How Solar Power, Wind and Battery Power Will Ween Us Off Fossil Fuels

According to the video above, solar power has now become the cheapest electricity in the world. Tesla has created batteries that will power whole cities. Solar and wind power plants often need to be shut down when they are producing more power than is being used.

So what’s going to happen as the size and capacity of batteries increase, while the cost to produce them drops? Extra electricity produced by solar and wind will be able to absorb the extra power, creating a surplus supply that can power cities, trains and other things.

The result, according to the Bloomberg video above, will be the slow reduction in the use of fossil fuels.

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Bernie Sanders Launches “Medicare for All”

Citizens of the United States spend more per capita for healthcare than another high wage nation. This suggests the US healthcare system is mighty inefficient compared to other systems, both in terms of price and in services provided. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill in the US Senate on

Sanders introduced a bill in the US Senate on Wednesday September 13, 2017 that would provide “cost” and “services provided” efficient “Medicare for All.” 57 percent of Americans support Medicare for All, according to Kaiser Health News. Fifteen Democratic Party legislators support the bill, which is up from 1 (Sanders) a few years ago.

Fifteen Democratic Party legislators support the bill, which is up from 1 (Sanders) a few years ago. “Medicare for All,” but that’s more of a handy slogan than reality, as this plan would greatly expand Medicare and overhaul it — for example, it would greatly expand the type of coverage offered and also eliminate deductibles.

“Medicare for All” would greatly expand Medicare and overhaul it.  For example, it would greatly expand the type of coverage offered and also eliminate deductibles, copays and premiums. Private insurance companies are also currently a part of the Medicare system. That wouldn’t be the case under Sanders’ plan.”

Under the current US system, premiums, copays, and deductables have constantly increased for decades, long before Obamacare came into being. Medical services have been cut back, even as costs (and profits) have risen. Much of this cost increase (if not all of it) is so publicly traded limited liability health care corporations can increase profits, which tend to push up share prices and dividends. In effect, health care provided by publicly traded corporations is really an income redistribution scam perpetrated on the 99 percent by shareholders of the 1 percent. Such corporation distort the market through collusions.

Sanders plan would be phased in over four years and would cover more things than Medicare currently does. His plan would cover dental and vision care, for example, which are for the most part not covered by Medicare.

So how does Sanders propose to pay for this system that covers all Americans? First of all, it would reduce employer and self-employed healthcare costs by eliminating the need for businesses and self employed people to purchase health care for themselves and their employees. According to PBS, “Sanders proposed a 7.5 percent payroll tax on employers, a 4 percent individual income tax and an array of taxes on wealthier Americans, as well as corporations. In addition, Sanders’ plan says the end os f big health insurance-related tax expenditures, like employers’ ability to deduct insurance premiums, would save trillions of dollars.”

The cost would, obviously, be less expensive and more efficient than the profit motived health care system we now have in the United States.

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Hillary Clinton and the Wall Street Democrats Strike Back Against Bernie!

The Wall Street Democratic National Committee (DNC), arch supporters of the presidential candidate of Wall Street, Hillary Rodham Clinton, want us to believe their lie that automation killed US manufacturing and created greater income and wealth inequality over the last thirty-five years. They don’t want us to believe US corporations have exported millions of jobs because of Bill Clinton’s trade treaties like NAFTA. Hillary, being a good Wall Street pawn, supported income redistribution scams like Nafta and the Trans Pacific Partnership. These Wall Street DNC folks even have people trolling the web looking for stories with Hillary Clinton tags showing automation did not kill millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs, and that they’ve been instead exported to China, Vietnam, Mexico and elsewhere.

The trolls are reading from the same basic script. It goes something like this; “I worked in high tech for (take your pick – 30, 35, 40) years and I witnessed whole categories of jobs being eliminated through automation. Automation has created joblessness and income inequality, not trade treaties. You progressives are all the same. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You need to get your facts straight!”

First of all, there is not a shred of evidence that automation causes joblessness or inequality because advances in technology tend to create more jobs than it displaces. For example, the computer industry wiped out the typewriter industry and created tens of millions more jobs in the process than the old typewriter industry ever created. As a 2017 study from the Economic Policy Institute points out, “Yes, automation has led to job displacements in particular occupations and industries in the past, but there is no basis for claiming that automation has led—or will lead—to increased joblessness, unemployment, or wage stagnation overall.”

Trade treaties are the primary cause of the growth in income and wealth inequality in the United States and throughout the world. This is a no-brainer: When jobs are exported the difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new lower Mexican, Chinese and Vietnamese wages go into the already fat wallets of the super rich via higher corporate profits, surging dividends, and soaring share prices. So yes, since Hillary supports trade treaties, she also clearly supports redistributing income from the 99 to the 1 percent.

So Hillary wrote a new book that blames Bernie Sanders for her presidential defeat to Donald Trump, and her trolls are roaming around the Internet advancing her cause with lies, half-truths, and distortions. This suggests Hillary may be getting ready for another run at the presidency. It also suggests the Wall Street Democratic National Committee is behind her possible candidacy.

In 2020, she’ll be the wrong candidate at the wrong time for 99 percent of the people of this nation. We’re heading into an already overdue recession that should be worse than the last one in many respects. Unemployment, for example, will likely be higher than last time. We need a champion of the people, such as Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, or Elizabeth Warren. The last thing the people of the United States will need in 2020 is another brown-nosing Wall Street pawn in the White House.

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Hillary Clinton’s New Book Shows How Out of Touch She is With Reality

Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened shows she is completely out of touch with reality and voter’s anxieties over the economic policies that have redistributed trillions of dollars from the 99 to the 1 percent. These policies were championed by her, former President Bill Clinton, former President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush, and a host of other Republicans and Democrats, such as Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Wall Street’s favorite brown-noser, Wall Street Senator Ron Wyden.

In her book, Clinton blames Bernie Sanders for her defeat in the presidential election. She claims Sanders candidacy split the progressive vote. Hogwash! Hillary lost the presidential election because she is a gold plated pawn of Wall Street. Voters were tired of their jobs and tax dollars being exported to Mexico, China, and Vietnam. Clinton supported the policies that did this. Wall Street loved her support for these policies.

The CEOs of Wall Street, other major corporations, and billionaire investors rewarded her and her husband with $150 million in speaking fees from 2001 to 2016, at $225,000 a pop. Progressive voters knew that yes big money had gotten her to change her mind on legislation cutting back on the abilities of working folks to declare bankruptcy on behalf of the big banks who had purchased her lock, stock and barrel (See video above). Progressives knew the mind boggling millions of jobs that would have been exported from the United States to China with the Trans Pacific Partnership, which she called the “gold plated standard” for trade agreements. Then, of course, there was her support as Secretary of State for the coup that overthrew the lawful government of Honduras and resulted in the death of hundreds. You could go on and on about why progressives could not and would not support Candidate Clinton, but you cannot blame Bernie Sanders.

Hillary is completely out of touch with reality, but the book suggests she might want to run for president again.

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Happy Labor Day! But Here Is Some Sobering Information

For the past several years, US job growth has been weaker on a monthly average than when Jimmy Carter was US president. There’s a reason for this and a lot has to do with US corporations exporting jobs. Click here for that story. This brings us to former President Obama.

As a United States senator, Barack Obama demanded President George W. Bush do something to counter Chinese currency manipulation. As president, Obama mentioned Chinese currency manipulation one time. Then some politically powerful billionaires likely placed their arms over Obama’s shoulder and probably said something like, “Don’t mention that again, or we’ll take you behind the wood shed.”

Notice President Trump railed against Chinese currency manipulation as a candidate and hasn’t said a word about it as president. It’s likely some of his fellow billionaires threatened to take him behind the woodshed too if he ever mentioned the issue again.

This is because millions of US jobs have been exported to China; and US corporations have created millions of jobs over there rather than here thanks to President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, both of whom gave China “most favored nation trade status,” and which allowed US corporations to export US jobs and create jobs in China rather than here.

When China manipulates its currency vis-a-vis the US dollar, it increases the profit margins of US corporations manufacturing in China and exporting to the US, while simultaneously decreasing the profit margins of companies manufacturing in the US and exporting their goods to China. This is why all those Nike, Dell, Apple, Treetop, Campbell’s Soups, and thousands of other things are made nowadays in China and exported to the US rather than in the United States. See the-trans-pacific-partnership-the-op-ed-the-liberal-and-conservative-corporate-media-doesnt-want-you-to-see–JohnHively.wordpress.com

This is one of the reasons why income and wealth inequality has grown so great during the last thirty-five years. In the US, the top 1 percent own more wealth nowadays than the 90 percent lowest Americans, and that gap is growing.

The Federal Reserve Bank and the US Treasury could easily counter Chinese currency manipulation, but those organizations work for the billionaires and not for the rest of us. In the meantime, the US economy weakens over the long haul. That’s because workers wages now represent a smaller portion of US gross domestic product since 1947. That’s because when jobs are exported the difference between the old higher US wages and benefits and the new lower foreign wages with no benefits goes straight into the fat wallets of the billionaires via higher corporate profits, rising dividends, and surging share prices. Trade agreements, nice scams huh?

This is precisely why the rich are now stealing about 37 percent of all income produced in the United States, compared to 8 percent when Carter was president in 1980. This is why job growth was greater under Carter on a per monthly basis than nowadays even though the US economy was only about 40 percent the size of today’s US economy, and the population was only 60 percent the size of today’s US population.

This is something to reflect on when some Wall Street US Senator like Ron Wyden says we need more trade agreements to create more jobs. When Wyden, or Wall Street Senator Mitch McConnell says crap like this, you know it’s a lie.

 

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