A funny take on the stimulus checks / “Big Apple” / searching for alternative energy
May 06, 2008
– Comments (13) |
RELATED TICKERS: GE
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While doing research on the government stimulus checks and the potential impact that they will have upon the economy, I stumbled across this hilarious take on them from comedic author Dave Barry:
“Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will
send to taxpayers.
Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.
Q. So the government is giving me back my own
money?
A. Only a smidgen.
Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to
purchase a high-definition TV set, thus
stimulating the economy.
Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of
China?
A. Shut up.”
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Speaking of terrible economic policy decisions that will have a detrimental impact upon the U.S. dollar, how about that gas tax holiday. Apparently it wasn’t ridiculed enough in the media when McCain proposed it because Hillary has hopped on the bandwagon now as well. She has responded to criticism of the gas tax holiday by a panel of 200 economists, including four former Nobel price winners, by essentially calling them elitist (see article: Clinton dismisses 'elite' economists on gas tax plan). HAHAHAHAHAHA. I realize that economists are often wrong...as the saying goes they have correctly predicted fourteen of the last three recessions or something like that...but I think that I am going to go with them over her on this one. Let me see if I can simplify things for her:
Let’s say that you have a thing that is the backbone of your entire economy…for the purpose of this exercise we’ll call it apples. You use apple juice to drive your cars, fly your planes, power your boats, create plastic containers to put things in, to create fertilizer to grow food…basically everything. The problem with apples is that 90% of the world’s supply of them is controlled by people other than American companies, aka “Big Apple.” On top of that, many of these people either completely hate you, have already picked a lot of their low hanging fruit, have underinvested in their apple harvesting infrastructure, or have such political turmoil that gathering apples in their country is not safe.
What is the logical solution to this problem? How about we tax “Big Apple” and use that money to lower the taxes on apples for consumers? What’s that you say? Doing so will only cause them to use more of this finite resource and make matters worse. Huh. I guess that was a dumb idea after all. It would be like using corn to fuel our larger than necessary SUVs and trucks while global hunger is causing people to riot. What? We’re already doing that. Oh.
Good grief. We’re all doomed (I say this somewhat jokingly, but unfortunately not enough). If you’re going to tax the heck out of Big Oil, which I disagree with, but that’s a whole different debate, at least use the money to fund research on alternative energy, not to encourage U.S. citizens to consumer even more gas.
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OK, I need a new sector to focus my research on. First I was in love with spin-offs, then ag companies, then oil, I’m looking for suggestions for a new sector to dig around in. Alternative energy is interesting, but solar has obviously already had a huge run. One company that I have been peeking at a little lately is Energy Conversion Devices (ENER). I’m not usually a big fan of companies that don’t make money, but these guys look like they might soon and they have a huge stable of patents.
Some wind plays that have popped up on my radar including FPL and Otter Tail (OTTR), the latter of which I have owned in the past. GE is obviously a huge player in this arena, and the huge drop in its stock price makes it look much more attractive, but it’s just too big (that’s an understatement) for my taste. Does anyone out there have any suggestions that I can do some research on? Let’s throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
Thanks and have a good one.
Deej
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