Monthly Archives: August 2025

Dim Future

25 Monday Aug 2025

Posted by in Inactivity, Politics

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        The future is not bright because our elected officials of both parties are more concerned about how to make sure they are re-elected in the next election than the distant future.

            Everyone knows we are running full speed into a debt disaster yet they keep cutting taxes and exempting more and more income from individuals and businesses. The longer those sitting in the capitol building run up the debt, the harder it will be to fix it. Remember, the economy boomed during the President Clinton Presidency and that tax rate while paying down the debt. Congress should go back to that rate and do away with more corporate exemptions lobbyists paid for. The longer they worry about re-election, the more painful it will be to ninety-nine percent of us.

            Social Security and Medicare are not being replenished by today’s workers. Again Washington knows how to fix it and most of us know also. A quick change to push the problem farther away is to remove the salary cap so all incomes pay into it whether it’s a wage or an investment. Cap all payouts to anyone with an income of over $150,000. As more robots replace humans, the human cannot pay into Social Security so a solution would be for the company to continue the social Security payment for that replaced human.

            Only a duped fool cannot see global warming is here and getting worse every day. Today’s Congress is bent on increasing the country’s contribution of carbon dioxide and methane. It seems we read every day they have done something to peel back laws and regulations designed to try to save humanity from a very ugly future. The future is much worse than today.

            Congressional members need to be more concerned about us than keeping their chairs.

Youngsters and Inflation

16 Saturday Aug 2025

Posted by in Inflation

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        What is inflation and how does it affect people? I am 77 years old and I didn’t understand what it was until I was in my late twenties. A friend told me it was better to own a home than to rent because the value would go up and I could write off the interest on the mortgage. Then when building it I noticed a clipping under a glass countertop about how much a pair of tennis shoes would go up based on the inflation rate. The house we built has quadrupled in value plus some.

            In the early 1960s Dad was filling the Pick-up with $.27 a gallon of gasoline. When I got my GTO in 1967 I paid $.33. My first year at Murray State University the tuition had gone up a third to $120 a semester. My entire cost for a dorm room, five day meal ticket, and books was less than $1,000. My girl friend, now wife, and I drove the 125 miles back home on every other weekend for less than five bucks.

            The second year we didn’t get a full meal ticket and ate at restaurants for dinner. Several places had specials on certain days. Gino’s plate of spaghetti was less than a dollar, KFC on Sunday was a three piece for $.89, a big boy sandwich was large and it was still less than a dollar with a drink; fries and two drinks was just $.50 more. We became friends with the Thoroughbred Drive-in became we ate there several times a week. I could buy us 6 corn dogs or 7 hamburgers for a dollar. Fries and two drinks was $.50 more.

            My taxes for our house were $620 for the first few years. Now with our senior deductions we pay over 12 times more. My two year-old GTO cost $1,800 including taxes and today the taxes would equal that much for most two year-old ones.

            Yes, I really understand inflation now.         

Nuclear Power in Illinois

14 Thursday Aug 2025

Posted by in Nuclear Plants, Nuclear Power

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        I worked at the Braidwood and LaSalle Nuclear Stations as a construction engineer and did inspections of the company’s equipment at Dresden and Quad Cities. Braidwood was supposed to be a twin of Byron but the Braidwood Superintendent for Commonwealth Edison decided to put in piping systems in a different order than Byron did. If we encountered a pipe that Byron had installed in one route we might have to change its route to avid one we had already installed. Designing while building increases time and cost.

            Byron, Braidwood, and LaSalle are 1,000 plus megawatt nuclear generating stations. Each has two reactors with two turbines to generate electricity from the steam produced in the reactors by fission. Byron and Braidwood are pressured water which does not go through the rod bundles and thus does not have a chance of becoming contaminated. LaSalle is a boiling water system which the water goes through the reactor producing steam.

            Both types take a couple of decades to build from the start to producing power. Theoretically a cookie cutter design and construction could shave a few years off the time. Pre-fabrication of some systems and hangers might shave a few more months off but I can’t see the time being cut to less than 15 years.

            The next generation reactors China is producing takes a lot less time and they are supposed to be building at least twenty now. We are looking at building smaller 300 megawatt reactors and micro ones producing 50 megawatts. Both could be mostly pre-fabbed in a shop and shipped to the site. My concern is one of safety. Existing stations are full of security people and equipment. Will the smaller ones be as safe or an easy terrorist target?

Imminent Disaster

14 Thursday Aug 2025

Posted by in National Debt, President Trump

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        Donald J. Trump is famous for business bankruptcies and leaving partners and banks with losses. He is doing it now for the United States. His tax cuts benefits him while running up the National Debt even with a good economy. As we all know every good economy is punctuated by a poor economy which cuts tax income.

            A simple solution is for all the tax cuts to be rescinded when the debt reaches forty trillion dollars and stays rescinded until the debt drops to twenty trillion. If the debt continues to grow the corporate tax and the personal taxes will increase two percent for incomes over 100,000 dollars when it reaches forty-two trillion and two percent for every trillion afterward.

            American has a choice; fiscal responsibility or collapse of our economy by bankruptcy. It is a little pain now or a total disaster later. There is no third choice. Both parties are responsible and voter pressure is all that can avert disaster.