Tag: energy (page 2)

The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO), headed by Maureen Taylor, has been telling Detroit welfare recipients to occupy foreclosed homes around the city. "You can't imagine," Taylor told WWJ in Detroit, "when we get to work at 9 and 10 in the morning, there are 20 to 30 people in the hallway talking about `I don't have any more money, my rent is due' - three or four months behind - what can I do? And its unreal, because we don't have answers except to say, `here's a list of houses that we have intercepted that have been repossessed by banks, pick one and move in.'" To boot these trespassers out of the homes, banks are forced to take MWRO to court.

Rest here

We don't need anymore of that, thank you.  In fact, Republicans are supposed to be for SMALLER government.  Further, one might think Northern Michigan Republicans ought to be even a little more conservative on matters of property rights, exclusionary areas, and doling out cash or favors to specific and targeted groups.

Its called "central planning," and its the kind of thing that can be repeatedly demonstrated as inefficient, and costly to land owners, taxpayers, and entire economies.

Representative Schmidt needs to get a little sleep and ask himself what he will do when he is no longer able to call himself a Republican. Many of us have stopped already.  Best intentions don't very well make up for the mistake of seeking liberal ends.  Championing progressive causes, and now taking a page from Mao's playbook (managing farms for the good of all) with top down government managed "smart zones"?  Terrible, Comrade!

OK, maybe not THAT bad. .. Yet.

A Republican, Rick Snyder, is the father of the MEDC.  It was his baby, and lest anyone forget, it was created under the Republican Engler administration.  The MEDC, which has yet to produce a model that definitively demonstrates taking taxpayer funds, then giving those funds to hand picked "winners" produces net economic growth in our state.  The MEDC which essentially could be called a taxpayer funded venture capital scam.

The MEDC's MEGA, The state of Michigan through Tax Breaks, and the DOE,  which gave us that "success story" A123 systems.:

"When A123 Systems announced it was opening its lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant in Livonia in September 2010, then Gov. Jennifer Granholm wrote about it on the Huffington Post calling it "a Recovery Act success story."

But there have been troubles for A123 Systems in the 17 months since then despite a lot of state and federal aid to prop it up.

The state of Michigan gave it a $100 million MEGA tax credit that is contingent on the company creating 300 jobs by the end of 2016. A123 Systems also received another $41 million in tax breaks and subsidies from the state. The Department of Energy awarded A123 Systems a $249.1 million grant.

But the company has not been able to meet its own projections. For instance, on March 28, 2011 in an SEC filing, the company projected total revenue between $210 million to $225 million for 2011. Its latest report shows they had just $118 million of total revenue through the first three quarters of 2011 and reported a net loss of $172 million."

Yeah, that's a winner.

In fact doing so well, taxpayers should be happy to know that the top brass in the company thanks them for providing a generous raise.

I have another clip of her that I will add perhaps later in the week.

And even that isn't a guarantee they will ever see it.

In fact civilization is moving along rapidly enough that the populations of the UP are being drawn out except in the most concentrated population centers.  And in THOSE places, federal grants for housing, and assistance measures are being increased.  It draws those living in the rural outlying zones in to the town centers.  For some of the poor folk who face increasing government punishment for modifying land to suit their needs, additional fuel costs, and the pledge of subsidized urban housing it makes sense to take a path of least resistance.

Then add to this a increase in the cost of electricity that is as guaranteed as craftsman tools, and the landscape becomes fundamentally different.

The cost of electricity BTW because of such measures that would bankrupt those who would build coal fired plants, which was the promise of then Senator Obama, speaking to an interviewer on clean energy options.  THAT promise is now being kept, as the out of control EPA brings the hammer down on Upper Michigan's coal based energy producers.

"Looming environmental rules may lead We Energies to shut down the only major power plant serving Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the next five or six years."