Trump to Increase Subsidy for Mines

[Farmer77]

Just now, AnchorSteam said:

Then how about this; The Govt. will agree to buy it back, but only if; The land is suitable for a return to status as a National forest/parkland/whatever. 

Failing that, their only options would be to make it residential, but you can't really make that work in an isolated Wilderness. People have tried, and the failures have been spectacular in many cases.

Location, location, location...

A small part of it could be made into a resort or something similar, but tourists are even more finicky than the Government about what they like or don't like, and more fickle in some cases.

I still like the "You broke it, you own it" thing, and property taxes are nothing to sneeze at, not when it is thousands of acres and the bill keeps coming due every year. 

I cant argue with any of that for sure! I am quite impressed 

So when are you running for office ?  

[AnchorSteam]

2 minutes ago, Farmer77 said:

So when are you running for office ?  

Hmmm.... right after I get my head examined.

I put this up once before as a joke, but it fits my views very well ... and why it is probably a good idea to keep my head down more than I do.

 

 

[Farmer77]

Just now, AnchorSteam said:

Hmmm.... right after I get my head examined.

I put this up once before as a joke, but it fits my views very well ... and why it is probably a good idea to keep my head down more than I do.

 

 

OMG that made my day , freaking awesome and yeah im largely there with you. Ive identified as an independent/ libertarian for years now but I do find myself leaning more and more towards some of the more socialistic concepts as a result of what I see as gross corporate overreach. 

[Tatetopa]

2 hours ago, aztek said:

we are, by keeping\getting them employed.  when mine owners do not make profit, they close the business, lay off miners. that is just how it works,   

what exactly did you have in mind in your post? give miners part\collective ownership of the mines, and just take them away from their owner(mining company, or gvmnt if land is leased by company). 

what are the exact mechanics of  your "supporting miners and mining communities not mine owners".

Seizing private property is not a good path for a democracy to follow.  I am not even certain all cases of "eminent domain" can be justified as for the people's good. No seizure of assets.

Giving people collective ownership does not work.  There are some large collectively owned businesses, Lincoln Motor, Winco,  you can read a list here:  https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100.

Generally employees buy a share and a job or earn it, it is not given to them.  Giving it to them free doesn't make sense to anybody and is not good economic practice.  Employees that worked for their share don't want to give free shares away. Giving mine owners a subsidy is also anti-capitalist.  Free markets don't work that way.

You mention businesses needing to make a profit or they close; very true.  I am an employee and I know my worth to the company to the penny and so do they.  All of the engineers where I work have to generate revenue for the company of 3.5x salary and benefits to keep their jobs.  We have weekly tracking of our projects and quarterly reviews.  The hourly people are monitored for productivity in a similar fashion, but generally results are a department graph until somebody gets called out for failing to make production.  After my salary and benefits are paid to me, 2.5X is left for expenses, overhead, payment to shareholders, and profit.  If a business can't make it on that, they are stupid, greedy, or in  the wrong field.  I also realize that small businesses and self-employed people do not all have those high margins, lets leave them out of this for a while.

Unless you are a total loser, you are not lucky to have a job, the company you work for is lucky to have you.  You can and should show gratitude and loyalty, but never fall into the trap of thinking they are doing you a favor.  They might pull you through a rough time but it is a calculated investment in you on the assumption that you will perform. 

If the government wanted me to keep my job when I can't earn a profit for my company, you taxpayers would have to pay my company 3.5X my salary or some proportion of it to keep me employed.  Not a good deal for the tax payer.  Same story  with mine owners. 

So you have a choice; let unemployed miners fend for themselves, starve, flourish, or become drug addicts and die.  Some of you would say that is the logical Darwinian choice, they must be worthless because they are poor depressed and lazy.  Is that a right wing conservative choice?  Maybe not.

Some on the ultra-left would maybe say take care of them give them benefits without working because the mine owners are heartless criminals and capitalism is evil.  Maybe not.

I am somewhere in the middle so here are my mechanics:

Healthcare: do not cut funding for small rural clinics and hospitals as is planned.  Give them more if they need it to improve and expand care.  This is true for rural hospitals all across the country, they are suffering and people that live in small communities see a decrease in availability of health care.    Train some of those miners or their families to take temperatures, blood pressure, run an X-ray machine for broken bones, give flu shots, respiratory therapy, and other primary health care services.  Offer college scholarships to some of the sons and daughters of miners that will go to medical or dental school and spend 5 years after graduation working in  a rural community.  Far better use of our tax dollars.

Education: do not cut funding for public schools as is planned. Strengthen schools.  Expand job training in high school.  Teach auto-mechanics, carpentry,  electrical, and machine shop skills; but all of those fields now employ computers.  To be competitive, kids need to learn how to use a diagnostic computer on a car or program a 5-axis milling machine.  Throw in some material on personal health and finance.  This is useful not only in mining country, but in every large US city as well.

Infrastructure: get cracking on that 100 billion dollars promised to improve infrastructure.  Many miners already operate heavy equipment, some of it in dangerous underground conditions.  They could learn to build roads, be steel workers, or other tradesmen.  To modernize infrastructure, we need as many good electricians, pipe fitters, and construction specialists as we do computer programmers.  Again, not limited to coal country.  New roads, a power grid safe from hacking, modern ports and railroads are a benefit to all because they increase our competitiveness as a nation. Much better use of tax dollars than lining the pockets of mine owners.

That's enough. this is already too long.

That is my mechanics for making America Great Again; not by trickling down charity from those above but by spreading prosperity and giving all a chance to participate in a more egalitarian society.

 

 

[+OverSword]

On 8/11/2017 at 4:15 PM, Thanato said:

He does know that coal is a dying industry right?

Actually it's been projected that China's biggest industry outside of it's borders in the near future will be building coal based power plants in the third world.  Coal is far from a dying industry.

[SHaYap]

Not lately ... after the latest World Climate Accords, the Signatories are already giving up on the gig ...
 

Quote

 

~

Total Number Of Coal Plants Plummeting Globally | CleanTechnica

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/03/23/global-number-coal-plants-plummeting/

Mar 23, 2017 - The total number of coal-fired power plants under development around the world plummeted in 2016, including a 48% decline in overall ...

 

~

Global coal power: capacity up, utilisation down - EnergyPost.eu

energypost.eu/coal-power-capacity-keeps-growing-utilisation-going/

Apr 8, 2016 - Global coal power: capacity keeps going up, utilisation goes down. ... Worldwide the equivalent of 1500 coal plants is under construction or in various stages of planning. ... The report notes that utilisation rates of coal-fired power plants have gone down in all parts of the world:

 

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Coal in 'freefall' as new power plants dive by two-thirds | Environment ...

https://www.theguardian.com › Environment › Coal

Mar 22, 2017 - A coal power plant in China spews out smoke and dust ... said a record amount of coal power station capacity was also retired globally last year ...

 

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List of Coal PowerPlants - GEO - Global Energy Observatory

globalenergyobservatory.org/list.php?db=PowerPlants&type=Coal

6 days ago - Name. Design Capacity (MWe). Country. State. AES Central Thermal San Nicolas Power Plant Argentina, 650, Argentina, Buenos Aires.

~

 

 

[aztek]

yet the list still pretty large, it will take several decades for coal  to be phased out,  manufacturers are building new, more efficient and a lot cleaner coal equipment,

but energy per lb, coal is still above natural gas,  it is a lot safer as far as transport, what happens when tanker train derails? eco disaster, what happens when coal train derails, not much, coal is not toxic, can be picked up, loaded in other car and send on its way. it is a lot easier to store than any gas\liquid, it can be stored for unlimited amount of time, gasoline\diesel has shelf life, 

last generation steam locomotives used powered coal,  it burned a lot cleaner,   so are new coal burning plants.   

he is absolutely right to revive that industry, some states economy depends on it. we still export millions tons of it,.

[Farmer77]

Just now, aztek said:

he is absolutely right to revive that industry, some states economy depends on it. we still export millions tons of it,.

but he's not reviving the industry, the fact is he CANT noone can. Its just throwing good money after bad. 

[Dark_Grey]

15 minutes ago, aztek said:

yet the list still pretty large, it will take several decades for coal  to be phased out,  manufacturers are building new, more efficient and a lot cleaner coal equipment,

I would like to know more about this. They must see a future for coal if they are investing in new technologies for it

[aztek]

6 minutes ago, Dark_Grey said:

I would like to know more about this. They must see a future for coal if they are investing in new technologies for it

https://www.energy.siemens.com/us/en/fossil-power-generation/steam-turbines/steam-turbines-in-power-plants.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/10/americas-first-clean-coal-plant-is-now-operational-and-another-is-on-the-way/?utm_term=.e5088caa3da0

 

[aztek]

17 minutes ago, Dark_Grey said:

I would like to know more about this. They must see a future for coal if they are investing in new technologies for it

they do not see future, they are making future

[Gromdor]

5 minutes ago, aztek said:

https://www.energy.siemens.com/us/en/fossil-power-generation/steam-turbines/steam-turbines-in-power-plants.htm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/10/americas-first-clean-coal-plant-is-now-operational-and-another-is-on-the-way/?utm_term=.e5088caa3da0

 

  Not to be a drag but those two projects in the United States are for carbon capture systems at existing coal plants.  The systems don't really make coal cheaper but just addresses the emissions issues. 

I can't think of any large scale new coal plant construction in the United States.  The last three power plants I have built here in Iowa have been combined cycle natural gas plants.  Siemens happily provided the turbines for those as well.  The only coal work in the last twenty years I have done have been crusher/boiler/precipitator repair and overfire air and scrubber/baghouse additions.  Thousands of wind turbines though.

A lot of the links you have provided, referenced China.  Which is understandable given their growth spurt.  But even the Chinese are turning away from coal and even if they didn't they could import coal from North Korea.

[aztek]

1 minute ago, Gromdor said:

  Not to be a drag but those two projects in the United States are for carbon capture systems at existing coal plants.  The systems don't really make coal cheaper but just addresses the emissions issues. 

I can't think of any large scale new coal plant construction in the United States.  The last three power plants I have built here in Iowa have been combined cycle natural gas plants.  Siemens happily provided the turbines for those as well.  The only coal work in the last twenty years I have done have been crusher/boiler/precipitator repair and overfire air and scrubber/baghouse additions.  Thousands of wind turbines though.

A lot of the links you have provided, referenced China.  Which is understandable given their growth spurt.  But even the Chinese are turning away from coal and even if they didn't they could import coal from North Korea.

yes, but that will enable existing plants to operate for many decades, complying to stricter pollution standards, there was a list posted of all coal plants, china and india are leaders, if china wont buy india and other countries would,  we have plenty of our own coal plants, hundreds,  as do other countries. 

for some reason Siemens builds newer, more efficient coal plant equipment,  and i'm sure they are not the only ones.  coal is not going anywhere soon,  sure its use is not as widespread as 100 years ago. but it is still there, we still make 30% of our power with using coal. 

[lightly]

On August 11, 2017 at 3:51 PM, aztek said:

didn't we already have a thread about it? 

about subsidies, obama gave 700B to banks in 2008, and additional 150B in tax brakes. for something they knew would happen. 

so i do not mind trump giving subsidies to coal miners,  

You make it sound as if " coal miners" will benefit?  No, mine owners/operators will benefit.... Monetarily.

Uncle Sam bails out and subsidizes things like them...and banks...and insurance company's...and drug companies... etc.

the ones already making the most money have the political clout to get subsidized and ,thereby, make MORE money

it's nothing new... Bush did it, Obama did it, Trump will help the rich as well.  It's not a left/right thing....it's an ongoing symptom of corrupted government.

Edited August 14, 2017 by lightly

[Farmer77]

Just now, lightly said:

it's nothing new... Bush did it, Obama did it, Trump will help the rich as well.  It's not a left/right thing....it's an ongoing symptom of corrupted government.

Exactly! Its not right vs left, its them vs us 

[aztek]

53 minutes ago, lightly said:

You make it sound as if " coal miners" will benefit?  No, mine owners/operators will benefit.... Monetarily.

 

coal miners will have a job, vs not having one, this is how they benefit,  is it not monetarily? 

 

Edited August 14, 2017 by aztek