Making a super power

The secret of becoming a superpower is simple, be big, big in population, big in land area. In this respect the United States has done well. In population we are one of the biggest, only China and India are in our class. Every other country is smaller. In land area we are also in the top, only Russia is decisively larger. Canada, China, Brazil and Australia are in our class, followed by India.
The secret of reaching large size, also simple, it takes a political cultural and economic system that makes the population want to become and stay citizens. The United States had two historical turning points that set us on the road to superpower status.
One was right after the Revolution. The 13 colonies came out of the Revolutionary War as mini-nations, with governments, court systems, colony employees, armies and navies, and populations loyal to, and enthusiastic about, their home colony. The 13 colonies might never have come together to form the Union. An alternate history would have North America divided into 50 independent sovereign nations, much like Europe is today. Fortunately, the American establishment of the time, the Founding Fathers, were able to create the Constitution and get it ratified. This was a near run thing, it might have failed.
The second was the Civil War in 1860. The south could have won, or the bitterness could have split the nation. Neither happened, the north put forth incredible military effort, and accepted the terrible costs of a four year war. After Appomattox, the Union offered reasonable peace terms which the south accepted.
Had either of these historical turning points gone the other way, there would be no American superpower today.
In short, the road to super power lies in a political system that can unite and keep united vast territories. The United States appears to have mastered this trick.
Other countries are not on board yet. The Soviet Union broke up, and the surviving Russia is a third smaller than the old USSR was. Czechoslovakia broke in two. Yugoslavia broke into half a dozen pieces. Canada came close to having Quebec secede.
So on this, the fourth Independence Day into Great Depression 2.0, let us hope that we Americans have not lost the the ability to pull together, cut the necessary deals, and keep things moving forward.

Fukushima

The Wall St Journal ran an article critical of the design of the Fukushima reactors. According to the journal, the oldest reactors (first one installed in 1962) consisted of two buildings, a very rugged one to house the reactor, and a lesser building to house the steam turbines. In the oldest reactors, a crucial electrical panel, and the backup diesel generators were housed in the less rugged turbine building. Those reactors lost electrical power when the backup generators and electrical panels were drowned in seawater by the tsunami. Without electrical power for the coolant pumps, those reactors melted down.
The later Fukushima reactors had both the electrical panel and the backup generators inside the more rugged reactor building. The juice stayed on, the coolant pumps ran, and those reactors didn't leak radioactive materials into the local area.
The Journal criticizes the owners (TEPCO) for failing to upgrade the earlier reactors to the later design standard. A valid point methinks, although it takes advantage of 20-20 hindsight.
Just in case a reactor looses electric power, would it not be nice to have reliable gasoline or diesel engines next to each crucial coolant pump? With a clutch to couple the engine to the pump? When the juice goes out, plant operators walk down the plant floor and start each pump engine, and the reactor stays cool.

What's Fourth of July without a Parade?

I dunno. Franconia ran off a Fourth of July parade today. Heh, it's Saturday. We had floats, antique cars, WWII veterans marching, bands not marching (they ride on trailers), Ray Burton and his yellow 60's convertible, and a horde of little kids wearing orange T-shirts and carrying Stop Northern Pass signs. There will be a duck race this afternoon, a tuba concert on the Dow Academy field and fireworks when the sun goes down.
The fire trucks are enormous. All built on ten ton Mack or International Harvester truck chassis, they tower over the one story buildings along Franconia's main drag. And there are a lot of 'em. Like ten, from Franconia, Sugar Hill, Easton, and Bethlehem. All glittering in good paint, freshly waxed. In the up country, we are prepared, perhaps overprepared, for Armageddon.
A good time was had by all, Contrary to recent items on Fox News, Democrats were out in force and enjoyed the festivities.

Plastic Corks

Arrgh. Some are too slippery, and the corkscrew just make's 'em turn round and round in the neck of the bottle. The other sort let the corkscrew pierce the cork but the piercing doesn't heal, so wine dribble out the hole in the cork when you put the bottle on it's side in the fridge.
If they can't afford real cork for the cork, they are better off with (gasp) metal screw tops on wine.

Speaking of tax loopholes

Loss carry forward. If you loose money, you can apply the loss you had last year to this year's taxes. You say to the IRS "Yes, I made $47 million dollars this year, but I lost $99 million dollars last year, so I own no taxes at all." This is how GE managed to pay no federal income tax this year.
Loss carry forward subsides losers. If you subsidize it, you get more of it. Why do we want to do this?
Eliminating tax loss carry forward won't hurt the vast bulk of taxpayers, both individuals and corporations, 'cause most taxpayers don't loose money, they make money. It will certainly simplify tax filing.

Youngest son vs Windows 7

Youngest son bought a new laptop. UPS delivered yesterday, and he spent last evening tinkering with it. He reports that Windows 7 comes with 86 "processes" sucking up RAM and CPU time. (Windows XP gets by on 15 "processes"). It's slow. And fat. And power management comes set to automatically turn the machine off after 15 minutes without a keystroke, even running on AC power. He noticed this feature after setting the machine up to download a raft of stuff over night.
Youngest son is about to reload with Windows XP.

Is it a loop hole to be closed or a tax hike?

Strange bedfellows. Last week the Senate voted to end US tax breaks for the ethanol industry. Then Grover Norquist, long time anti tax activist popped up and complained that closing this tax loophole was actually a tax hike and he opposed it. Norquist does his homework, and has persuaded most congressional republicans to sign his no-tax pledge. So he is hard to ignore.
Then Obama came out four square for tax changes to cut the budget deficit. He wants to close a loophole for corporate jets, another he claims is for the oil industry but is actually available to all US manufacturers, and a tax break he says applies to hedge fund managers.
So are these tax hikes or loophole closings? And is this real money or chickenfeed? The corporate jet loophole actually applies to all new aircraft, and Obama hasn't said what he is proposing, killing it for all aircraft, changing it to exclude small jets, or to exclude all light aircraft.
The oil industry is taking advantage of the 8% US manufacturing tax credit which was passed in 2004. Oil drilling counts as manufacturing.
The hedge fund tax break is "carried interest", IRS jargon meaning the right to treat manager's bonuses as capital gains. Managers get a bonus based upon how much the funds assets appreciate, and the IRS allows this to be taxed at the 15% capital gains rate rather than the 35% ordinary interest rate. The democrats tried to make this law last year but failed. This one is probably real money, the other two are chicken feed.
So what we have here is probably loophole closing, but the Republicans are properly rejecting it as tax hikes, because you don't want to give Obama anything on the revenue side until you have pinned him down on spending cuts.