Booming Solar Energy Halted by Hawaii Utility Because Sun Produces Too Much Power!

Let's try to summarize this astounding Scientific American article that symbolizes the tentacles of the fossil fuel industry and utility companies in perpetuating destructive climate change.

Actually, the header and sub-headline of the piece sum it up nicely: "A Solar Boom so Successful, It's Been Halted: Photovoltaics proved so successful in Hawaii that the local utility, [the Hawaiin Electric Company] (HECO), has instituted policies to block further expansion."

Hawaiin residents are investing their own money to save longterm costs and the environment. The result is that they are producing a surplus of solar energy beyond what they can use in their homes. This extra energy is supposed to be diverted back into the power grid to save money on HECO's reliance on oil and to reduce global warming.

Now the US does have an aged electrical grid and HECO makes the claim that the surge in solar energy production by homeowners is creating safety problems:

Hawaiian Electric Co., or HECO, in September told solar contractors on Oahu that the island's solar boom is creating problems. On many circuits, the utility said, there's so much solar energy that it poses a threat to the system and a safety issue. Studies are needed on whether grid upgrades are necessary. If they are, residents adding solar must foot the bill. And starting immediately, contractors and residents would need permission to connect most small rooftop systems to the grid.

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18389-booming-solar-energy-halted-by-hawaii-utility-because-it-produces-too-much-power

It is Way Better to Give than to Receive ...

Cmon everyone lets sing that family favorite, "Let's Frack Some More", by Oily Residue

When facts are stated you call it arrogant and hateful ... WOW ...

You sound like a REPUBLICANT ....

This link is where I get my information ... a very well respected Christian website ... Christians do not lie ....

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/1010/Obamacare-101-Why-the-real-deadline-is-Feb.-15-video


and YES, I have several family members who have signed up on the website with no problemo .... I have not asked them if they got there cards yet because that is on the insurance companies and I have said it before and I will say it again, INSURANCE COMPANIES SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN HEALTHCARE ... I personally believe that insurance companies will drag there feet as long as they can before they issue Obamacare cards ...

Just noticed that 3 out of the top 10 Best Selling Non-Fiction books are from ....

the craziest MFs on the face of the planet ... Kraut-nose, O'Really, and Insane Beck ...

http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/hardcover-nonfiction/list.html

If we want our progressive message to be seen and heard, I ask where is it in mainstream America?

How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme—Again

You can hardly turn on the television or open a newspaper without hearing about the nation's impressive, much celebrated housing recovery. Home prices are rising! New construction has started! The crisis is over! Yet beneath the fanfare, a whole new get-rich-quick scheme is brewing.

Over the last year and a half, Wall Street hedge funds and private equity firms have quietly amassed an unprecedented rental empire, snapping up Queen Anne Victorians in Atlanta, brick-faced bungalows in Chicago, Spanish revivals in Phoenix. In total, these deep-pocketed investors have bought more than 200,000 cheap, mostly foreclosed houses in cities hardest hit by the economic meltdown.

Wall Street's foreclosure crisis, which began in late 2007 and forced more than 10 million people from their homes, has created a paradoxical problem. Millions of evicted Americans need a safe place to live, even as millions of vacant, bank-owned houses are blighting neighborhoods and spurring a rise in crime. Lucky for us, Wall Street has devised a solution: It's going to rent these foreclosed houses back to us. In the process, it's devised a new form of securitization that could cause this whole plan to blow up—again.

Since the buying frenzy began, no company has picked up more houses than the Blackstone Group, the largest private equity firm in the world. Using a subsidiary company, Invitation Homes, Blackstone has grabbed houses at foreclosure auctions, through local brokers, and in bulk purchases directly from banks the same way a regular person might stock up on toilet paper from Costco.

In one move, it bought 1,400 houses in Atlanta in a single day. As of November, Blackstone had spent $7.5 billion to buy 40,000 mostly foreclosed houses across the country. That's a spending rate of $100 million a week since October 2012. It recently announced plans to take the business international, beginning in foreclosure-ravaged Spain.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/wall-street-buying-foreclosed-homes

and we wonder why housing prices are increasing in certain areas of the country ....

======================================================================================

The only reason wall street is blowing this bubble is because they make more money renting homes than lending money to purchase homes ...

I have said it before and I will say it again,

SOMEBODY OTHER THAN BANKS HAVE TO LEND MONEY TO AMERICANS TO PURCHASE HOMES .... the banks have become like insurance companies, keep them away from the consumer ... or they will sell you rape insurance but only if your credit score is above 750 ... cmon America, we can do better than this ...



BELOW IS THE MOST DANGEROUS SCENARIO FOR ANYONE RENTING TODAY FROM WALL STREET !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"There's one significant way, however, in which this kind of security differs from its mortgage-backed counterpart. When banks repossess mortgaged homes as collateral, there is at least the assumption (often incorrect due to botched or falsified paperwork from the banks) that the homeowner has, indeed, defaulted on her mortgage. In this case, however, if a single home-rental bond blows up, thousands of families could be evicted, whether or not they ever missed a single rental payment."

"We could well end up in that situation where you get a lot of people getting evicted... not because the tenants have fallen behind but because the landlords have fallen behind," says Baker.

Capitalism: Wrecking Societies for the Benefit of Big Capital and the Super-Rich

The evidence suggests that capitalism has become wholly predatory and has given up all pretense of being "socially responsible."

Are all of the socioeconomic issues confronting Europe and the United States - recession or stagnant growth, skyrocketing unemployment, lowered prospects for new job creation, a demand shortage, a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, social malaise - merely consequences of the financial crisis of 2007-08?

A strong case can be made that what we have been witnessing since then is not simply a severe financial crisis centered in the developed world but the fact that today's capitalism is simply incapable of functioning in an economic way conducive to maintaining sustainable and balanced growth.

The so-called "financialization" of the economy, so prone to financial crises and meltdowns as the late Hyman Minsky has shown, cannot be understood independent of the production processes or developments in the real economy. Advanced capitalism had been facing severe structural stresses, strains and deformations - including overproduction, trade deficits, lack of job growth and elevated public and private debt levels - for quite a few decades prior to the eruption of the financial crisis of 2007-08.

Indeed, the "financialization" wave - which many have labeled "casino capitalism" or "stock market capitalism" but which amounts essentially to the deregulation of giant financial entities capable of shaping and controlling the fate of national economies - began as a result of the structural problems associated with the postwar regime of capital accumulation, whose collapse in the mid-1970s threatened the growing expansion of capitalism. Thus, "financialization" does not spring out of the blue but emerges as an alternative model to the decay of the postwar regime of accumulation.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20558-actually-existing-capitalism-wrecking-societies-for-the-benefit-of-big-capital-and-the-super-rich

ALEC standing there ground, right into oblivion ...

ALEC Stands Its Ground, but Stumbles

"I'm proud to stand with ALEC today," declared Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday, as he addressed the American Legislative Exchange Council in Washington D.C.

"I first came to ALEC over a decade ago. When I was serving in the Bush administration, I'd been privileged to work with ALEC in the federal government," Cruz said. "I've been privileged to work with ALEC when I was back in Texas with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, leading the 10th Amendment Center."

As Cruz addressed the conference, around 200 activists marched outside, waving signs reading "A Legislator for Every Corporation" and chanting "you can hear us loud and clear -- we want ALEC out of here!"

Cruz (who became notorious for his effort to shutdown the government) was at ALEC to give its corporate lobbyists and state legislator members a pep talk. It was a rough week for the organization that has become known as a "corporate bill mill."


http://truth-out.org/news/item/20522-alec-stands-its-ground-but-stumbles

ALEC calls for penalties on “free rider” solar-panel owners

An alliance of corporations and conservative activists is mobilizing to penalize homeowners who install their own solar panels — casting them as “free riders” — in a sweeping new offensive against renewable energy.

Over the coming year, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will promote legislation with goals ranging from penalizing individual homeowners and weakening state clean energy regulations, to blocking the Environmental Protection Agency, which is Barack Obama’s main channel for climate action.

Details of ALEC’s strategy to block clean energy development at every stage — from the individual rooftop to the White House — are revealed as the group gathers for its policy summit in Washington this week.

About 800 state legislators and business leaders are due to attend the three-day event, which begins on Wednesday with appearances by the Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson and fellow Wisconsinite and Republican budget guru Paul Ryan.

http://grist.org/climate-energy/alec-calls-for-penalties-on-free-rider-solar-panel-users/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%2520Dec%25209&utm_campaign=daily

Price is no money down ... and Germany and other European countries ...

have been utilizing this technology for at least 5 years ....