Very true. Right now we're paying for years of English and Arts majors making decisions (through protests, etc., rarely through voting, as they usually make the minority there) on technical, scientific, and business matters. And unless those of us who actually work for a living (as opposed to attenting 4 protests per week) start thinking of more than our next paycheck, that next paycheck might cover less and less, if it's there at all, as the price of everything rises.
We've been living on borrowed time for way too long. First, when the moronic ideas imposed on us in the 1960's and 1970's began taking a toll on the economy, we bought some time by reducing the prices (and thus making the economical problems we never really stopped experiencing less apparent to the average voter through low prices) through outsourcing the industry (which opened its own can of worms, too long for a single message :)). Then, when the real state of the economy began to shine through that, we moved to the "service economy". Read: lower wages and less stable jobs requiring less education (since those same 60's and 70's ideas brought education down pretty much across the board. See if you can survive in the current public school system if you're not a liberal or an outright hippie and just want to teach students their subject, rather than having them write sonnets about the Second Law of Thermodynamics; or, being a student, try to learn Math there, as opposed to the "New Math"). That led to growing paychecks and less buying power. Oh, that's called inflation? Not when you're politically correct, it isn't. Then it's called "creating more jobs in the service sector". That patch being work out, we began extending easy access to credit, so we can truly live on borrowed time. Made the real wages look ok still, since you could still buy a lot... on credit.
Of course, that couldn't create the illusion of prosperity for long, either, since the real values (such as real estate, energy, etc., basically, the things you can't outsource or put some shining patch on) continued to rise.
WHich bring us to energy. What happens when an English major decides on energy matters? Right, instead of, say, o horror, nuclear power plant (strict regulation, continuously improving designs and reliability (pebble bed design, anyone? Thanks to this moratorium on building nuclear power plants, we're stuck with much more dangerous rod designs instead of building pebble bed ones, which you have to try real hard to blow up), developments in this field can one day enable us to power actual startships, not the crap like the "international space station" where every erg is being counted) you build a coal-fired plant (less regulated, since it's only coal, right? The same thing you can burn in a fireplace. At least, that's what it is to an English major, something he can relate to. Also highly radioactive (coal happens to be radioactive, you know, especially in those quantities), highly polluting (wasn't pollution bad?), and with constant dust fires and explosions (what, Los Angeles Times doesn't write about that? Odd)).
So it's small wonder the price of energy goes up all the time.
Spaking of energy, here's a funny thing on how a progressive English major's mind works. I heard this program on NPR the other day. They were discussing the "food crisis", and they discovered, with great surprise, that apparently organic farming produces less food per effort involved. So they had to reconsile between the two of their conflicting priorities - feeding the world's population that can't feed itself but sure can procreate out of control, or continue with organic farmers. Of course, the worse idea won in the end, they decided that farmers must produce more food, and promoting organic farming can wait :) Another fun debate is between the wind energy industry and the protectors of the birds. It's really hard to be a liberal these days, so many conflicting priorities, and you want it all and right now :)
How all this relates to the topic of LLEG? Well, just what the message I'm replying to said: noone wants the power plant in his backyard. When we run out of backyards in which to build them, well, we run out of energy. Personally, I consider $5 per gallon (and it's already that here in Southern California) a good development. We've been living on borrowed time for so long, we forgot how to innovate. This might be a boost to that (unless we've forgotten it quite thoroughly, but I'm an optimist, believe it or not, I believe we're still able to do it, aand I base that on absolutely nothing).
The question to consider for this guy spenceronfire, if he is who I think he is, where will his real estate/rental prices be, even without the evil smokestack, if there's noone who can afford to rent or buy that real estate? For exmple, here in L.A. the real estate prices are insane, without any view (the view of the street is considered nice already). We have jobs here, which would probably explain it.
