Vermont Tiger

Reality Denied

by Chris Campion

Despite the harsh smack of reality, Mayor Kiss still believes the city can, and perhaps even should, continue to run Burlington Telecom:

The City of Burlington has received several offers from people interested in buying Burlington Telecom, including an offer from a group made up of former city councilor Andy Montroll and former Burlington Telecom executive Tim Nulty. But while the city is looking to bring in partners, Mayor Bob Kiss does not think it's time for the city to sell Burlington Telecom outright. "If Burlington Telecom continues to operate as a city project, then we're able to pay off the debit to pooled cash," Kiss said.

Well, sure, if you extend the payback period into the 22nd century, any debt is going to start looking manageable.  BT's subscriber base back in February of 2010 was 4,600.  Even then, Tim Nulty, the former BT General Manager (who is now one of a group of investors looking to purchase BT) said that BT would show a profit at 5,000 subscribers - which then, as now, flies in the face of basic math, when its debt payments become part of the operating costs.

BT's financial model (as outlined by the Blue Ribbon committee here back in January 2010) makes assumptions about revenue growth that simply have not materialized.  If the assets used to deliver this high-quality fiber access are removed/confiscated/re-leased in a different financial structure, then the high-value aspect of the network is dissipated. BT's strategic advantages have not resulted in profitability.

Kiss is still spending time hyping the telecom as a strategic asset for the city, as if the market could not or would not create the same type of service if enough demand were present for it.  This is the same type of thinking surrounding the statewide broadband project(s), the field of dreams, in that if we simply build it, businesses will flock to the state, create jobs, etc.  Note that Burlingtonians that subscribe to Comcast, have a cell phone with Verizon, etc., are not spending time worrying about whether or not their service will be shut off tomorrow.

The BT debacle is a perfect example of why businesses do not move or expand in VT, because the gov't (in whatever form it takes) is fundamentally incapable of leading, following, or getting out of the way.  Instead, we have public officials who conveniently ignore reality, finagle public funds to support city projects of dubious public merit, and then hide their actions behind "executive sessions" so it's harder for the public to find out how it's money has been spent  - or rather, how its money has been wasted.

An Inverse Thanksgiving - Remembering the Ukrainian "Holodomor"

By Daniel Foty

Last week, we Americans celebrated Thanksgiving – a holiday that celebrates, among other things, the plenty that we enjoy on a daily basis.

At the same time, last week Ukrainians were quietly marking the annual remembrance of the 1932 – 1933 “Holodomor.”

As that murderous old cynic Stalin once said, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

And he should know, since he generated a large number of "statistics" on his own.

Holodomor Remembrance Day is marked during the latter part of November as it corresponds with events that wound down late in 1933 – the final running out of one of the most monstrous crimes against humanity in history.

"Holodomor" in Ukrainian translates roughly as "Death by Hunger" - and that is exactly what the communists forced upon a defiant but defenseless population.

Important Event

Public Event: Wednesday, December 1, 2010 at 7:00 PM, McCarthy Arts Center,
Saint Michael’s College. Free and open to the public.

Tom Palmer’s Topic: Greatest Myths About Free Markets

“Tom Palmer is a world renowned public speaker and a leading voice on the subjects of free trade and personal liberty. Palmer is to liberty, free markets and the limited role of government what Bernie Sanders is to Socialism, forced wealth redistribution and the ever expanding role of government.”
    James Gatti: Chairman, Ethan Allen Institute Board of Directors and Professor, School of Business Administration, Univ. of Vermont.

 

Fighting Fat

by John McClaughry

The state of Vermont faces a $112 million General Fund shortfall next year - and even more if the promised Challenge for Change savings fizzle out. The state also faces a total unfunded retirement benefits liability of $1.932 billion. The state's taxpayers endure the 5th highest state and local tax burden of the 50 states. Families in every community are out of work and insecure.

One concerned office holder, Attorney General William Sorrell, has decided that it's time for a bold new initiative: to raise $30 million in new taxes to enable state government to wage war against. the Menace of Obesity.

How NOT to Convince Anyone about Global Warming

by Tom Evslin

Obvious spin and propaganda increase skepticism. Two stories published on the eve of COP16, the 16th edition of Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, are good illustrations of how NOT to be convincing about climate change or its possible anthropogenic (man-made) causes. (Duly note that clumsy propaganda doesn't prove the opposite of its contentions).

"Front-Line City in Virginia Tackles Rise in Sea" is the headline of a front page New York Times story. "As sea levels rise, tidal flooding is increasingly disrupting life here and all along the East Coast, a development many climate scientists link to global warming," says paragraph 4 (used to be the subhead in the electronic edition but got demoted).

It's not until you get to paragraph six that you find out what actually happened: "Like many other cities, Norfolk was built on filled-in marsh. Now that fill is settling and compacting. In addition, the city is in an area where significant natural sinking of land is occurring. The result is that Norfolk has experienced the highest relative [emphasis mine] increase in sea level on the East Coast — 14.5 inches since 1930, according to readings by the Sewells Point naval station here."

Gëzuar Ditën e Flamurit!

By Daniel Foty

Whereas on November 28th, 1443, Gjergj Kastrioti (soon to be forever known by his nom de guerre of Skanderbeg) returned to his hometown of Kruja, raised the red-and-black double-eagle flag, and declared Albania to be in rebellion against Ottoman occupation.

Whereas on November 28th, 1912, Ismail Kemal raised the red-and-black double-eagle flag over the port of Vlorë and declared Albania to be independent of the Ottoman Empire.

(If you want to know why you should care about all this… continue reading below the fold.)

More Around the Web

By Daniel Foty

1.  It's tough to improve upon the opening sentence from this story:

A Vancouver cyclist is recovering after being struck by an electric vehicle during an event to promote an around-the-world carbon-free race.

That sentence has to win a prize for concentration-of-pieties.  Meanwhile, Detroit's Henry Payne goes through the farce that the Chevrolet Volt has become - noting in particular that the biggest "benefit" to GM may be that this overpriced Cruze gives GM a great deal of headroom for meeting those ludicrous "CAFE" mandates (yep - yet another mandate, left over of course from the 1970s).... so that the rest of GM can continue to make vehicles that people actually want to buy at prices that they can afford to pay.  In the meantime, the whole "electric car" game represents subsidies to provide feel-good vehicles to customers with six-figure incomes.

2.  A few days back, your humble correspondent noted that Spain is being forced to give up on the racket that is subsidies for "solar power."  Following a tip on this story from your humble correspondent :-) , Chris Horner takes a bit of a deserved victory lap on this one.  However, he notes that the most deserving recipient of the right to a victory lap goes to Spain's Prof. Gabriel Calzada - who, two years ago, got this all correct.... and survived two years of threats and abuse (including, sort of ex parte, from several commenters to this site) to have things unfold exactly as he had figured out and exactly as he had foretold.  I've met Prof. Calzada a couple of times; a write up of a chat we had in Chicago back in May can be found here.

And speaking of "renewable" (sic) energy, here's a reminder that windmills are dangerous.

3.  Here is an absolutely fascinating, must-read story on the "Stuxnet" worm - and its apparently devasting impact on Iran's nuclear weapons program.  This was a cyber-weapon of the first order - and while its origins (and its originators) remain a mystery, we all owe a big thank-you for this effort.

More below the fold....

La Puesta del Sol

By Daniel Foty

Over the past couple of years, your humble correspondent has written many times about how Spain went all-out for the "total-green" agenda - leading (not surprisingly) to an economic meltdown, unemployment topping 20%, national insolvency, and the possible collapse of Spanish democracy.

It's thus probably no big shock (pun intended) that the Spanish government is pulling the plug (pun intended) on subsidies for "solar energy"....

The Spanish government has launched a new regulatory framework that will result in subsidized tariffs for ground-mounted solar energy projects drop[ping] 45% this year, killing future investment in the trade, which industry leaders expect will be frozen in the next few years.

.... the Spanish solar industry has seen investment [sic!!!! - ed.] plunge in the past two years with only 100 MW of generating capacity having been installed in 2009 and 2010 - compared to 2,700 MW in 2008.

Well.... yeah.  It's a clunker, and without a phony-ized market the whole thing falls apart.... because it's not viable - either technically or economically.

But this gets better.  How do the subsidy addicts react to having their "stuff" supply cut off?

The industry is so frustrated that it has sued Spain's government, arguing that that new regulation is way too harsh and even "unconstitutional"....

Ending addiction isn't pretty - but it has to be done....

It's Black Friday

Go do a little shopping, if you must, and then get your game face on for the greatest college football rivalry in the known universe. 

 

The Iron Bowl

 

 

Thanksgiving

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.