NOTE: Several family members were brutally slaughtered recently, so I will take a break from writing. Their deaths erased my affinity for writing about politics or the economy, thus I'll later limit myself to health and brainpower in addition to completing my book on rapidly overcoming racism and bigotry. BTW, the two men who murdered my father are still on the lam; I am offering up to $100,000 for information leading to their arrest and conviction.
My green energy idea makes economic sense
The Solyndra debacle gave green energy yet another black eye. Because tax rebates and government subsidies are often necessary to keep green energy companies in business, green energy critics often blast politicians such as President Obama for supporting green energy.
First, as I discussed in From Bailout to Bliss, U.S. taxpayers pay dearly to subsidize traditional energy sources, such as Middle East oil. All of the direct and indirect costs, including environmental damage, loss of life, and myriad health problems—from heart attacks and strokes to birth defects and premature aging—is staggering. If you knew what you really paid for traditional energy sources, you'd be very surprised, possibly livid, and likely more supportive of politicians wise enough to know that traditional energy sources are deceptively priced lower than their true cost. Paying for something via higher taxes or higher national debt doesn't seem as immediately obvious as paying more per gallon when you fill your gas tank, but camouflaging the cost does not make it any more affordable.
Second, green energy can make economic sense now, even without financial incentives from the government. I modified my home last winter in a way that made it much more energy efficient. The winter was long and cold, but I didn't turn my furnace on even once. In spite of that, I was more comfortable than I'd been in past years when the furnace burned tons of propane.
Thomas Edison said, “There's a way to do it better — find it.”
Well, I did. It is not the job of President Obama and other politicians to be inventors; their job is to recognize good ideas and help foster them when most people are too hidebound, and deluded by deceptively low prices, to know that we must indeed have change.
If President Obama got behind my proven energy idea, consumers could save a boatload of money this winter and every year thereafter. Consumers who chose a more advanced (but still very affordable) variation of it would save even more, winter and summer, and significantly boost their home values. Most home improvements return only cents on the dollar; adding my invention would return much more than it cost, making the decision to add it a no-brainer. Another plus is that my idea would put millions of people back to work now.
