third world" countries can finally enjoy good living conditions and be more equal participants in a global economy. What Trump is trying to do in "make America great again" is turn back the clock to a period where America was the unchallenged superior nation. This is emblematic of Trump's psyche, which is about power-hoarding, to the exlusion of fairness.
Samsung was viewed as some remedy for the Android fragmentation mess, where they as the major player in the Android sphere were determined to make updates available to their customers more promptly.
September 2016 rolls around and Samsung, in their haste to beat the iPhone 7 to market, shipped a device which media reports say had a combination of design and manufacturing errors which caused the devices to catch fire or explode during charging. Pressured by their own employees, Samsung management reluctantly initiated a highly embarrassing recall (but in a chaotic way, without involving the CPSC in the United States, until publicly called upon by Consumer Reports). Buyers were instructed to return their phones for replacement. This is where the previously unappreciated further level of fragmentation came to light. Customers trying to return the Note 7 to retail stores or carriers were told that unless they were having a problem with their device that such a return would not be accepted. (Many retailers or sales staffs had not heard about the recall, or attributed no significance to it.) Where the store had heard about the recall, they refused to take the phone back, telling the customer to instead go return it to their carrier. (A representative story about this nightmare can be found here.)
The lesson here is that the depths of Android fragmentationissues go way beyond software updates such that even within a single (major) manufacturer, the problem is profound — even dangerously so — as retailers and carriers either ignore recalls or ineptly deal with them, even if public safety is involved.
What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be toughHe's right about the weak leadership — being the cowards in his own party who won't stand up the the NRA and their perpetual "more guns are the answer" insanity. It needs to be realized that this shooting, like many other lash-out killings, is rooted in intolerance — which is exactly what Donald Trump has been concertedly exercising and encouraging.
For wage earners, an economic collapse is a terrible thing, where it can mean reduced income, if not a prolonged loss of employment...and one's home. For those with abundant resources and power, a major economic downturn can be a wonderful thing... They can buy investments at depressed prices and protect the rest of their money in economic "fallout shelters" during the period, if they feel squeamish. Economic devastation is, for them, a rare opportunity, because they can subsequently rebuild things to their specifications and advantage. The worse the damage to the economy, the better the opportunity for them. The rich get richer, economic disparity widens — and societal instability increases.
Trump's outrages have included insulting Ted Cruz's wife and insinuating that his father was in league with Lee Harvey Oswald. Many have said that Trump should tone down the rhetoric. But, he can't: he has to keep up the barrage of distractions to keep from having to actually answer questions which require knowledge and substance. The Republican mainstream is thoroughly dismayed to have yet another know-nothing major candidate undermine the intellectual conservatism that is supposed to be the essense of the party: they also had to deal with Sarah Palin, with her folksy inanities. The party's governmental principals have been usurped by a mob fomented by candidates who encourage them to be vehemently anti-government rather than for something.
Part of me is expecting Trump to get all the way to the party convention, get up on stage, and say, "Just kidding!" And reacting to the astonishment by saying, "What? You thought I was serious? After all those things I said?"
The single-minded mission of Law enforcement and justice department officials is to arrest and prosecute criminals. Such focused orientation is abetted by certain political parties who, basing their rightiousness on biblical smiting, focus on being "tough on criminals". All but missing from the big picture is crime prevention, which is made possible by solid security measures, of which encryption is one part. Law enforcement has no incentive to prevent crime because their jobs depend upon a steady supply of criminal activity. This shapes government orientation. This is why we have a "war on drugs" — which has expended billions of dollars and wreaked havoc on countless innocent people in many countries, achieving almost nothing. Law enforcement is in reality an industry, much like the pharmaceutical industry. Pharma companies lucratively develop drugs to treat illnesses. You won't see them working toward cures for illnesses because that is antithetical to their operation: the perpetuity of diseases is the key to their income.
Law enforcement rails against encryption because it impedes their investigation of criminals. They don't care that encryption, like door locks, make people safer, because their mission is in fact not the prevention of crime. In their single-minded fixation, law enforcement and justice departments would eliminate encryption even from the smartphones that they carry, no matter the essentially assured risk that those devices would be penetrated by criminals. These agencies are also engaging in the delusion that criminals and terrorist organizations could not employ encryption if it was not provided in consumer devices.
Law enforcement is attempting to cling to the past, taking the same luddite attitude toward technology evolution as the record industry took toward digital music: this is disruptive to us, we don't understand it, it interferes with us doing thing the way we always have. A law enforcement community which is perpetually behind prevailing technology is not a body which can protect us.
From what I perceive, the overall issue is lack of confidence — in everything. A huge precipitator was the 2008 U.S. recession where major financial institutions which should have been well versed in historical prudence engaged in perversely careless behavior; a kind of mutually supported madness. That was made worse by major auditing firms being found in cahoots with the irresponsible behavior of the companies they were supposed to oversee, and government watchdogs who couldn't perceive or overlooked obvious danger signs. After that came years of the Federal Reserve pushing the prime rate down to near zero — and yet the economy barely responding. Programmed trading is fueling speculative — and even manipulative — trading behavior, undermining true investing.
Then there is the growing list of countries which can't positively manage their own economies. Japan, with the third largest economy in the world, seems to be in perpetual doldrums. In the European Union, Greece and Spain are a mess, jeopardizing that union. While Germany is strong, their national industry Volkswagen was exposed in a years-long scandal of falsifying diesel emissions levels. In larger Eurpope, its banks have become icons of incapability, losing enormous sums and shedding its leaders in remarkable succession. And there is China, with their make-believe economy, flimsy stock market, eagerly-polluted environment, and heavy-handed wrenching of handles on that economy.
These and other factors are leading investors to believe that nothing is working properly anymore, and traditional methods can't fix things. Major loss of confidence has instilled a sense of panic, making for major sell-offs and wild market swings. It remains to be seen is this is a phase in the evolution of civilization and finances, or if this is a period of unproductive thrashing which will end only when disrepect for normal behaviors ceases. Large banks may prove to be dinosaurs, who will be displaced by more numerous, smaller, innovative, and productive capital management companies.
Steve Jobs famously parodied the Microsoft nonsense when he announced OS X Leopard (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G5UUw9puhQ).
With all that, my interest in Star Wars was largely spent. In the long hiatus until the third trilogy saw production plans, I marveled that kids were still interested in this stuff, especially after the most recent three films. Apparently, it was actually the animated Star Wars videos which was keeping them pumped up. When The Force Awakens was announced to be in production, the large contingent of fans went nuts, maniacally eager to see it. I kept it in perspective: it's just a movie of contrived stuff. Having J.J. Abrams as the director made me apprehensive of what would be in the movie, given his track record of not respecting his audiences (or science), as evidenced in the formulaic and arbitrary content of his Star Trek movies. (Construct a starship on the ground? The interior of a starship can be portrayed by a 20th century chemical plant with cast iron, riveted girders?) I did see the film in a good theater, and was hardly wowed. The Force Awakens turned out to largely be an unimaginative rehash of previous Star Wars films, with mostly the same characters, same goof-off character behaviors, same spaceships, and yet another death sphere. Abrams' contempt for physics was in force, portraying spacecraft with spindly parts working just fine in atmosphere, flying at high speeds.
Beyond the films themselves, what disturbs me is the American population at large being infatuated with "wars"...with destroying things and killing people. This is the same population which supposedly abhors terrorists, who do those things. This is the America which thinks nothing of entering another country and dropping bombs (with their attendant "collateral damage"). We as a people need to start exercising and valuing intelligence, creativity, competence, and construction. Sadly, our movies, in reflecting our culture, says that we don't value such things, where so many movie posters show lead characters brandishing weapons. This is what we show ourselves to the world to be, and this is how they regard us.
For further takes on this, see Vimeo video Everything is a Remix: The Force Awakens.
Speaking as an experienced homeowner and someone with a mechanical engineering degree, I know that the following issues exist:
And, it is conspicuosly notable that that these lease-solar pitches started happening when solar panels became much more affordable and efficient: there were no pitches when the panels were expensive. That tells us something. And there's the irony that you could more realistically just purchase the panels these days — and thereby assure that you are getting high quality panels and thorough installation, not low-end panels and indifferent installation. Websites such as http://solarleaseproblems.com lay out what's wrong with this picture. Companies who expend tens of thousands of dollars going through neighborhoods soliciting solar panel interest are obviously doing so because it is going to make them a lot of money; and you should expect that most of that money is going to come from you.
Two other big questions: How solvent are those solar energy companies, and will they still be around long term? These companies largely depend upon government incentives to make installations economically realistic. However, some states, facing their own economic realities, have been withdrawing subsidies. Nevada is an example, which has caused solar companies to abandon the state. Probably the largest and best established company is Solar City. You would expect them to be doing well. However, while their 2015 revenue grew nearly 60 percent to $400 million from the year before, their costs grew at much faster rate, leaving the company with an operating loss of $648 million for the year. These companies are trying to cover losses by soliciting more customers, but all that is unsettlingly like a Ponzi scheme.
Though Microsoft did not outright terminate their Windows Phone efforts, the handwriting is on the wall. My speculation would be that MS will go as far as Windows 10 Mobile with their phones, not really expecting that OS to save their phone business, but seeing what will happen, adding some mass to their tablet use of that OS. It would make sense for them to contract out Lumia construction to a phone manufacturer where MS could simply discontinue the contract rather than unwind a manufacturing business of their own.
Can Windows Phone survive? Unlikely. The OS has some good features, but the buying public really doesn't care, where iOS and Android dominate and do everything they want. Windows Phone has just a stagnant, tiny fraction of the marketplace. It's also the case that apps have been lacking on Windows Phone, either absent or a half-hearted partial adaptation of the app on other platforms. Some major banks have discontinued their WP apps, where it wasn't worth the effort to continue support and development. Consumers who follow industry news and see Microsoft backing away from their phone effort will certainly be disinclined to purchase a Windows phone. Carriers and retailers definitely follow industry news and, seeing all this, have even less reason to commit to Microsoft phones.
In reality, the handwriting was on the wall a year or more ago, as Microsoft delivered a fully-developed Office suite for iOS, and not Windows Phone. Their current CEO Satya Nadella is far more astute and pragmatic than the embarrassing Steve Ballmer who came before him. Unlike Ballmer, Nadella has needed the lessons of Zune and is contracting Microsoft's efforts to concentrate on core competencies of software and services. Developing for dominant platforms and a large, well-established customer base there makes complete sense. Nadella has had to spend the past year and a half undoing the blunders of his predecessor, even when it's publicly painful (as in cancelling Windows 9). Windows Phone, like Kin before it, has been a costly, distracting impediment to Microsoft.
With oil harder and harder to get, particularly of the quality of times past, one would think that the oil companies would be fully aware that they need to instead think of themselves as energy companies. The world will always need energy, of which oil is just one form. Some traditional oil companies have ventured into solar; but what does the picture really look like? The transportation sector has been the largest consumer of oil products. Companies such as GM dabbled in electric cars — and then took them all away (and crushed them). Visionaries at tiny companies such as AC Propulsion in the 1990s stepped into that vacuum and created viable electric vehicles. Tesla Motors licensed the AC Propulsion technology, partnered with Panasonic for batteries, and produced the highly disruptive Model S sedan. In just a few years, Tesla now has half the market capitalization of Ford and GM. Who is making the batteries for the growing number of electric vehicles? It is Panasonic and Tesla (who is building a gigafactory to produce them), not the oil companies. Likewise, Tesla has announced the Power Wall product for energy storage to work with phtotovoltaic systems. We aren't seeing the traditional, well capitalized energy companies leading into the future: instead, it is visionaries who, despite scrambing for funding, are providing the leadership, helping to make our world a better place.
The Volt is an admirable product which is helping the environment. It is the case, though, that by virtue of being the product of a long-established automobile manufacturer, its design is constrained such that it cannot be a dramatic departure from the rest of the manufacturer's products. It's a compromise. Though designed such that its EV range should accommodate most trips, within that range you're lugging around a heavy engine, fuel supply, and mechanical drive train that represents a liability in that scenario. Outside of the EV range, you're running on a just-modest power plant which is trying to propel the car and a then-useless heavy battery pack. And in the broader context, you have all that additional complexity for things to go wrong, and in any case to require periodic maintenance. Certainly, eliminating the engine for additional batteries would make the car a true EV, probably giving it the range of the Nissan Leaf, but that was deemed beyond the design goals, which were to deliver EV capability in a vehicle having the range of a 20th century car. So, this is hewing to an established norm, which is what can be expected of traditional companies. Further driving this point home is the Volt prototype as compared to what was actually produced: the prototype was a dramatic looking vehicle, whereas the production vehicle was a boring as an old Plymouth. (This is why we are all so jaded that we barely pay any attention to "concept vehicles" any more, knowing that nothing like that will ever be produced.)
There are even further complexities and inefficiencies in hydrogen-powered vehicles. One thing that is often overlooked is regenerative braking. On an EV, taking your foot off the accelerator results in the motor turning into a generator, converting the vehicle's kinetic energy back into potential energy, meaning that the battery pack is proportionally recharged. In a hydrogen-powered vehicle there's no such thing as converting the kinetic energy back into hydrogen; so what's the answer to this? Simple: add a battery pack to store the energy. Wait. A battery pack?? Why did we go with hydrogen if we're at least partially implementing an EV?? The answer involves a further drawback with fuel cells: they have a relatively modest, limited conversion rate. Hydrogen cars add a battery pack not just for regen, but for acceleration. The battery pack is needed to supplement and compensate for the limits of the fuel cell, where the battery pack serves as a buffer between the fuel cell and the electric motor. (And even with that, 0–60 acceleration can take 9 seconds.) So, here we are carrying around bulky, high-pressure hydrogen tanks, a hydrogen circulating pump, a bulky fuel cell stack, a fuel cell boost converter, a power control unit, and a massive battery pack. No, this is not the way to go.
Elon Musk has famously referred to the technology as "fool cells", as promising more than can be delivered. (Because "they are so stupid", he told Bloomberg.) The practicality issues are evident in the price tag for the Mirai: $69,000. It is so expensive because the cells are comprised of a lot of costly precious metals — not to mention the advanced technology for the bulky, high-pressure hydrogen storage tanks. And the performance of the Mirai is expected to be less than satisfying.
It should be kept in mind that traditional auto manufacturers strive to satisfy their franchised auto dealers as much as end customers. Dealers depend upon customers regularly coming in for service, both as a source of ongoing income, between purchases by that customer, and as a continuity glue with the customer. Dealers want vehicles to be complex, as that makes for things to be serviced at regular intervals. This fosters the creation of hybrid vehicles rather than pure EVs. If you think of the Chevrolet Volt as being a simple concept, take a look under the hood and at online documentation of its power train. (This is why dealers dread the thought of electric vehicles, with this being a contributor to why so few have been sold. Conventional automakers will create electric vehicles only because certains states passing laws requiring them, and as a way to meet Federal combined average fuel economy requirements — and then they lament losing money on each EV sold. It is notable that Toyota has largely abandoned EV technology.)
So why do any of this at all? Commercials from the American Petroleum Institute try to promote happy thoughts about the United States being self-sustaining in petroleum products and being the new leader in petro exports. Hey, nothing to worry about any more, huh? Well, that does nothing for the planetary emergency on global warming, or perpetual oil spills of biblical proportions, or whole towns wiped out by derailed oil tanker trains. The reality is that the newly tapped sources of oil and natural gas require ever more extreme measures to reach and refine. This is nature's warning that supply is actually dwindling and that we should be seeking an alternative future rather than pretending that tomorrow can be like yesterday.