How Puerto Rico's power crisis ends

Posted by $ nickursis 7 years, 1 month ago to Government
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An interesting study of how we have had our own 3rd world nation as a territory, and how "goverment" control ruined it to the point of total collapse. One astounding piece was this:
"Congress established this seven-person board under President Barack Obama in 2016, as part of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, which aimed to dig the territory (and PREPA) out of its massive debt via increased US oversight. The board is able to seize public assets, break union contracts and cut pensions, and its austerity measures include lowering the minimum wage from $7.25 to $4.25 an hour."
In a nation that has seen huge protests, and "raise minimum wage to a livable standard", tha same patron saint of the left, the be all and end all of "sensitive government", cuts the minimum wage in PR? By their skewed logic, they should have RAISED it to $20 or 30$ and hour, isn't that what is happening here? Didn't Kalifornia do it? Washington, Seattle? If it is such a financial common sense, obvious answer, why did the Obamantion supervise the government "oversite" that CUT it? Isn't that, as they love to say, "mean" or "insensitive", and condem the PR people to slavery? This should be the poster state example of just why government control is so bad, the lefts obsessive need to have more government, even the current Republicrat desire for more (as long as they get a cut of everything for their donors). The other thing was the shining example of how a state owned power company successfully dragged their island back to the dark ages. All this should be rolled out as data to conclusively defeat any liberals arguments for state control, state run health care, state run anything.
SOURCE URL: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/30/puerto-rico-power-energy-crisis-hurricane-maria-prepa-tesla/


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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 1 month ago
    Observe in PR's case, the "Hillary Effect." i:e: It's everyone's fault except mine." You will see how facts are twisted and massaged until they mean the opposite of what they originally meant. People who didn't even know that they were involved now suddenly find themselves with an onus that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.Here the cry reverberating from the mountain tops, "I am innocent!"
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  • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 1 month ago
    Thanks for the story Nickursis,
    This is what happens when reliance is on the state."increased US oversight. The board is able to seize public assets, break union contracts and cut pensions, and its austerity measures include lowering the minimum wage from $7.25 to $4.25 an hour."
    It reminds me of a minimum wage hike bill that exempted Guam, the largest employer was a co. Controlled by Rep. Nancy Pillheadosi's husband.
    No lobbyist needed that time to get the hand out.

    PR is a fiscal basket case and they keep voting for food and freebies the huge debt and bailouts are never ending. Now they want Tesla to provide battery packs for solar farms in conjunction with US aid.
    Funny but a hundred years ago the Real Nikola Tesla was promoting a wireless electric grid promoting virtually free power trans mission.
    He was shut down by JP Morgan who had large investments in copper for power lines.
    Had Tesla or John Galt arrived in PR 100 years ago power would be up and running already.
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    • Posted by rhfinle 7 years, 1 month ago
      Sorry to burst your bubble, but Tesla's free power scheme wouldn't have worked. It'll never get over the inverse-square law. Actually we've been doing it since radio was invented, but not to deliver power. Radio stations transmit hundreds of thousands of watts directly into thin air, but virtually all of it is wasted. A few tens of miles away, radio operators put up yard-sized antennas in order to pick up the micro-volt signals that get to them. In order to get Tesla's scheme to work, you'd have to fuel terawatt power plants and then continually waste more than 99.9% of that power into space, just to run flashlights.
      For what it's worth, I'm also a big N. Tesla fan but also have 30 years in Electrical and Computer Engineering, a degree in Nuclear Physics, and am an Extra class Amateur Radio operator. There are some things Physics just doesn't allow.
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      • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 1 month ago
        As an expert in the field You have the understanding of what is capable . The idea of pulling electricity out of the atmosphere is a challenge that is worth undertaking. We don't know how far his scheme went in his work because his papers were stolen by the US Govt hours after his passing.
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        • Posted by rhfinle 7 years, 1 month ago
          Right. It worked great in the movie, but how about in real life? You could possibly use the inter-particle electrical force in the atmosphere, or even the Casimir-Pulaski force that was alluded to in AS, but in order to make use of the force to do work across a potential difference, you have to have something to do the exact same amount of work the other way across the potential difference. I know this is hard to understand. Take a magnet, for example. You can have a good rare-earth magnet with a very powerful field, but you can't extract any power from it if it's just sitting there. Try it. Wrap a bunch of wire around it any way you want, hook it to a meter, and see if any electricity leaks out. Or hook it to a lever or a shaft and see if it turns of its own accord. It doesn't. Either it has to be moving (pushed) or something has to be moving across the field in order to actually recover any energy more than a one-time shot (such as dropping it or collapsing the field.) At any rate, I've said more than I should have. This is supposed to be a political discussion, not science vs pseudo science.
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  • Posted by chad 7 years, 1 month ago
    The problem with the obvious solution is that few believe it. Most will be convinced that what is needed is MORE control and MORE money to make it work right. The problem is very clear in Venezuela, if you implement socialism completely you will have starvation, unemployment while the government officials live off what little is available without any inconvenience and others die. The masses will continue to complain and demand more control. Puerto Rico is a great example of what liars the do-gooders are that is not believed by those who support them.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 1 month ago
      Puerto Rico should be considered a failed social experiment, and force them to pay their way out of it, just as the Feds will have to pay their way out eventually...They voted for it, they got it, deal with it.
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  • Posted by bassboat 7 years, 1 month ago
    If you want power in Puerto Rico hand the reins to an entrepreneur and he would make it work. He might use solar or coal or wind or nuclear but he would get it done, on time and less expensive than if government gets in the way. It's a perfect learning experience for idiots who believe in government.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 1 month ago
    TANSTAAFL
    Jessica should read AS before writing anything else. Hopefully no one will buy her statist sci-fi.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 1 month ago
      I do not understand, I read it as a n argument for how government screws it all up and that privatization and producers are the only good option to fix it.why would you suggest she needs to read AS?
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      • Posted by freedomforall 7 years, 1 month ago
        I read it as a report on how the author doesn't even understand what privatization is. She quoted government panel members recommending privatization. She says that previous privatization didn't work. She suggests that Tesla should lead privatization- a looter organization that would have gone bankrupt long ago without taxpayer funds funneled into the billionaire owner's pockets.
        Typical media report from a writer who is either clueless or purposely misleading to endorse government looters as a solution to problems created by government looters.
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