Imagine that we heard today that school costs have skyrocketed and property taxes would rise next year by 11%.  The good people of the State of Vermont would be outraged.

And yet when we heard this week that the major insurers are increasing their premiums by that rate we hear nothing.

There are reasons why there is no scream of protest.  Most people do not write a check for their full medical coverage.  Some one else pays, typically their employer or the government.

Most don’t want to rock that boat.  Most don’t even know what the real cost of their coverage is.  Most don’t make the connection that this is money they could be receiving in pay.

We’re not going to get real health care reform until people have to start writing their own checks for their coverage.  Then, instead of the property tax check being the largest one that many write, it will be overtaken by that nasty health care one.

PJ

While the media is focused on all kinds of fiddle-faddle, silently, a massive unseen change is taking place under the direction of Governor Douglas.

Vermont is on line to secure hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal dollars.  Much of this money doesn’t automatically appear in the state.  We have to apply for the funds.  

In the application the state says what the money will be used for.  

What have we heard about the process to determine the use of these funds???  Nothing!

Where are the public meetings or hearings to decide how the money is to be spent?  How come the press is shedding no light on the process or what the plans are for these funds?

Do we really want the use of these funds to be decided by Governor Douglas and his cronies with no input from the rest of us?  Will we like the result?

We need to insist on an open process to determine use of the funds.

PJ

I suspect Vermont is not unique with our governor seeking to slash spending and cut jobs to “balance the budget” while simultaneously requesting that the feds borrow copious amounts of money to give to the states to create jobs and provide for necessities.

This is nonsense.  

In order for a state to be eligible for stimulus $$ the requirement should be that they cannot cut state spending below the previous year’s.

Otherwise the “stimulus” $ just gets swallowed up filling the hole created by the state.

PJ

Gotta run this morning but – –

Isn’t it time for a really big demonstration in Montpelier to let our legislators know that it is not OK to balance the books on those least fortunate in our society?

Doug Hoffer laid out plenty of options for dealing with the current crisis without resorting to slashing programs for those that need it now more that ever.

If there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans, now is the time to prove it.

PJ

How’s this for an alternative stimulus package:

The feds will pick up health care insurance cost for all citizens.  There will be no more employer paid programs.

On the surface this sounds (OK – – I’ll say it) – – stupid.

But the more I think about it, the more it seems like this approach may have merit.

Consider a basic plan for all of us.  It would cost say, $5,000 a person.  This is a total of 1.5 trillion +/-.  However, the gov’t is already paying the medical cost for all its workers, the military, and the various aspects of medicaid and medicare.  So, as a guess, let’s say it costs half that amount.  

The basic idea here is that at some point we really need to divorce health care from the work place.  This is the major anti-competitive factor in the US economy.  To turn this massive ship around will take many $$.  So while we’re spending the $$ anyway, let’s do it here.

Consider the benefits:  businesses will no longer shoulder the burden of health care costs.  This helps out those businesses, non-profit organizations, and, of course, all those people paying for health care themselves along with those that didn’t have any health care at all.

But whose going to pay?  Well, who is paying for the other suggested bailouts?  We borrow the money.  At some point, taxes will have to be raised to pay these costs.  This is as it should be.  General taxes should be paying for basic health care costs and not businesses and organizations.

I think divorcing health care from work will result in a surge of entrepreneurism because people will no longer need to work for a company because they provide health care insurance.  

Is this a way to go or what???

PJ

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

There was an interesting juxtaposition in the articles by Paul Cillo and Governor Douglas in Sunday’s Times-Argus.  We have Cillo outlining a balanced approach to solve what he characterizes as a revenue problem.  His approach is to temporarily increase taxes on those that can afford it, tap the rainy day fund, and make some targeted spending cuts.

In contrast we have Governor Douglas’ article.  Here all that exists is the need to cut state spending.  He puts this forward at a time when so many have to rely on the state both for their jobs and essential services.  

But the most interesting juxtaposition was between Jim Douglas and Jim Douglas.  More below the fold.

Our governor changes hats with a deftness that rivals a follow-the-bean huckster when he heads to Washington.  Here it is fine to ask the essentially bankrupt federal government to borrow oodles of money to send to Vermont so we don’t have to do any of the things that Cillo is suggesting.

But them is us.  We, the people, have assumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 trillion dollars in new federal bailouts and guarantees in just the past few months.  Vermont’s share of these new commitments, based simply on population, is about $16 billion (about $27,000 per person)!  But, gasp, we have about a $100 million shortfall in revenues.  According to Douglas, we can’t solve this problem in the true Yankee fashion that Cillo describes and that Republican Governor Snelling implemented when he was governor, we need to have the feds borrow the money from us for us and cut back spending.

When hit with calamity you can either crawl under a rock and pull back all your assets or you can decide to use them and try to prevail.  We need our critical state programs and the state workers that make them happen to win this fight.  

Let’s hope the legislature follows Cillo’s model.

Right along I was wondering why some bad mortgages, as stupid as they may have been, would bring down the whole worlds financial system.

Now I know.  It has to do with the Credit Default Swaps (CDS) so-called.

I’m not the expert on this and I am hoping that people that read this will help explain it – – but here’s the bottom line:

There are $62,000,000,000,000 of those things mucking up the system (62 trillion $ or about $200,000 for each US Citizen).  This is secured by roughly 2 trillion dollars of what used to be called assets, now they are called trash.

What does this all mean?  Damned if I know.  Maybe some smart people here can explain it.  Doesn’t look good and it also looks like we were sold a bill of goods fixing mortgages when the real problem are these CDS’s.  The cure-all bill didn’t even require that banks disclose the status of these all-important financial “instruments”.

PJ

So, let’s get down to it.

The House of Representatives will vote, probably tomorrow, on the most important money bill ever in the history of our country.

Our Representative, Peter Welch, last I heard was undecided.

This, perhaps the premier source for intelligent thinking that Peter may pay attention to, is not providing any thought to him.

This should stop.  Let’s hear people’s opinion on this matter.

I’ll start with mine.  DON’T DO IT!  

Giving Wall Street this money is like giving more heroin to a heroin addict.  There needs to be another way.  Those that benefited by creating this mess need to be the ones to pay for solving it.  If indeed there is payback and no net cost, then the money raised would help to pay off the massive deficit.

I said  it and I’m glad!

PJ

Some of you may have caught Art Woolf’s “solution” to  the question of how we are to keep warm this winter – – electric storage heaters.

In his post on the “vermonttiger” blog reported in the Times-Argus he suggests that using off-peak electricity to heat your home is the way to go.

I know something about those critters and thought I’d discuss the pros and cons.

But first let’s start at the beginning – – there is smart energy and dumb energy.  The dumbest is perhaps cord wood.  It costs the least because its hard to handle and can’t do much but burn, somewhat inefficiently.  Next in order of dumbest to smartest is wood chips, then wood pellets, then fossil fuels, then at the top of the heap, the smartest energy – – electricity.

That’s why around these parts, electricity has always been (except for short-lived price spikes) much more expensive than the other fuel choices.

Electric storage heaters, of the type that Art is talking about, store heat in ceramic bricks during the night time when electricity is cheapest and release the heat as needed. These heaters are expensive and very heavy.  They include the necessary controls to allow them to heat in this fashion.  There is nothing new about them.  Many buildings put them in during the various other energy crises that we’ve had.

However, they are much despised little units and are typically removed when fuel prices stabilize.  Why?  Well there are a few problems with them.  A primary one is that they absorb the heat during night-time and give it off 24/7.  When heat isn’t needed during the day, they are still very hot and give off heat anyway (not as much as with the fan going, but overheating the space nonetheless).

And installing them isn’t cheap like Art suggests.  First you need an adequate electrical entrance to the building.  You need to remember that you need adequate capacity for two to three times what a electrically heated building would need because you can only accumulate the heat during the eight hour off peak period.  This generally means upgrading the service entrance to the building as well as running wires to all the storage heaters.

Then there is the concern of what happens after a power outage at night.  You won’t have any heat so you may then go and turn on the heaters during the daytime peak hours.  If there was substantial use of storage heaters this would create new utility peaks and increase power rates.

And, of course, if oil continues its downward trend, the investment in the storage heaters would be wasted.

Personally, I think we should save the smart energy for smart purposes and burn the dumb renewables like cordwood, chips and pellets.  Eventually the off-peak electricity will power a good number of automobiles.