Big numbers are being discussed with regard to proposed infrastructure spending. Will Congress publish the details? Should we be purchasing electric-powered transportation because it’s good for the effort to reduce global warming? The current fuel tax rates for highway trust funds are said to be insufficient for related infrastructure needs. If we need more electric vehicles — whose owners are not subject to this tax — is Congress capable of grasping the problems of the diminishing fuel-tax revenue and the potential requirement for more electricity generation? The escalating price of road fuels, part of which is caused by President Joe Biden’s refusal to increase domestic drilling and supply, is a two-edged sword that also results in lower fuel tax revenue. This is why need to return to an energy-independence policy. The problem is how to build sufficient electric generation capacity and still reduce sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Windmills and nuclear power are just about the only the non-CO2 sources that can operate 24 hours a day. But, wind turbines can be can be unreliable, and they kill a lot of migrating birds. Nuclear plants operate over 90% of the time in a given year. There is a problem of nuclear waste disposal, but it may not be as large as disposing electric car battery waste might become. Its time to de-escalate gasoline and diesel fuel prices, while raising more tax for the highways. One solution is to tax electric vehicles, based on miles driven. Gerald Keer, Turnersville

A trillion dollars ????

Dear Editor, Big numbers are being reported with regard to proposed infrastructure spending. We also hear that we should all be purchasing electric powered transportation because it will be good for the environmental effort to reduce global warming. Global warming, per the scientific community as caused by Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere. Let us look at needs and numbers. One trillion dollars could purchase quite a large amount of electric power. The problem is, could we build sufficient generation to stop or reduce the generating source of CO2. Wind mills, and nuclear power are the only non-CO2 sources that can operate twenty-four hours per day. Provided the wind does not slow. Do we need a trillion dollars of electric power generation? During the late nineteen-seventies plants were budgeted at about ten billion dollars ($10,000.000.000). At twenty billion dollars each we could build a long-term program of electric power. Nuclear plants operate at over ninety percent of the time in a year. A pellet of nuclear fuel weighs approximately 0.1 ounce (6 grams). However, that single pellet yields the amount of energy equivalent to that generated by a ton of coal, 120 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, making nuclear fuel much more efficient than fossil fuels. This represents a substantial reduction in CO2. With a problem remaining waste. Possibly not as large as battery waste or contamination. Is our Congress capable of grasping the problems of CO2 or bird killing wind mills or waste treatment? Or would they rather position proselytize or tax and spend?

Why Are Coke and Airbnd sponsoring 2022 Beijing Olympics

By Kenneth Rapoza: Coca-Cola took a lot of heat for being against the Georgia election law that requires voters to present a valid ID in order to vote. But they are sponsoring, happily, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. There’s no voting there. Airbnb proudly plastered its website with Pride Month images in June. They’re sponsoring the Beijing 2022 Olympics. Maybe they can sponsor the Shanghai Pride Parade next month, too. Oh wait … there is no such thing as the Shanghai Pride Parade. In fact, the mobile messaging app WeChat, owned by Tencent, recently banned accounts owned by openly gay Chinese. Tencent is owned by a billionaire named Huateng “Pony” Ma. Pony can sponsor the Beijing 2022 Olympics. China has plenty of billionaires. It doesn’t need Airbnb and Coca-Cola, once an American icon, now joining a chorus of activists calling the U.S. racist while sponsoring the Olympics in a country that holds tens of thousands of Uyghur Muslims in captivity in China’s war on terrorism. Some Uyghur women are sterilized against their will in Xinjiang, China. The State Department calls that genocide. Didn’t the mothers of these executives teach them, “You are the company you keep”? Activist groups, mostly those aggrieved by the Chinese Communist Party, such as those in Tibet, have called on Airbnb to abandon its sponsorship. Coca-Cola won’t abandon the Olympics, no matter where it is. They will say they are doing it for the athletes. If they are serious about doing it for the athletes, then sponsor global athletes or teams of their choice. Beijing is run by smart people. They know all the Western world’s buzz words. They are promoting their Olympics as “inclusive,” and say it will create a “harmonious world” and promote “social progress.” Make no mistake about it, the reason the CCP exists as it does today is because of companies like Coca-Cola, Nike, Airbnb, BlackRock and countless others. CCP would be a real paper tiger without them. Cai Xia, a high-level China defector and former professor at the Central Party School of the CCP now works at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. In a 49-page essay, she wrote China owes much of its success to U.S. engagement policy. That policy was used by the CCP to infiltrate the U.S., steal scientific and technological intellectual property, gather commercial and political intelligence, and “lure some American political, business, academic and technological elites to serve the interests of the CCP,” she said. I asked hedge fund manager and China hawk Kyle Bass in an open Twitter conversation if Coca-Cola should sponsor the Olympics. He said the International Olympic Committee should change the venue or the world should boycott. “We have an obligation under the genocide convention of 1948, under Article 2, to punish incidents of genocide. Entering a glorification of a regime that commits genocide and other crimes against humanity is hideous,” said Gordon Chang, a well-known China pundit. In 1971, Coca-Cola launched its now-classic “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” TV commercial. It was its foray into becoming a truly global corporation. The ad starts off with a trio of Abba-looking singers, then spreads out into a United Nations crowd singing the kumbaya lyrics of “harmony” and “peace”. Coke, go tell that to the Uyghurs, millions of Hong Kongers and maybe even some of the Old Hundred Names of mainland China. See what they think. Kenneth Rapoza is a veteran reporter and a former staff journalist for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. — INsIdEsOurCEs

Taxes at state level

New Jersey is the third highest tax burden state. We could move to Hawaii and see overall burden reduced by .25%. In NJ some voted in legalized marijuana. That was to bring us some kind of budgetary relief, and more freedom. We have a general election coming up this November. You will have a chance to vote early for your choices. Your ballot can be very early, but if you discover a non-desirable fact against YOUR CHOICE, you cannot pull back your vote. Tough luck when you look at the referendum for Marijuana, which was passed last year. That was before young people decided to have beach parties in Avalon, as well as other seaside towns. Marijuana and alcohol are the preferred menu for fun. Now Avalon has closed their beaches after dark. Police in New Jersey are not to allowed to create a disturbance by arresting or citing party participants. Thank you, Gurbir S. Grewal, and smiling Phil Murphy, as well as those voting for legalization and restrictive policing. In the political pandemic of sloganeering to defund police how will your municipality, county and state taxes be affected. Auto accidents in Colorado increased by about 4 % with legalized mary-jane. The realistic NJ situation is an individual cannot be criminally charged for possession of small amounts of marijuana or hashish. Is that before or after giggle fests? Will we see an increase in the auto-accident statistics? I am certain taxes will not go down. Gerald Keer

TRUE AGAIN NOW, WHEN WILL IT CHANGE ?

TRUE BACK THEN AND AGIAN - NOW The Main Stream Media's Political Agenda Thursday, December 27, 2012 To the Editor: Each December we see a rerun of the news events of the past year. This year we went through primaries and the general election with innuendoes and half-truths. Television screens were filled with would-be presidential candidates. During Republican primary debates, much was done by the media to “undress” the candidates. A selection was made. Then, an old media question-and-answer sequence was pulled out in which Mitt Romney, the selected candidate, fumbled an explanation of why 47 percent would not vote for him, so it would matter little what he said or did. The media screamed about the rich man. Now print and electronic news media have publicized President Barack Obama as the “Person of the Year” as anointed by Time magazine. Four years ago, a select few opposing voices exposed this untested, clichéd candidate who talked of hope and change, for various questionable acts. But little was televised or printed with a clarion voice. Now, the disgrace of the deadly Benghazi consulate attack is being played down by relative silence of the media. A similar situation has occurred with the “Fast & Furious” weapons trading program. It seems there is a collegium among Democrat power brokers and the news media. Recently, someone asked Republican Gov. Chris Christie if his weight would be problem for a 2016 presidential candidacy. His answer should have been: “Why are you trying to undress a would-be-candidate?” Our press watches the emperor’s parade, as in the Hans Christian Anderson fable, while it witnesses Benghazi like it is another parade by a naked emperor. Our country remains in the need of a young boy who will cry out that “The emperor has no clothes.” Gerald Keer