byte&chew

Forgive them Lord for they.........

For the past week I’ve spent way too much time watching and listening to the goings-on in Washington over the subject of the national debt ceiling. There’s no question in my mind that the country and its government is being held hostage by a handful of over zealous and narrow minded political extremists. History will reveal whether these political purists are a gift from heaven as some of them proclaim to be, or a bunch of narrow minded and simplistic morons from hell. The unfortunate byproduct of this pathetic display of bully politics is that, it further fans the fire that’s consuming the American middle class. The dismantling of the middle class began over thirty years ago, but has gone into high gear over the past five to ten years. I believe that, it’s the negative economic impact on the middle class that has given birth to the Tea Party and its followers. What is really ironic is the fact that, the Tea Party movement has chosen to cozy up to the right wing of our society, those very people who have played a key role in bringing us the demise of the middle class. Nobody has benefited more from the various entitlement programs than the middle class, Social Security, Medicare and many of the social grant programs. So why do the Tea Party followers support reducing these programs and remain silent about the billions and trillions in tax loopholes for the millionaires and out of control military spending? I wish I had a definite answer to that question, but my guess is that most Tea Party supporters have not taken the time to really study why their middle class world is crumbling before their eyes. These folks just know that what’s happening to them is bad, they want to stop it and they’re angry. If they did a bit of research they would soon discover that while all these negative events have devastated their lives, their so called conservative friends have been doing quite well. Corporate profits are up, dividends are up, the stock market is doing ok and none of them are unemployed or in need of medical attention, life is good for the wealthy! Yes, their corporate friends have created jobs, thousands of jobs, most of them in China, South Korea and India. So why are the Tea Party folks attacking their peers and the programs that help the middle class? For one thing many of the Tea Party leaders are wolves in sheep’s clothing. College educated and independently wealthy they stand there in favor of dismantling our safety nets and standard of living.  The reason they’re silent about the tax loopholes and the job creation in China is because they belong to that well-to do crowd and keep quiet about it, they just talk the talk. Others have been duped in believing that the simplistic solutions will bring back those “good old days”. Haven’t we seen that latter process up close and personal here in Berlin with the Laidlaw project? Our political leadership is encouraging us to view as success replacing over a thousand jobs at the Mills with 40. There’s an old saying that goes; “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. The Tea Party may have good intentions, I’m just afraid that they’re pointing in the direction of hell.

More food for thought from TomDispatch

July 28, 2011
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, Playing Ball With the Pentagon

Post-9/11, doesn’t it seem as though all American experience is blending into a single experience whose label is “your safety”?  Which means, in practical terms, you get poked, prodded, searched, and surveilled wherever you go.

The other day, I went to the ballpark to see my team, the Mets, play the Florida Marlins.  It’s always a shock these days to make your way into the team’s new stadium, Citi Field (named, charmingly enough, after one of the financial institutions that took us down in 2008 and somehow came up smelling like roses).  No more is it just tickets at the turnstile.  What’s involved now is that peek into your backpack or bag, followed by the full-scale search of you, body wand and all.

I always have the urge to shout: I’m here for a ballgame, not the Global War on Terror!  Instead, of course, I just lift my arms and let myself be wanded.  It’s like an eternal reminder that, for Americans, 9/11 did change everything -- and for the more intrusive at that.  Once inside, past all the restaurants and clubs, memorabilia shops and sports-clothing stores that now add up to the baseball (basemall?) experience, it turns out you haven’t left America’s wars behind.

In about the fourth inning of this particular humdrum game, only modestly attended on a Monday night, the looming Jumbotron in the outfield (where I was sitting) suddenly flashed a shot of an Iraq War veteran in the stands.  Caught in the camera’s eye, he stood up to wave, bringing the sparse crowd to its feet cheering.  Then, former Mets great Tom Seaver came on screen making a pitch for vets, which he concluded this way: “They’ve made their sacrifice.  Now, it’s time for us to do the same.”

And then, of course, everybody sat down, went back to hotdogs and peanuts, and the game proceeded.  As Andrew Bacevich, TomDispatch regular and author of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, points out in a particularly striking way, it’s no mistake that pleas like Seaver’s end in mid-air on nothing whatsoever.  Like the Bud Lite being sold all over that stadium, sacrifice-lite is being sold all over America when it comes to wars that most of us are almost completely detached from (until the bills start coming in).  Sacrifice-lite turns out to have less body and isn’t filling, but nobody’s about to complain.  Not in America.  (To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Bacevich discusses cheap grace and military spectacle, click  here, or download it to your iPod  here.) Tom

Mirror mirror on the wall, who..............

It’s quite obvious that my last post “CAUTION dimwits at work” caused the blood pressure of some folks to rise, but I think that’s good, it means that the subject provoked some serious thinking and if lucky, thinking out of the box, not just defending prejudices.  I believe the learning process is somewhat like laying bricks, we stack information one on top of the other, quite often only remembering what fits within our belief system, forgetting those things we disagree with and with time the “mortar” hardens and the whole thing turns into our prejudices. Once we’ve convinced ourselves that we now know what there is to know about an issue and we’ve make up our minds that we’re right, our brain filters what we hear and see and stops taking in any contrary information on the issue. That’s where the saying “Don’t confuse me with the facts my mind is made up” comes from. Breaking out of that pattern is no easy task because we’re hard wired to repeat what has worked for us in the past. If you were born in a staunch democratic family there’s a better than a 50/50 chance you’re a democrat and of course the same is true if you’re a republican. We behave the same way with religion and even with the food we like/dislike. That’s how we become clones and appear to have had one too many shots of Kool-Aid. Of course there are different levels of this defective thinking process, some folks are like that when it comes to religion, some it’s over politics and then there’s the zombie who walks around spewing one absurdity after the other, because it reflects that hardened core belief in….whatever. This phenomenon was well demonstrated with the Laidlaw project by the shareholders some of them still clinging to the belief that LLEG will make them rich.....someday. Now we see it with the national budget and national debt debate going on. The political dimwits/zombies are not prepared to open their minds one silly centimeter, they completely ignore the warnings from the worlds leading economist and are prepared to risk all. In their minds, their action will save us from economic disaster, the very disaster that their action/position may trigger. Convoluted? You bet, but very human in our need to feel in control and being right.

With permission from TomDispatch

                         Food for the mind

 

July 19, 2011
Tomgram: Christian Parenti, Staff of Life, Bread of Death

[Note for TomDispatch Readers:  I have a special summer offer today.  Christian Parenti is new to this site, but not to readers of the Nation and other magazines for his fine reporting, often from war zones. His new book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence (Nation Books), is just out.  Mike Davis calls it “a brilliant weather report from the near future of world politics.” Andrew Bacevich says, “To read this disturbing, indeed frightening book is to appreciate fully the fix we’re in.”  Naomi Klein adds, “This glimpse of the future we most fear arrives just in time to change course.”  As a survey from the global frontlines where climate change, war, and upheaval meet, it’s way ahead of the curve. 

As a signal of his support for TomDispatch, Parenti has agreed to sign a book for any TD reader or enthusiast willing to contribute $100 to this site. To take him (and us) up on this offer, just click here. (All contributions to TomDispatch.com are tax-deductible to the extent provided by law.)  If you don’t have that sort of money to spare, but want to buy Parenti’s book and you visit Amazon.com via any TomDispatch book link, including this one, we get a small cut of whatever purchase you make at no extra cost to you.  Many thanks!  Tom]

Get used to it.  Food, weather, upheaval, and war.  Those are likely to be in the headlines not only for decades to come, but tied together in all sorts of complicated and unsettling ways.  Extreme weather and increasingly severe droughts, whether in Texas, China, or Somalia; crops burned to a frizzle or obliterated in some other fashion; starving people desperately on the move; incipient resource wars; and a world in which the basics of everyday life are increasingly beyond the buying power of tens of millions, if not billions of the poor -- that’s a recipe for our future.  Unfortunately, it’s also increasingly the present, as grain crops fail in various global breadbaskets and food prices soar.  Already the poorest on this planet spend 80% of what incomes they have on food staples and those prices are expected to double in the next two decades.

Reporter Christian Parenti is just back from the global borderlands where soaring food and oil prices, climate chaos, other kinds of chaos, and resource scarcity add up to a challenging brew of trouble (as world leaders have begun to notice).  His new book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence, catches just how extreme weather, militarism, and free-market economics are creating failed states on what could someday be a failed planet -- and the essence of this onrushing story can be told in terms of a single loaf of bread.  (To catch Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Parenti discusses the origins of his latest book and how climate change contributes to global violence, click  here, or download it to your iPod  here.) Tom

 

-CAUTION- dimwits at work

There’s a considerable buzz about town about the bankruptcy of Isaacson Steel. We can only hope that they can reorganize their business and continue operations. I believe that this event caught everybody off guard, including the employees. In normal economic times the issues that forced the bankruptcy might be easily resolved, but when so many businesses are already in “survival mode”, what is a simple mistake can become catastrophic. This same scene is repeating itself all over the country and where it will all end is anybody’s guess. Meanwhile in Washington, the newly elected idiots from the tea party are prepared to shut the government down to fulfill one of their insane beliefs. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face! These numb skulls have no idea what the impact of shutting the government down may be, their myopic focus is on the national debt. For the past week I’ve paid close attention to what some of the country’s leading experts have to say on the subject and more than 90% of them fear the consequences of allowing the government to default, what's at risk is throwing our economy into a steep depression. This is what I call ignorant politics by people who have simple answers to very complex issues. Now I wouldn’t mind if they put their crazy ideas to the test only on their own personal future, but they’re tinkering with me and you and whatever we may have for a nest egg. This is what happens when people are driven by ideology, not by common sense or experience/knowledge. This is the same kind of shallow thinking that predicted the end of the world 3 to 4 weeks ago, but in this case these fruitcakes may bring us to the end of our economic world. They speak a good line, but their simplistic rhetoric is as nutty as Palin’s remark about seeing Russia from her house, which of course made her an expert on Russian affairs. If it wasn’t for the fact that a lot of innocent people will get hurt if these idiots get their way, I’d say; “Let them find out the hard way”, but we’re all in this together. Keep in mind that we have the largest economy in the world and like anything that is super size, you need to use caution when changing course. What these tea bagger’s are proposing is somewhat like turning the plane’s engines off at 50,000 feet because there’s turbulence at that altitude and they don’t like turbulence. Don’t compromise by making adjustments or corrections; just shut the government down because you don’t like the size of the national debt. Now, how long did it take for us to get into this mess? YEARS!  Might it not take as long to make the appropriate corrections without creating a lot of chaos? More than likely, but don’t confuse those dimwits with the facts, their minds are made up, some even claim to have been chosen by God to go to Washington to “fix things”. Good luck to us, we’re going to need it.   

And the answer is......................................?

It’s been very interesting listening and reading all the opinions about what “appears” to be the demise of the Laidlaw/Berlin Station biomass project. Most of us who have been following this project for about five years know that, what is often being said isn’t accurate or truthful. The question is; is this project dead or is it taking a nap? I don’t know, but what I do know is that those who really know and make key decisions are not the ones that speak with the loudest voices. Quite often it is those who have hidden agendas or who are the “mouthpieces of others” that speak the loudest. For example, our politicians, who collectively don’t have an ounce of creative talent or real influence, they stoop down in the cesspool of rhetoric (ex: This will sink Isaacson’s) and make absurd remarks in keeping with their distorted and exaggerated interpretation of what the facts may be. All of us, including the developers of the Laidlaw/Berlin Station project would be better served if the likes of senator Gallus and mayor Grenier were to disappear from the scene and stop fanning the flames of confusion and deceit. This project was ill conceived from the start and if it wasn’t for politics, subsidies and self serving goals by PSNH, the project would have died a natural death five years ago. Had the citizens been given the opportunity to look at the project objectively we wouldn’t be having this conversation at this time. The list of issues that may sink the project is long, but hard economic times and the opportunistic nature of our politicians turned the project into a false promise of economic salvation for Berlin. The fact remains and will continue to remain that, Berlin/Gorham/Groveton lost their main economic engines which was papermaking and 40 jobs just won’t fix our dilemma. What made matters worse were our short sighted politicians who are clueless as to what to do about economic issues besides yelling “jobs, jobs, jobs”, jumped at the chance to make us believe that they had a solution. They did this by supporting a make believe company with a make believe promoter  selling a questionable project. The dynamic duo of Gallus & Grenier continue to make believe that this project is where our future economic success rests. In fact, if it wasn’t for corporate welfare in the form of tax credits and other special corporate tax loopholes and a utility with captive customers, the project would never have seen the light of day. We have to twist and distort the facts in order to justify projects such as this and, it is one of the many reasons this country doesn’t have a comprehensive energy policy and is on the brink of economic collapse. Building multimillion dollar energy contraptions that operate at 25% efficiencies can’t stand close scrutiny; they have to be veiled in false outcomes and promises. These propped up projects are too often promoted by politicians who don’t even understand the fundamentals of the technology they’re endorsing or the questionable economic impact on communities. The Laidlaw/Berlin Station project is a very large biomass plant proposed to be built in the middle of a residential area (smart idea?) and, what is sinking it is the collapse of the multi level contorted, distorted and twisted schemes required to make it viable. It can only be viable at the expense of others, be they the IPP’s, captive PSNH customers, our natural resources, residents of Berlin and the taxpayers. If we need to understand why our country is in economic distress, we only have to study the dynamics of the Laidlaw/PSNH/Berlin Station project and we’ll have a better understanding of how corporate and political arrogance, collusion and deceit is ruining this country. It was a sad day for Berlin when Mr. Bartoszek in his fancy business suit left Wall Street to walk on our Main Street. He wasn’t the first or the last snake oil salesman to seduce us with the promises of economic prosperity. If and when the wrecking ball takes down what remains of the pulp mill, maybe then we can have a conversation about the economic future of Berlin, a conversation that was interrupted by the Laidlaw fantasy and only made real by PSNH and a handful of opportunistic locals.

Out of the ashes an opportunity

Here are some of the realities/facts as it pertains to the Laidlaw/Berlin Station project. Although many thought that Jon Edwards was barking up the wrong tree or just out of his mind, the points he made about the negative impact to the existing small biomass operators turned out not only to be true, but may be the deal killer for the Berlin project. If forced out of business the combined value of the small plants (IPP’s) and their tax payments to their individual towns plus the number of jobs lost at these plants exceeds what would be created by Laidlaw/Berlin Station. The paradox is that, PSNH is as much to blame for killing the Berlin project as it was its promoter. Had PSNH been ready to negotiate in good faith reasonable contracts with the small operators, the issue of putting the IPP’s out of business would have gone away. As one small plant operator told me, “Just give me the same deal that they’re offering Laidlaw and I’ll be happy”. But no, PSNH the arrogant 1,000 pound political gorilla in New Hampshire, overplayed its hand and their obsession to put the small operators out of business and monopolize the generation of electricity in the State has come back to bite them on the backside. I have every reason in the world to believe that PSNH has been in bed with Mr. Bartoszek/LLEG and Charlie Bass from the time the recovery boiler was made available by American Dismantling. The availability of that boiler was the opportunity PSNH had been waiting for; they just had to find a way around New Hampshire law. Enter Laidlaw and promoter Bartoszek, the Trojan Horse was born. If you doubt my word, just ask yourself why PSNH wrote themselves in the deal (PPA) with the right of first refusal on the Berlin Station biomass plant. It was all part of the strategy developed behind closed doors at PSNH. Now, there’s no question that this is an economic loss for Berlin, but it may also be an opportunity to have our cake and eating it too. I hope that Clean Power/Gestamp hasn’t given up on Berlin and thrown their plans out the window. With the mill at Cascade under new ownership, co-locating Clean Power with the Cascade Mill becomes a once in a lifetime opportunity to do this “biomass thing” right. (Can you imagine, an efficient biomass plant, what a concept!) City Hall needs to come to its senses and clean-up the mill site and support the concept that Clean Power and Cascade Mill is a once in a lifetime economic development project that’s right for Berlin/Gorham!

Oh yeah?

It's the 4th of July

As we approach what some call “America’s Birthday”, July 4th Independence Day, it might be good to take a few minutes and take a close look at the state of our Union, our State and our Communities. We’ve certainly seen better times on many levels. Our national and local economies are straining under the changing dynamics of the social and economic norms of the past. There’s a thousand pound gorilla in the room by the name of China! China with its overwhelming population has not only come out of the dark ages, it has raced to our doorstep as an economic and manufacturing superpower. If you want to visit China without the need for a passport, just ride down the Berlin/Gorham road to Walmart. Just about every item in this one stop shopping place has a label that says, “MADE IN CHINA”. What makes that trip even more interesting are two things. First, you will see people in their 50’s and 60’s working for just above minimum wage, former mill workers working for less than half of their former wages. Second is the fact that the Berlin/Gorham road which was paved a year or so ago, was probably paved with money that the US government borrowed from China. Now take Berlin’s so called economic salvation, the Federal Prison, built at the cost of around $250M (some call it pork) was basically built with money from China. How long are we going to make believe that this gorilla hasn’t moved in? I know I’m oversimplifying the issue by targeting China, the same can be said about South Korea, India and several other countries. Recently I listened to a Chinese economist who was speaking about the unemployment issue in the US. He was making the case that the Chinese exports to the US was having a serious impact on the unemployment levels here in the US and, that this condition is unsustainable. The economist asked the question; “How long will the citizens of the US tolerate these conditions?” He was making the case for China to adjust its currency and promote domestic consumption before there was a social and economic upheaval in the US. In spite of the optimistic and softened tone of the latest “mayor’s report” (did he hire a writer?), the future of Berlin and the North Country will continue to challenge our imaginations. Like it or not, there’s no way to bring back “them good ole days” when the mills in Berlin/Gorham/Groveton put more than $100M/yr in our North Country economy. How will future generations earn a living in this region? It’s a question that we all need to think about.  …..Now shooing that Chinese gorilla out of the room won’t be an easy task since our corporations are making record profits from their sweetheart deals in China and, we don’t seem to mind putting our neighbors out of work by buying cheap foreign goods. On July 4^th we all need to take a moment to think of those who came before us and how they provided us with the standard of living we now enjoy. The rhetoric of “jobs, jobs, jobs, just doesn’t cut it.

Biomass Project DEAD!

I don't have all the details, but a spokesperson for Cate Street Capital told New Hampshire Public Radio that Berlin's "Laidlaw/Berlin Station" project is dead! More details to follow..................