With millions of people twiddling their thumbs waiting for a job, the Land of Opportunity is in danger of becoming barren. Nearly three years into our economic wilderness, we still can't seem to find our way out.
Fifteen million Americans are looking for work, and most of them know the job they once had is gone for good. Millions more are working, but need something better than part-time hours or a dead-end job.
The official unemployment rate is stuck near 10%, and even our best economic minds say it'd take a miracle to bring it down to even 7% in the next two years.
We lost about 8.4 million jobs during the Great Recession, and have regained only about a half million during the sputtering recovery. Counting the people who've come of age since 2007, we're more than 10 million jobs short of what we should have.
Behind every one of those 10 million is a human tragedy.
Jobs. Everyone talks about them, and but no one has done anything effective about them.
The Banksters won and we lost.
ReplyDeleteBye Bye America.
Could argue but won't...Truth is the runaway train has gone past the point of stopping it...All we can do is slow it down.
ReplyDeleteThen crash...Fury...Panic...Suffering...New Society...How long? Who knows probably 10-15 years before the mindset of the "Me Generation" goes away and we become more spiritual/stoic.
In the meantime?...A very f*cked up situation for the weak, old, sick and young.
Fake ass numbers, the real unemployment number is really around 26%, same number as the first great depression, with more misery to come. Next year the Number will be like 35% and up and up from there. Jobs are gone for good and are not coming back, game over.
ReplyDeleteI've been out of work for 2 years, next month. I will not likely work in the same field ever again.
ReplyDeleteOn the right, we see a gas powered bike. It's a very dirty polluting 2-stroke engine. At the same time a 2-stroke engine is a very simple design.
GM is working on the Volt, a $40,000.00 car that may have a range of 80 miles or so. Forget about driving this across the country. Think about it, a $40K car that can only be driven 40 miles one-way and then 40 miles back home for a recharge. How long is the recharge time? Six hours, eight hours, 12 hours? My Lord, what were they thinking?
I saw a photo of a Lamborgini (hope I spelled that right) priced at nearly $300,000.00. MPG is not the issue with this car. I understand the entire chassis/frame is carbon fiber. This sounds nice, but how many of us can afford that car?
About 3 years ago, I started exploring hydrogen power. I built a hydrogen generator and mounted it under the hood of my car. The 2 parts pure hydrogen and 1 part pure oxygen gas was sucked into the cars intake system to supplement the fuel (gas vapor). I won't get into the specifics but I can say with certainty and personal experience that my car's mileage went from 20MPG to 30MPG.
Others have claimed to build cars that run 100% on hydrogen and for those who don't know, hydrogen comes from water, ordinary water.
I used solar power to provide the DC electricity needed to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Free energy from the sun folks!
I'm no scientist or engineer, just a middle aged guy with a High School diploma and a PhD. from the School of Hard Knocks.
Hydrogen gas is very corrosive and it would eventually kill the aluminum engines is today's cars. With all the unemployed across the country, there must be a boat load of very smart people who could figure out we can produce hydrogen on a large and small scale. I would be pleased to have a system at home that is constantly producing hydrogen. The gas needs to be compressed and stored in a tank, much like a scuba tank for portability and a larger tank for home cooking and heating.
How about designing a small car with a carbon fiber body, powered by a hydrogen gas turbine? I understand the M1 Abrams tank has a turbine engine in it, the engine RPM is constant, no matter if it's stopped or running 40 MPH.
These days of desperation and depression will very well be a blessing to those who can see opportunity rather than despair.
I assume you actually believe you are getting "free energy from the sun"? Did you get the PV panels for free? PV panels are so expensive and the amount of energy they generate is so small that they will never pay for themselves. That means you are better off buying the energy from the utility.
ReplyDeleteHydrogen is not a viable alternative to gasoline or even natural gas. Worse yet hydrogen is explosive and will blow up easily.
It takes energy to produce hydrogen. Given a very efficient system you could take 100% energy into the process and come out with 95% of the energy in the hudrogen you created. Then you could use the hydrogen to fuel your car or other device and lose another 5%. A less efficient system would probably lose 20%-30%. Unless you believe in perpetual motion you should understand that you don't get something for nothing. Your hydrogen dreams are more like a nightmare.
Solar panels, like everything else in this world are made in China, by exploited workers, earning pennies per day.
ReplyDeleteHydrogen is explosive... is gasoline and natural gas.