The Condit Dam in SW Washington State is a 100-year old, 12-story hydroelectric dam that generated electricity for about 7,000 homes. It lacked any way for spawning salmon to get past it to upstream spawning grounds and building some kind of fish ladder was cost-prohibitive. So the company that owns the dam decided to demolish it. The first step was to tunnel most of the way through the bottom of the dam on the downstream side and then blast the final portion open, releasing the water behind the dam.
Here is an article on the blasting that occurred yesterday. Watch the second video at the bottom of the page. When it's done it will show you a group of videos of the same demolition taken from other perspectives. Pretty cool!
I had trouble getting out this morning. No matter which way I turned out of our driveway there was an estate sale about 10 doors down. Which is to say that in both directions there were cars lining both sides of the street and more arriving. Old people looking to buy the stuff of now-dead people, descending like vultures on fresh carrion. A year from now those ugly chairs and lamps will be available again in another estate sale. Life in Sun City.
Pam buys blocks of seed and suet that go in a small cage-like container that hangs from a decorative rod in the back yard. The doves, quail and finches and occasional woodpecker love it. Things sometimes get pretty noisy as they fight over who gets to hang from the cage and eat directly from the block instead of pecking in the gravel underneath for what falls down.
This afternoon it got ugly with a whole group of finches gathering underneath the quail who, because they're bigger and stronger, were hanging on the cage. The finches carried little signs saying they were the 99% and the quail should be forced to share the seeds more equitably.
Why do two people living in Sun City have 36 butter knives in the silverware drawer?
I listened to parts of the Diane Rehm show this morning and an interview with her guest, Robert Frank who has written a book called "The Darwin Economy." I'm pretty sure most of any economist says is the exact opposite of what the next economist would say but this guy was good at the dummy-down necessary for me to understand him. And what he said seemed to make sense. One of his proposals is that the amount a person saves in a year through any vehicle - IRA, 401K, whatever - be subtracted from their income. The difference is money they spent. That amount would be taxed at a rate that increases with the amount. The more you spend the higher your tax on that amount. He said this would encourage people to spend less and save more. This, in turn, would make capital available for investment in businesses of all types. And it would discourage spending on McMansions, Mercedes SUV's and 5 carat diamonds.
I don't know. But it was interesting.
1 comment:
It makes total sense - but our economy is largely based on debt used to buy discresionary items. Fiancially encourage people to take that $ and move it to savings and investments and the economy would tank. The long term results would be worth it - however, politicians won't promote a package where the results can't be advertised in their next campaign.
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