Hippie Company Leaves California for Texas

Well, I don't know if it is a hippie company or not but Jamba Juice does really sound like one: a company that sells healthy juice. That's cool. And it is not surprising it has been operating out of California for more than 25 years.

But Jamba Juice will be moving its headquarters to Texas. Why?

In a statement, Chief Executive David Pace said Jamba was looking for places that had “competitive operating costs,” access to “skilled restaurant talent” and an “attractive cost of living,” along with a central location for further expansion.

After that explanation the Los Angeles Times tries to reexplain the move.

Thanks in part to the success of the technology industry, labor and real estate in the Bay Area come at a high price.

Staying in the Bay Area can be lucrative and valuable for companies in the innovation sector since employees in the area tend to be more creative and productive, said Enrico Moretti, an economics professor at UC Berkeley.

See. It's the tech industry driving them out. Not high taxes and regulations. It's the tech industry, which forced Space X to leave California too?

• Los Angeles Times

Government Propaganda at Comic Con?

I do not care about Comic Cons but I worry about government propaganda. The Department of Energy, which has an agenda and makes policies based on that agenda, is holding a panel at the Baltimore Comic Con to "discuss the interplay between science and cinema."

You do realize this means that tax dollars are being used to send government employees to Comic Con? If the government needs a presence anywhere it is Comic Con. If the IRS can make a Star Trek video why not the Department of Energy at Comic Con?

So who is going to be on this panel? A Minorities in Energy Champion, two employees from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and an employee from the Office of Environmental Management. The Office of Environmental Management is quite legit since it is for the cleanup up of the "nuclear legacy" from government nuclear research. The others try to force the world into the agency's world view.

There is another member on the panel not listed on the DoE's announcement and that is Marius Stan. You can find this at the Comic Con site. He is listed as a DoE Senior advisor and actor from Breaking Bad; he is also a scientist.

Maybe I'm making something out of nothing. It is not like they are handing out propaganda, unless you consider handing out a children's coloring book, Get Current, that promotes only renewable energy. You know. Teach kids it's a good idea to turn food into fuel when people are starving in other countries or even at home.

No chance of propaganda here.

• Department of Energy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• Baltimore Comic Con
• IMDB
• YouTube

Road Rage

Roads and transportation are just a rich subject right now. Line one from a blog post at transportation.gov has just set me off.

Today, our Nation's investment in transportation lags behind the rest of the world.

I would like a citation on "lags behind the rest of the world." Do we lag behind the three poorest countries: Malawi, Burundi, or Central African Republic?

The Secretary of U.S. Department of Transportation must not be aware of the internet. I did a quick search to see if there was a ranked list of expenditures on roads by countries and one popped up from 2013. Surprise, surprise. Guess who spends the most on roads? Here's the list:

Country	$ in Millions
United States	$74,164
Canada	$20,109
Australia	$18,417
France	$15,860
Germany	$15,503
Russia	$11,235
Poland	$11,108
Spain	$7,893
Turkey	$6,918
United Kingdom	$6,872
Mexico	$5,223
Romania	$4,383
Norway	$3,637
Netherlands	$3,053
Azerbaijan	$2,085
Czech Republic	$1,727
Finland	$1,244
New Zealand	$1,121
Ireland	$618
Slovakia	$576
Bulgaria	$459
Lithuania	$457
Serbia	$452
Latvia	$299
Luxembourg	$293
Georgia	$288
Albania	$280
Estonia	$210

I've recently posted how broken gas taxes and green car subsidies are. I just finished how California built a road at $130,000 per foot!

We are wasting money on roads left and right through bad policies and inefficiencies. Politicians just make blanket assertions about falling behind the world to squeeze more money out of us. We are only falling behind in smart spending.

This is like a social justice movement that has achieved its goals will say "we have come a long way, but there is much more to accomplish" without laying out what needs to be done or lies through statistics to make it look like they actually have not been successful.

We have been taxed too much. Stop lying to us to justify taxing us more. Spend the money wisely or start privatizing things we can privatize!

It's like they are no longer trying to hide their lies.

Gas Tax : Punishing the Heretics of the Green Movement

There is a gap between funding for the highways and roads and the revenue coming in for it. The gas tax hasn't been raised for 22 years and you are going to hear calls for raising it.^[1][2]

End the Gas Tax

USA today calls for phasing out the gas tax because of the cost of bureaucracy. Anything government driven has this problem so this reason is moot.

Forbes calls for reform of the gas tax but gets the reasoning wrong. Forbes lays out the history of the gas tax and how funds in are tied to projects directly related to the road, however, in the 90's this relation was temporarily severed to pay for other things; this is blamed for the unpopularity of the tax and why reform is needed.

Bloomberg actually gets part of problem correct, ... fuel efficiency and less driving.

Government Created the Problem

CAFE standards demand better fuel efficiency in vehicles which means when the goals are met drivers buy less gas to go the same distance. So it stands to reason that less money is collected through taxes.

Fuel efficiency is nice but the government has no place dictating it; this is legislating physics which is a very arrogant thing for man to do.

The next problem is a double blow to the gas tax and funds for roads; the government's push for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Tax credits to buyers of the green vehicles is paid for by all tax payers. The first punch is these drivers don't use gas or only a little thus evading the gas tax and yet they still put wear and tear on the roads.

The double punch is the subsidy money could instead be put towards road construction and repair, but no. Instead we are going to continue to subsidize these vehicles and look to taxing the drivers that use gas more.

Last I checked only churches and non-profits were supposed to be tax exempt. (Yeah, the Volt lost money but that doesn't make it a non-profit organization.)

The subsidies don't go just to the people that buy the cars but companies within the pipeline that make the car or parts of it. There is an article that "debunks" Volt myths and fails on the government money myth. It frames the myth as "#5 It’s made of government bailout money." That is not the myth; the myth is "the Volt is a government subsidized car." In fact the debunking of the myth admits to the subsidies and blames Bush for the subsidies; whether this is a Bush subsidy or an Obama subsidy it is still a government subsidy. Supposedly the 2016 Volt will be profitable.

There's no telling how long these subsidies will continue. A subsidy is per model per model year and does not phase out till 200,000 units of it are sold. Even then the subsidy phases out to 50% after two quarters, 25% at four quarters, and no credit after six quarters after hitting the 200,000 mark. By then the car will be on to the next model year and a new set of subsidies.^[1][2]

To be fair there was a discontinued subsidy. It was replaced by a new one.

What's the Solution?

End the gas tax, end the green car subsidies, and budget the roads like any other part of the government.

Ending the gas tax will make the cost of the transportation of goods cheaper thus making them more affordable. This can lead to an increase of consumption and leading to the need for more production. In the end there could be more tax revenue through increased income tax revenues; in addition this enriches the lives of the citizens.

Ending the subsidies will also correct the car and energy market to use what is truly economical choices. Also, it is immoral to make one person to pay for part of another person's desired purchase. Can you imagine if the government subsidized the purchase of yachts? Subsidizing the purchase of a car because of the type of motor it uses is no different.

Budget the roads like other parts of the budget. Make the importance of running shrimps on a treadmill compete with the importance of good roads. Hopefully we can expose wasteful projects by making them compete with critical projects.

Or we can raise the gas tax making products more expensive due to transportation costs while we give money to people who buy cars that do not contribute to the road fund.

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A Brain On Socialized Medicine

In the U.K. Caffé Nero paid £0 in taxes. This peeved one of the caffé's patrons. He was a "loyal" customer and turned in his "loyalty" customer card over this. He explains why blathering it on twitter all proud and smug.

If you agree with him hang on and read on because you are wrong. If you disagree with him and don't know why, I think I can tell you why.

Steve Pottinger (he advertised himself and made his persons a public object on twitter) is a valued loyalty customer of Caffé Nero. However, he is throwing his loyalty card back into the fire. His dad was in the hospital and his fate is unknown per the rant. All we know is Steve thought his dad could get more care if Caffé Nero paid taxes. The doctors and nurses could have received pay if Caffé Nero paid taxes. And well, all sorts of other people could have gotten money.

Steve, really!?

You are blaming Caffé Nero for following the rules the government setup. You are blaming Caffé Nero for how the government distributes money. You are blaming Caffé Nero for giving you the most cost effective/quality product that you so thoroughly enjoyed over and over you yourself became a valued loyal customer to them.

So in no way do we see Steve taking the government to task for their tax code or distribution of wealth. He does no chastise the government on what doctors or nurses get paid. He does not blame the government at all. He blames a company for not giving enough money as a reason to problems.

Steve turned in his card and will get his java elsewhere. Will he get the same quality for the same price?

Whether or not he does is only subjective to his palette.

However, let us tear into his final thoughts.

We're all in this together, and without a vibrant and cohesive society - which tax revenues help maintain - you've nowhere to sell your goods.

This sentence is very true but insanely stated by Steve. The cohesive society maintained by taxes is the protection of property, not the usurpation! Steve wants you to think that the taxes are meant to give to the people, not protect what people have earned and own.

Somehow Steve also thinks that the caffé expects customers to show loyalty. Really, the caffé uses gimmicks to get repeat customers to come back, not expecting loyalty. Any business knows they are as good as their last customer served.

So go on Steve. Go find that socially conscious caffé. That extra dollar you pay, it's you paying for what Nero didn't. Your new caffé just passed the cost onto you.

Tax Day! I Win! Procrastination Pays Off!

Woo Hoo!

Tax Day!

I Win!

Did I get a refund?

No! I owe!

I am sending in my forms on the deadline date.

Why am I happy about that? Because I gained income through interest on what I underpaid. Also, that means I probably underpaid my Medicare tax withholdings and Social Security withholdings.

I underpaid some taxes?

Don't worry. Those of you that get a refund overpaid your Medicare and Social Security taxes subsidizing mine. Thanks!

While you waited for your glorious return to enjoy the fruits of your labor I have already enjoyed mine. In fact, if I owe too much I can get on a payment plan to defer my debt over time.

You should set up your withholdings so that you owe at the end of the year because some day you will die. If you can die while cheating the government out of money, you win.

Bob Exposes Police Being Praised Fot Not Doing Their Job

Trifecta on the Sequester

Stephen Green has a brilliant solution.

Spike the One Billion Sequester Mark

Remember the sequester? The Department of Education remembers it and has blog posts about how it will hurt education and the kids. However, the DoEd just simply ignores its ramifications and spend, spends, spends.

Where is all the hurt I have heard about?

We now have $370 million for "Race to the Top-Early Learning" competition to get kids ready to learn or as the post said "close the school readiness gap." So this is money not even to teach but to get kids ready to learn.

The post is really interesting in that it brags about the billions it gets in Obama's proposed budget. But we cannot count proposed money. But we can laugh at its absurd levels.

The most recent DoEd post announced $474.5 million in spending. Somehow it is to make college workers skilled for the factory. Uhm ... 'scuze me?

Factory workers need to be skilled tradesmen. Skilled. But we keep pumping on book knowledge and not skills. In other words, we don't train people to work with their hands anymore.

Our education system has been turned upside down thinking a society needs only book learned people. If you cannot conform to a cubical, screw you.

But really, ...

We are giving up money to undo the eduction of people to be smart enough to not work in factories to learn the skills to work in a factory. Are you kidding me!?

This is the DoEd at work.

Date	Project	Amount
February 25	Improve lowest-performing schools	$15,000,000
March 7	Baltimore School Shooting Recovery	$35,000
March 11	School Improvement Grants (SIG)	$69,600,000
March 27	2013 Investing in Innovation Competition	$150,000,000
April 16	Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge	$370,000,000
April 19	TAACCCT	$474,500,000
TOTAL		$1,079,135,000

Really? During the sequester we have tripled announced spending at the DoEd in one week over the previous months.

There is no sequester people. Only vampires about sucking your cash.

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ObamaCare Steals from the Professionals and the Government Spends on the Amateurs

By now you probably have already heard about companies that make medical devices getting taxed more under ObamaCare. This tax will cut into the research private industry does.

What will become of the research and progress?

Government to the rescue!

How? A contest for undergraduate students that will compete for $10,000 in three different categories.

Instead of professionals that do this for a living and know what the demand of the market is, the government is taxing these professionals out of innovation and will give it to students to create stuff that the market may not even be demanding. Problem created and problem, ... what's the opposite of solved?

Third time the Dept. of Ed. announces spending during the Sequester

Twice I have pointed out that the same day the Department of Education complained about the sequester they also announced new spending.^{1 2} I thought this recent post was a follow-up to the first one I caught because both posts are about under performing schools. I was wrong.

The first post was about $15 million to be awarded to low performing schools. This recent post was an announcement of eleven states to receive money to turn around low performing schools, but the amount does not total $15 million. This is the list of awardees and amounts:

Connecticut	$3.6 million
Kentucky	$7.7 million
Maryland	$6.8 million
Minnesota	$5.5 million
Mississippi	$6.1 million
New Mexico	$4.1 million
Ohio	$20.2 million
South Carolina	$7.4 million
South Dakota	$1.5 million
Utah	$3.4 million
West Virginia	$3.3 million
Total	$69.6 million

There isn't any hurt going on during the sequester.

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Dept. of Energy brags about spending our tax dollars

A recent post from the Department of Energy announces the exciting opportunity for companies to compete for $150,000,000 in clean energy tax credits. Well, it turns out this money is unused funds from previous awardees.

WTF!?

We are broke. We have seen "Green Technologies" that the government has funded go under. This is money from the 2009 stimulus for $2,300,000,000,000 for green technologies. Can you imagine that? Instead of returning it to the general fund they are continuing to try to fund failing technologies!? It might be minuscule in the budget sense, but really!? WTF!? Pay off some debt instead!

FU DOEnergy. FU!

Stop pissing away our money! Most of the DoEnergy's post is about how good it is to fund these failing technologies. I cannot believe they slipped and told us "Hey! We eFed up. Here's $150 mil. Give it back? Why? Take it."

Now, as a bit of a teaser, "green success."

Can you guess the green success story? It is coming. There's nothing wrong with green energy. The wrong is the government's push. They cannot pick winners.

Feel good capitalism green a comin'!

There is no Social Contract

Yaron from the Ayn Rand Institute is awesome. He always cuts through the B.S. and states things the way they are.

Joe The Plumber Dead 2012

Solar Energy and Political Math Tricks

There is a new solar panel structure at Monterey County’s Laurel Yard Complex in Salinas, California. The Energy.gov post boasts that it will save the county $222,000 in energy costs in the first five years and at least $18,800 in the sixth year.

What? $222,000 over five years is $44,000 a year. Why the drop to $18,800?

The Monterey CAO Weekly Report for the week of September 10, 2012 gives more information about the project. That $222,000 in savings includes a $27,600 a year rebate for the first five years. That means that $44,000 a year savings is really $16,400 a year. Also, the solar panel structure was a $1 million dollar project funded by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

That rebate is part of Energy Incentive Programs in California. It costs $3.1 billion from 2010 through 2012 and was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. This means tax dollars spent on rebates.

I have not yet found how the real estimated savings of $16,400 will jump to $18,800 in the sixth year. Maybe there is a new rebate that kicks in.

The statement that $222,000 will be saved in the first five years is ludicrous. It is like the missing dollar riddle. The savings statement is a false statement.

Since the ARRA and rebate money comes from the government, the money comes from the consumers and the people through tax dollars. Through the rebate program the people are paying $27,600 a year to save $16,400. The solar plant is now running at a loss of $11,200 a year. If there was no rebate then it would be saving money after 61 years of operation, the amount of time it takes to save $1,000,000 at $16,400 a year.

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Awesome Anti-Obama-Policy Commercial

I've never heard anyone explain to me how taking money away from rich people helps the poor. People just think it is more fair. Bwah?