CS Electricity (& the financial crisis...)

Electricity is really the choke point for what you can do. there is about 28% silicon by weight, 8% aluminum, 6% iron, and a little of everything else in dirt, once you break everything down ot elements. (www.indiana.edu/~geol116/week2/mineral.htm)
If you have good energy, you have plenty of metal etc.

So what kind of energy?

I would suggest a mix between Solar and nuclear, about 2/3 solar, 1/3 nuclear.

For solar, I think sterling cycle, which can be realistically 50% efficient, and for nuclear, U-233 from thorium, with the neutrons manufactured through nuclear spallation (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/spallation). If it were up to me, once again heat (fron the reactor) to energy by sterling cycles. Work would be done on fusion, of course.

What do you think?

Solar towers should be used, with Tidal, maybe wind. Biofuels as well, if we recycle all the Methane from the sewerage plants. It's not that I'm one of those anti-nuclear radiaphobics (new word - fear of radiation), it's just that we don't need a Nuclear plant that, if one core had an accident, would destroy the entire city. I am in favor of having a Fusion weapons plant though, for a clean Orion system.

It all comes down to economics. I would prefer if the city had some of the cheapest electricity prices in the developed world; thereby attracting industrial investment. The nuclear power plant could be placed hundreds of kilometers away from the city (perhaps in an underground bunker). Electricity would be efficiently piped into the city via superconducting cables to avoid losses. Once there, you could distribute the electricity using many AC to DC converters which bring the power down to around 50V DC, which is non-lethal but will still provide power levels comparative to 110V AC.

This is an interesting forum--thanks for having it.

Electricity--energy specifically--I would argue should be 'free' for the use of all. Why 'free?'

Energy is going to be (already is) the cornerstone of society--given sufficient supplies of cheap and clean energy, virtually anything is possible. Clean fresh water can be easily desalinated by either distillation, reverse osmosis or both. Dedicated nuclear power plants driving mostly desalination systems could supply nearly all of the agricultural needs for the US with about 20 1000MWt power stations as an example...

Given sufficient supplies of cheap and clean energy--a single stream, universal recycling scheme could be implemented. Garbage and municipal and industrial wastes, both solid and liquid could be brought to a universal recycling facility and essentially 'burned' using a high pressure electric arc furnace and using pure oxygen to break down carbonaceous materials--the result toxic flue gases would be scrubbed, separated and then regenerated to form carbon, or hydrocarbons for plastics synthesis. Chlorine, bromine, etc. could also be separated and regenerated for various chemical uses in plastics, polymers, and pharmaceuticals. Given sufficient supplies of energy, 'waste' becomes yet another valuable resource!

Given sufficient supplies of energy, food production could be primarily handled by "Ag-Towers" which could be located in high-density near major population centers. "Ag-Towers" could be constructed as a high-rise variant of high productivity agricultural land. Being enclosed, such a facility could be totally climate controlled so that individual levels could grown crops from completely different environments: banannas, coconuts on one level; corn on another; lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, etc. on others. If ordinary honey bees cannot do the job of pollination in this environment, then perhaps small, special purpose-built robots could accomplish the same thing...? An Ag-Tower with fifty levels, covering two acres per level could conceivably have the productivity of a single farm of 100 acres land area.

Given sufficient supplies of clean and cheap energy--electrification of the world's highways becomes a possibility. Vehicles could tap into electromagnetic power grids beneath the road surfaces to power onboard electric motors, recharge onboard batteries, etc. Traffic coming down a steep grade could use regenerative breaking to back feed power into the road to partially offset the power consumed by the traffic climbing the same grade in the other lane, thus freeing the main electric grid to only supply makeup power to overcome system losses.

Lots of things are possible...when one thinks in terms of a totally clean slate!

The inertial confinement fussion reactor designed by the late Dr Bussard really looks like it should work, and work pretty cheaply, and safely. I wouldn't be surprised if it proved itself within five years. Seriously. No joke. Read their papers.

I've come to be wary of fusion. We were 20 years away from commercial fusion... 30 years ago.

For the last thirty years fusion research has been hacking away at thermodynamic fusion confined in a giant tokamak. Steady slow progress has been made year on year on making this daunting complex, imensely difficult fusion reactor work. And it will work. When ITER is built and running in twenty years or so I have no doubt it will break even. From here on in it is mostly an engineering problem.
However it is not the only way.
Dr R. W. Bussard was one of the founding fathers of the US fusion programme, for the last fifteen years of his life he worked for the US Navy developing an alternative approach as a possibly replacement for navy fission reactors. Before his death he took his project to the point were it too is just an engineering problem. The difference is that what he design was a whole lot simpler, smaller , cleaner and generally far cheaper to build. It operates by fundamentally different principles to a tokamak and faces far fewer problems. The physics of it is intuitive, compelling and elegant. It should work. There are enough published papers to show that. The cost is small enough to be within reach of venture capital, and silicon valley is moving into the energy sector. So I say again I wouldn't be surprised if something came of it witrhin five years.
Having said all that there is absolutely nothing wrong with building a couple hundred more fission reactors around the world, people are far too swayed by ill informed enviropeddlers.

Interesting TIME article on the geothermal potential of Cooper Basin (see map here):

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1818068,00.html

http://www.pb.com.au/PBAU/Projects/Innamincka+Geothermal+Power+Project/

I've always wondered just how much thermal energy we can extract from geologically active locations before we do something we really didn't want to do. I realise that the total energy locked in the planets core is huge compared to what is extracted but it also seems to be that magma convection is a massively nonlinear proccess and something we barely understand. I'm just a little concerned what randomly cooling bits of crust could do.

I'm sure even our best efforts at inducing an effect on the lower mantle, even if with all purposefulness, would surely have a less-than infinitesimal effect. Don't believe those hollywood films... ;-)

Actually, I'm quite charmed with the whole idea of tapping the geothermal potential of the Cooper Basin region. Perhaps so much so that I may be prepared to baseline it for the 'Esperance City' proposal.

The prospect of cheap geothermal energy production, and in large quantities, is a lot more attractive (and more crucially; investable) than a nuclear-based solution. This region, however, is about 1000km from the proposed site of Esperance City, so figure in the cost of a high-V DC transmission line as well (possibly a superconductive one).

- Mike

I'm sure if it had occured to someone tyo ask the question they would have said the same about the combustion engine.
Nuclear has the benefit of being a proven, mature, reliable, safe, climate neutral technology.

From what I've seen solar is the best choice for electricity production.
1. Minimal environmental impact. With a careful construction plan any changes to the environment and landscape would be completely reversible.
2. No pollutants, emissions or waste products.
3. No heat production. Does not contribute to global warming
4. Absorbs heat. Can actually reverse globall warming a little.
5. No public safety issues.
6. Clean infinitely renewable electricity production.

An ideal US location would be the old nuclear test site in Nevada. The land is uninhabitable and unuseable for anything but solar and wind.

I wouldn't go so far to say that solar energy would reduce global warming because it doesn't produce heat. While it doesn't pollute per say, the efficiency of the panels in converting light energy into electric is fairly low, causing the panels to get quite hot.

Plus, let's think about the amount of space needed for solar farms being hugely more vs. nuclear plants.

The panels are hot from the heat they are absorbing, not generating.

This is what I was talking about in point 1. If a solar array is closed down, the structure is removed and the area is reclaimed by nature. If a nuclear plant is shut down a large part can't just be removed. It has to be sealed up in concrete and just left and the land around it is unuseable for hundreds of years. Then of course you have the spent nuclear fuel to deal with as well.

If the panels get hot, they will radiate heat to the environment. I never said they generate heat necessarily. Also if they were absorbing heat completely, they would be cold.

Locksley wrote:

If the panels get hot, they will radiate heat to the environment. I never said they generate heat necessarily. Also if they were absorbing heat completely, they would be cold.

This is very true, but the panels get hot because of the heat they absorb. Also they do not absorb heat completely. Part, about 10%, gets converted to electricity the other 90% gets radiated or reflected out, unlike bare ground where 100% is being radiated or reflected out.

Bare ground doesn't reflect 100% of the sunlight.

Locksley wrote:

Bare ground doesn't reflect 100% of the sunlight.

That's not what I said. I said that 100% is being radiated OR reflected out. Maybe 50% is reflected and 50% is radiated. (not exact figures)

Quote :

4. Absorbs heat. Can actually reverse globall warming a little.

Honestly I think we'd need some scientific studies to see how the absorption/reflection activity of solar panels compares to that of the Earth's surface.

I think it's been suggested before that nuclear power plants be built almost entirely underground, thus eliminating above-ground site contamination. You could build a house on the site, or turn it into wildlife habitat if you wanted.

Locksley wrote:

Quote :

4. Absorbs heat. Can actually reverse globall warming a little.

Honestly I think we'd need some scientific studies to see how the absorption/reflection activity of solar panels compares to that of the Earth's surface.

I think it's been suggested before that nuclear power plants be built almost entirely underground, thus eliminating above-ground site contamination. You could build a house on the site, or turn it into wildlife habitat if you wanted.

It comes down to the law of conservation of energy and mass.

Let's say you take a square mile area. The sun beats down let's say 10 megawatts of energy on this land. If the land had solar panels on it maybe 1 megawatt would be converted to electricity, 4 megawatts would be reflected back and 5 megawatts would be radiated back.
If there were no solar panels, maybe 4.5 megawatts would be reflected back and 5.5 megawatts would be radiated back.
1+4+5=10 ; 4.5+5.5=10 These are arbitrary numbers, but conservation still holds true. 10 megawatts is always 10 megawatts whether it's heat, light or electricity.

1) Most people would consider paving over nevada to power California an enviromental impact, I suppose others might say an improvement. As for ease of dismantling, the same thing happens with nuclear power plants. In the western world they aren't sealed up but carfefully pulled apart and decontaminated, just like any other chemical site. As for the waste, well it is pitiful both in volume and lethality compared to waste from the chemicals industry.
2) I'm not certain but I think some fairly nasty things go into the making of pv cells.
3)/4)/5) Remember your basic physics, energy can't be created of destroyed. Solar cells just steal radiated energy from a local enviroment( the climate) and converts it to electrical energy which is then transfered across the country and converted back through various ways into heat and stored chemical energy (manufactured materials). The net result is an energy deficit for the climate and a redistrobution of heat away from an area creating a change in the micro climate. Ergo climate change. Solar is not free.
6) Solar cell production requires certain rare earth metals which are as their name implies. Certainly not infinitely available.

lkm wrote:

1) Most people would consider paving over nevada to power California an enviromental impact, I suppose others might say an improvement. As for ease of dismantling, the same thing happens with nuclear power plants. In the western world they aren't sealed up but carfefully pulled apart and decontaminated, just like any other chemical site. As for the waste, well it is pitiful both in volume and lethality compared to waste from the chemicals industry.
2) I'm not certain but I think some fairly nasty things go into the making of pv cells.
3)/4)/5) Remember your basic physics, energy can't be created of destroyed. Solar cells just steal radiated energy from a local enviroment( the climate) and converts it to electrical energy which is then transfered across the country and converted back through various ways into heat and stored chemical energy (manufactured materials). The net result is an energy deficit for the climate and a redistrobution of heat away from an area creating a change in the micro climate. Ergo climate change. Solar is not free.
6) Solar cell production requires certain rare earth metals which are as their name implies. Certainly not infinitely available.

I understand your concerns, but I have thought this out.

1) In my post on 11-09-08 9:24 I loosely addressed this. " With a careful construction plan any changes to the environment and landscape would be completely reversible." Paving over Nevada was never my intention. Mount the solar array on semi-mobile structures. From there, if they need to be taken down, you take them down and nature reclaims the land.

2) This is true, but maintaining a closed-loop recycling program minimizes the problem. There will undoubtedly be panels that will be damaged. You don't just throw them out, you recycle them to build new panels. Also many of these nasty chemicals are used in other devices as well. Instead of these devices just being thrown out, here's a safe recycling alternative.

3),4),5) If you look at the MICRO climate then we'll address that as we need to. If you look at the MACRO climate, the benefits far out-weigh the risks. Solar cells don't steal radiated energy, they absorb unuseable radiated energy and convert it to useable electrical energy without pollution. With enough of these cells, we could close down a heat generating, greenhouse gas producing, coal burning power plant.
As for this energy deficit and redistibution of heat, A micro climate change for the worse (and I don't validate that) in a sparsely inhabited desert as opposed to a POSITIVE micro climate change in a built up, industrial, densely populated, urban area. Lesser of two evils.
6) Rare Earth metals are not cheap but in this application they can more than pay for themselves. Additionally with new technologies come better solutions. We're making expensive, highly sought after, highly useful computer chips using SAND as a raw material!! Just imagine what the future holds for solar!

Re: Absorption/Reflection/Heat etc etc a couple posts back:

I understand what you're saying now, and I stand corrected.

Locksley wrote:

Re: Absorption/Reflection/Heat etc etc a couple posts back:

I understand what you're saying now, and I stand corrected.

"What we have heah is a failyah to communicate!" - Cool Hand Luke

I do my best to explain myself, but it's not easy. I flunked Eloquence 101!

I don't think you're thinking in scale. One solar panel is fine, it's effects are negligable. A hundred million? Power consumtion worldwide is in the Terawatts. The land that would have to be covered in pv panels to suppy any significant fraction of that would be huge. The number of panels that would have to be manufacture is vast. The climactic effects are largely unknown and uncalculated but clearly feasable. If you take climate change seriously how can you blithely dismiss this? So why is it that we should switch to this particular technology based on another climactic argument when we already have a mature, ready and low carbon technology that can do the job better?

lkm wrote:

I don't think you're thinking in scale. One solar panel is fine, it's effects are negligable. A hundred million? Power consumtion worldwide is in the Terawatts. The land that would have to be covered in pv panels to suppy any significant fraction of that would be huge. The number of panels that would have to be manufacture is vast. The climactic effects are largely unknown and uncalculated but clearly feasable. If you take climate change seriously how can you blithely dismiss this? So why is it that we should switch to this particular technology based on another climactic argument when we already have a mature, ready and low carbon technology that can do the job better?

First, I said that solar is the BEST choice for electricity production, not the ONLY choice.
Second, there are vast areas of land that are pretty much uninhabited and unused and pretty much unuseable, the deserts. In the US there's the Mohave, In Africa there's the Sahara, in Asia there's the Gobi, in Australia there's the Outback. From the information I've gathered the Sahara could power Europe and Africa combined very easily.
Third, I don't know why you are so passionately against solar, but with respect to global warming, the potential environment impact is the lesser of two evils, but IF there is a problem you just take down the panels and let nature restore itself.
Fourth, if the deserts are so important, fine lets look at land that has already been destroyed by man (without DRASTIC catastrophic consequences). Stick solar panels on the roofs of houses and buildings. Solar panels on the roof of a house take care of about half (on average) of the electric needs of the house.
Then there's farmland. The land has already been ruined. Whatever was there originally is gone, the damage is done. For the farms that the US government is paying farmers NOT to grow on, put up solar cells.
Fifth, I don't for one second advocate completely blanketing an area with solar cells. In fact a much more practical plan would be to mix in solar and wind turbines to make an energy farm.
Sixth, solar power is still young and there are new technologies that will be cheaper, more efficient and even more environmentally friendly. It doesn't just have be photovoltaic either. Australia is working on a solar powered convection turbine. There's also a reflective system that uses mirrors to focus sunlight at one focal point and heats a liquid that is used to convert water into steam and run a turbine generator. No toxic chemicals, no rare earth metals, just mirrors.
Seventh, from what I've read of your posts, you are an advocate of fusion and fission power. IF and when they make a viable fusion system then I'll reevaluate my position. I don't deny it has the potential of producing disgustingly cheap power.
With fission, this is viable but the remote but real danger of another worse Three Mile Island, or Chernobyl is there. There is also the need to dispose of the spent fuel. Also it does produce heat, lots of it, but thankfully no greenhouse gases.
Eighth, here's a little question for you. Despite your support of nuclear, if you had to choose between living next to a nuclear power plant or a solar farm which would you choose? Please don't be like our present administration. Show some integrity and answer the question honestly.

I'm not passionately anti anything, I'm just trying hard to be rational in an irrational world. We are in the current climate situation because the current energy infrastructure was adopted in adhoc peicemeal fashion without thought of long term consequences, which at the time were impossible to trully predict. I thus believe the rational response to that is not to make same mistake again. the rational response is to think carefully about the climate repercussions of whatever energy mix we choose to transition to. I believe that is the rational logical thing to do. So any head long rush into widescale solar or wide or tidal without adequate climate analysis of such powered worlds strikes me as irrational, foolish and clouded thinking, fogged by some fanciful vision of being at one with nature. Making the same mistakes all over again does not seem wise to me, and saying if we fuck up we can always try a third time has a tinge of the arrogance that got us here.
Desserts are home to many peoples, they may not have much clout but they may not appreciate you puting a roof over their head.
Farms feed people, we need that.
Anywhere with good wind does not have good solar.
Three mile island killed no one, Chernobyl killed only 56 and was entirely due to everyone doing the wrong thing. You are more likely to be hit three time by a meteor than for a modern reactor to breach, deaths per kilowatt are lower for fission than for coal oil or gas. Vastly more, and vastly more dangerous, waste is produced by the chemicals industry every day and it is safely disposed of.
This is a tough question. They would both be pretty impressive. How near are you talking? A large solar array is quite a site, but you'd be unlikely to be allowed up close. Nuclear reactors are also quite something, they have very good visitor centres too. Plus they add something to the skyline as well.
On the one hand where I used to live there was a very nice reactor thirty miles away so a solar array would be new and different, I've seen reactors up close, so to speak, but never an array. On the other a solar farm near where I live now would be an operation disaster given light levels and terrain. I think a new reactor would realistically be the most feasable between the two options for my locale, though if a windfarm had been included I might have gone for that, they are so very cool up close, and work very well where I am. We really could do with more of them. I tried to be honest, and realistic.

I'm curious as to where you live. I live in Arizona and seeing this huge, mostly unpopulated, arid landscape and seeing sunlight intense enough to turn a sidewalk into a poor man's frying pan, I see vast potential in solar.
Granted there are places where there is a delicate ecosystem, Arizona ain't one of them! Desert life is extremely resilient. To see the desert burst into life after a rain is incredible. In fact it's a little sad that there isn't more shade at times so the vegetation wouldn't die off so quickly. This is what I think about when I think of solar. Put up some shade with solar panels, produce electricity, as well as shade the ground so when the rain comes it has a chance to sink in rather than evaporate. The plants have a chance to grow, the shade gives them partial protection during the day so they don't dry up, and this shade allows them to live long enough to survive till the next rain, when they enjoy even more life.
Excuse my poetic moment, but it really is like this. The biggest problem with solar in Arizona isn't killing off life, it's that the life might overgrow the solar panels!

West coast of Scotland for me, and I actually forgot there's another reactor sixty miles away from me.
You bring up an interesting point though, how would the dessert ecosystem respond to a change in the micro climate and a great increase in shade and moisture. would you find what's there now doing better or would you find different plants better suited to more shade slightly cooler temperatures and different moisture levels moving to colonise solar farms.

From what I've seen it would make the Amazon Forest look like a flower bed! LOL
My guess is the the vegetation from the north would migrate south, but only to a point. These desert plants are very hardy and would compete with the northern plants for nutrients. Either way in a very short period of time, the difference would be visible from space. Instead of seeing a brown desert you would see a wide diversity of different colors as well as seeing the green migrating south. Another point: all those extra plants would be absorbing more CO2.

As for being from Scotland, this is where we're getting our wires crossed. In Scotland solar panels aren't very practical. Being that far north and having such frequent cloud cover, as well as having limited land mass, nuclear is a better option. Wind and tidal power could be quite effective as well, especially tidal power in the English channel.
This is where the misunderstandings came from. Scotland and Arizona are vastly different places. Our perspectives are completely different. You get more rain in a week than we get in an entire year, and we get more sunlight in a week than you get in an entire year! From your perspective solar power is useless. From my perspective a solar panel would make a welcome sunshade! I just looked at Glasgow weather, your HIGH temperature is 62 F! In Phoenix It's 95 F!! No wonder we got our wires crossed!!

I stumble upon this and it reminded me of Polywell.
Arthur C. Clarke's first law of prediction:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

It's the double edged sword of experience.  Experience is a great thing to save time so the naive don't pursue ideas in which many factors haven't been taken into consideration, but at the same time, experience can lead to tunnel vision that makes it hard to see new possibilities. There needs to be a symbiotic relationship between the young and old in the innovation department, and most definitely both need to keep there egos in check.

Check out this page! This is a perfect example of how a breakthrough can cause a reevaluation of present thinking!

http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/09/12-year-old-rev.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp.

I think that renewable sources of energy work far better on the micro level than the macro. When an individual builds around the idea that they can provide for their own energy needs, the energy they get will go a lot further than just swapping out fossil fuels watt for watt.

That's very nice if the individual has the resources to exploit, but in an urban environment it is necessary to think more collectively, and in terms of a country collectively, the same is true.

That depends greatly on the design of your high rise residential and commercial structures.

Certainly its a lot harder to plaster your roof with solar panels when there's fifty stories of structure on top. But there are ways to give residences choices in controlling the costs of living. From a city wide prospective you can space your skyscrapers to ensure one side always gets sun, and from there reflect it from one side to the other. Wind is always available. Allowing the resident to customize their living and working space to their needs is important as well.

Of course fission and fusion, and if your on the coast, tidal and wind can work from a city planners prospective, but the consumer has to look out for number 1.

The choice of which of the FOUR sides of the building the resident lives in is not always up to him/her, and only one side gets the sun. True the reflective side gets SOME sun but not optimal sun.

If the consumer is looking out for number one he's not exactly being patriotic. Sacrifice or at the very least compromise for the greater good is what a society has to do in order to survive.

Quote :

If the consumer is looking out for number one he's not exactly being patriotic. Sacrifice or at the very least compromise for the greater good is what a society has to do in order to survive.

Agreed.

And welcome to the forums Commodore! It's great to see some action in the forums.

davamanra wrote:

If the consumer is looking out for number one he's not exactly being patriotic. Sacrifice or at the very least compromise for the greater good is what a society has to do in order to survive.

No, not paying disproportionally high taxes is unpatriotic.

Distribution of electrical production is for the greater good of society, even in urban areas. It prevents emergencies in the event of hiccups. Most importantly it allows people to choose their level of use, they can either conserve and save that power bill for something else, or not.

as an aside on cost, I think it should be free up to X watts per person than you start paying.

Commodore wrote:

davamanra wrote:

If the consumer is looking out for number one he's not exactly being patriotic. Sacrifice or at the very least compromise for the greater good is what a society has to do in order to survive.

No, not paying disproportionally high taxes is unpatriotic.

Distribution of electrical production is for the greater good of society, even in urban areas. It prevents emergencies in the event of hiccups. Most importantly it allows people to choose their level of use, they can either conserve and save that power bill for something else, or not.

And having a company pay disproportionately high wages to management is discrimination.

But conservation, especially in today's world, is socially responsible. Squandering a resource and contributing to pollution in this aspect can be considered to be unpatriotic.

davamanra wrote:

And having a company pay disproportionately high wages to management is discrimination.

How is it discrimination?

It is a foolish thing for stockholders to allow it to happen, but if they allow the contract to be signed, they've got no one to blame but themselves.

davamanra wrote:

But conservation, especially in today's world, is socially responsible. Squandering a resource and contributing to pollution in this aspect can be considered to be unpatriotic.

Certainly wasteful. Fortunately we already have a market that punishes people by forcing them to buy more.

Screw the stockholders, what about the employees that get laid off? The reason the executives are supposed to be getting paid the big bucks is to run a company RESPONSIBLY. Sadly, there is no responsibility or accountability. Just big fat paychecks and bonuses, even if the company operates at a loss. Are the executives held responsible and penalized? No, instead the employees end up getting laid off because of the reckless decisions of management.

As for the market punishing people by forcing them to buy more, no. The people that are punished are the people who have to buy the same for more money because of the squandering of the socially irresponsible.

There's clearly enough bad news to go round for everyone. Stockholders, i.e your pension funds will have lost billions over the last week, thousands will have lost they're jobs, including many in management who did nothing wrong. At this point companies in trouble are far from guilty of irresponsibility.

Yes and no. First the mortgage companies knew exactly what they were doing.
1. They gave out mortgages to people they KNEW were high risk.
2. They packed these loans up into what they had the nerve to call securities.
3. They then sold these "securities" to investors and left them holding the bag.
Granted there are a lot of companies caught in the ripple effect, but there is no accountability to the companies that orchestrated this fraud.

Nobody is completely blameless, but there is a big difference between committing a crime and being an accessory!

The orchestrators knew from the start what they were doing. these were experienced people educated in finance and law. The lendees were already high risk and would never have been allowed to get these loans under normal circumstances. The investors were not aware of the extent of the fraud and thought that they were actually buying investment grade securities instead of the equivalent of junk bonds.

The ripple effect has caused problems for everyone. However any manager knows that you can't predict everything. I wise manager has either established a financial cushion or has insured himself to allow for contingencies, something that has become "unfashionable" in today's financial world, so to a lesser extent there is a little guilt there.

davamanra wrote:

Screw the stockholders, what about the employees that get laid off? The reason the executives are supposed to be getting paid the big bucks is to run a company RESPONSIBLY. Sadly, there is no responsibility or accountability. Just big fat paychecks and bonuses, even if the company operates at a loss. Are the executives held responsible and penalized? No, instead the employees end up getting laid off because of the reckless decisions of management.

Yeah, stockholders are no longer just guys in suits that sit on the board, they are the teachers, police officers, and anyone who has a 401k. They all have a vote in the way corporations are run too.

It might feel good for the government to step in and judge the performance of Wall st tycoons and modify their pay accordingly. But it won't stop there.

davamanra wrote:

As for the market punishing people by forcing them to buy more, no. The people that are punished are the people who have to buy the same for more money because of the squandering of the socially irresponsible.

That's not punishment. Those people make a choice to use the product as well. Thats why it pays to not be dependent on them.

The elephant in the room in the banking crisis is that the government under both parties in recent years has lower lending standards on the premise that they are unfair to those unable to pay back their mortgage. Lo and behold, people can't pay back their mortgage.

And lo and behold the mortgage companies chose to exploit it. Conservatives have a big problem bailing out the common man with social security and welfare calling it charity, but when it comes to bailing out airlines, banks, mortgage companies, savings and loans they don't consider it charity. Ah yes, capitalists in the good times, socialists in the bad.

davamanra wrote:

And lo and behold the mortgage companies chose to exploit it. Conservatives have a big problem bailing out the common man with social security and welfare calling it charity, but when it comes to bailing out airlines, banks, mortgage companies, savings and loans they don't consider it charity. Ah yes, capitalists in the good times, socialists in the bad.

They didn't choose to create the mess if congress declares denying money to those who can't pay it back to be discrimination.

They quite likely decided not to allow their own bottom line to be destroyed in process, but that doesn't relieve Congress of its responsibility in all of this.

The question is which party had control of Congress when the deregulation took place. If private enterprise was truly able to police themselves as they constantly claim they can, there would never be regulatory agencies established in the first place.

davamanra wrote:

The question is which party had control of Congress when the deregulation took place. If private enterprise was truly able to police themselves as they constantly claim they can, there would never be regulatory agencies established in the first place.

Do you honestly think these banks gave out money they were likely to never see again on their own accord?