Duke Energy, the company that serves millions with electric energy, has agreed to pay $1,000,000 in fines after its wind turbines killed 14 golden eagles and dozens of other birds at a Wyoming wind farm. The money goes to several conservation groups.
Wind farms are high risk for birds and bats. Yes, we need to move away from burning fossil fuel to feed our ever growing thirst for more and more electric energy. In the process, we do not need to be causing additional environmental problems. Surely engineers can come up with ways to design wind energy systems that do not pose such high risk to birds and bats. Maybe the rotating blade design is not the best.
North Central Indiana currently faces the consequences of a hasty acceptance of wind farms. Tipton County is at the center of these issues. Wildlife has not been the primary complaint but rather potential effects on property values and human health have come into question. More careful steps are justified.
Cap CEO pay?
Here is something to chew on. Are Chief Executive Officers of large corporations and financial institutions really worth the tens of millions of dollars they pay themselves each year? Or are they raping the public and economy? Are they just a bunch of good-ole-boys feeding their own greed?
Years ago Japan had a formula in place by which a CEO could earn a cap of some multiplier of the lowest paid person in a company. I don’t know if this is still the case. There are some current data for Germany. Twenty five years ago the ratio of top earner to bottom was about 20 to 1. So a person earning, say, $25,000, per year could expect the company CEO to earn no more than about $500,000 a year. But something has changed. In Germany now, the ratio is more like 200 to 1; so the $500,000 cap has become $5,000,000 a year.
Frankly, I do not believe anyone is worth 10 or 15 or 20 million dollars a year. I don’t care what company they head. It is my opinion that the CEO’s and Boards of Directors in this country have become so inbred that they have lost touch with ordinary people. They serve only themselves, really.
Mass Immigration in Britain
Unless we wake up, the USA could go the way of Britain.
There is an article in the December 6th issue of The Week magazine that tells the tale. In less than 20 years, the foreign-born population in Great Britain has nearly doubled. This change was never predicted, explained, planned for , or voted on by its politicians according to the article. In January 2014, Bulgarians and Romanians will be allowed to settle freely in the GB. No one knows how many will come.
When Poland joined the EU in 2004, the government predicted 13,000 immigrants per year from there. That would be about 117,000 in total to date, but within only five years the number was a half a million.
The big bite to swallow in Great Britain is that after arrival and settlement of only three months, all immigrants are eligible for unemployment and subsidized housing….. and other government, taxpayer benefits. Sound familiar?
The current allowed level of legal immigration into the United States is running about 110,000 per month. That is 1,320,000 per year. With economic conditions as they are here, that is not needed for sure; if ever. Before 1965, the level of legal immigration was a couple of hundred thousand per year. Action needs to be taken by our government to stabilize our population, not encourage growth in numbers forever.