billeisele

It would be interesting to read an unbiased study on this issue. There are reasons for this and we can all speculate but it would be interesting to know.

Bill - yes, IMO canceling the wall doesn't make sense. Especially in light of the statements made by DHS. But that is not the point of my post. My point was the last paragraph about the accuracy of the $17 billion figure.

Jerry - Yes almost all contracts have the standard Termination Clause, 52.249-2 is for a fixed price contract. It's a mandatory clause. I use the word "almost" to avoid an argument but I've never seen or heard of a contract that did not have a Termination Clause. There is termination for cause, default and convenience. This one is a Termination for Convenience, commonly called T for C. It protects the government and the contractor. The premise is simple to follow but the details can be complex based on the complexity of the contract. Building an aircraft carrier vs. a wall would be the two ends of the spectrum. A wall contract would not be difficult to write. The complexity would be in handling differences in terrain and site access. Usually the government places the burden of these type things on the contractor and it's their responsibility to figure it into the price. This is most likely a Fixed Price Contract and there may be some type of adjustment for swings in material (mostly steel) costs. It's expected that the contractor can predict labor costs. The contract you worked under was most likely a 1-year contract with four optional extensions, they are typically called 5-year contracts. They are fairly common and often used for Service Contracts that are primarily labor. If they are canceled at the end of a period it's simple. The wall would not have been a Service Contract. Mostly likely a Firm Fixed Price Construction Contract. There may have been allowances for changes in material (steel) prices because of the length of the contract. The government expects the contractor to be able to predict labor costs. Info on the clause is 52.249-2 Termination for Convenience of the Government (Fixed-Price). | Acquisition.GOV Note that in a termination the contractor recovers the cost to provide the accounting and everything else it takes to settle the contract, and profit on those costs. My main point was that the $17 billion savings figure may not be the real number. Would like to see the details.

DHS stated that the wall allowed them to focus their immigration efforts at controlled entry points, and that the wall significantly reduced drug, gun, and human smuggling. Are there certain parts of this that you disagree with?

The administration has decided to cancel all projects involving the wall and return funds to the Pentagon. Biden administration to return billions in border wall funding diverted from Pentagon (msn.com) For those familiar with government contracting they are aware of the Termination Clause that exists in federal contracts. The contractors will be paid for work-in-process to the extent the expenses can't be recovered, along with other termination charges. That means that pre-fabricated wall sections waiting for installation will be paid for, materials ordered that can't be canceled will be paid for, housing, transportation, food, leases, rentals, and other contracts that can't be canceled will be paid for, the cost to demobilize will be paid, the costs to cancel the contracts and unwind subcontracts will be paid. Yes the termination cost will be less than the cost to continue. The difference being that the government, the taxpayers, get nothing in the termination except rusting materials. And then will be the cost of the contracts to address the erosion and levee issues. Those would have been taken care of with the wall construction. Essentially that work will almost be paid for twice due to remobilization and contracting costs. I'm wondering if the $17 billion is the net number? Regardless, it would be enlightening to see the numbers in the whole process.

These are 2019 statistics using 2020 population data. For the purposes of this report a mass shooting is an incident where four or more people are shot. I didn't insert any data on states that may or may not have some form of gun control other than what is done with assault weapons. There doesn't appear to be any corollary between assault weapons bans or regulation, and the number of incidents or deaths. An interesting note is that in a "mass" shooting one has a 77% chance of survival if shot. No shootings are good. The media focuses on the sensational mass shootings and tends to ignore the (unfortunately) common street fights, drive by shootings, bar arguments and domestic violence where guns are used, quite often among people that know each other. The attached file provides detail on each shooting and a hyper link to the story. One could read all of them and develop the stats on race and age groups. For example this is a screen shot of the 9 incidents in SC. If someone wants to look at more detail or add to the EXCEL file, it's attached. State # of Incidents Dead Injured Total Population (thousands) Incidents / million people % Deaths of total shot Assault Weapons status Alabama 12 17 50 67 4,921 2.44 25% Alaska 0 0 0 0 731 0.00 Arizona 5 6 23 29 7,421 0.67 21% Arkansas 5 7 15 22 3,030 1.65 32% California 44 52 186 238 39,368 1.12 22% banned Colorado 4 2 20 22 5,807 0.69 9% Connecticut 3 0 13 13 3,557 0.84 0% banned Delaware 2 0 10 10 987 2.03 0% Florida 20 34 62 96 21,733 0.92 35% Georgia 19 18 70 88 10,710 1.77 20% Hawaii 1 3 1 4 1,407 0.71 75% banned Idaho 0 0 0 0 1,827 0.00 Illinois 41 37 172 209 12,588 3.26 18% Indiana 12 9 55 64 6,755 1.78 14% Iowa 4 7 11 18 3,164 1.26 39% Kansas 5 5 20 25 2,914 1.72 20% Kentucky 5 6 18 24 4,477 1.12 25% Louisiana 23 27 85 112 4,645 4.95 24% Maine 0 0 0 0 1,350 0.00 Maryland 21 15 82 97 6,056 3.47 15% banned Massachusetts 4 7 12 19 6,893 0.58 37% banned Michigan 12 13 41 54 9,967 1.20 24% Minnesota 1 0 5 5 5,657 0.18 0% regulated Mississippi 8 9 29 38 2,967 2.70 24% Missouri 15 12 53 65 6,152 2.44 18% Montana 2 5 4 9 1,081 1.85 56% Nevada 3 1 12 13 3,138 0.96 8% New Hampshire 0 0 0 0 1,366 0.00 New Jersey 14 13 62 75 8,882 1.58 17% banned New Mexico 5 8 17 25 2,103 2.38 32% New York 9 7 44 51 19,337 0.47 14% banned North Carolina 15 21 47 68 10,601 1.41 31% Ohio 16 20 79 99 11,693 1.37 20% Oklahoma 8 11 22 33 3,981 2.01 33% Oregon 1 0 5 5 4,241 0.24 0% Pennsylvania 18 9 86 95 12,783 1.41 9% Puerto Rico 1 8 0 8 3,189 0.31 100% Rhode Island 1 2 2 4 1,057 0.95 50% South Carolina 9 10 39 49 5,218 1.72 20% South Dakota 0 0 0 0 893 0.00 Tennessee 7 3 33 36 6,887 1.02 8% Texas 40 90 165 255 29,361 1.36 35% Utah 0 0 0 0 3,250 0.00 Virginia 11 22 44 66 8,591 1.28 33% regulated Washington 3 7 7 14 7,694 0.39 50% Washington, D.C. 7 2 30 32 713 9.82 6% banned West Virginia 1 1 5 6 1,785 0.56 17% Wisconsin 3 6 9 15 5,833 0.51 40% Wyoming 1 2 2 4 582 1.72 50% Totals 441 534 1,747 2,281 329,343 1.34 23% Gun data, 4-21-21.xlsx

2019 Stats 38,355 gun deaths, 23,941 suicides, 14,414 homicides There were 434 mass shootings resulting is 517 deaths and 1,643 injuries in 2019. In this stat the definition of a mass shooting is 4 or more shot in one incidence. The vast majority of these were people shooting people they know or were in an argument/fight with. List of mass shootings in the United States in 2019 - Wikipedia Note that CA had 43 and IL had 40 (19% of the total events) - both of those states have strong gun control laws. Texas had 41 and has no gun control laws. South Carolina had 9 and we have a ton of guns and no gun control but only 5 million people. If this data was normalized based off total population it would help. Population: CA 39 million, IL 13 million, TX 29 million, SC 5 mill. So events per million: CA 1.10, IL 3.08, TX 1.41, and SC 1.80. Not enough data for a pattern but it is interesting. Someone else is welcome to complete the stats. Suicides - some may have not occurred without the availability of a gun, same for homicides 56% want more gun control, 35% want no changes, and 9% want less control. It would be interesting to know where the people are located and their opinion. Wondering if dense cities want more and rural areas want same or less. The demographics could tell us a lot. 9 states ban assault weapons, 1 state regulates. What is an assault weapon?

Seems that the suggestion is gun registration. The US has somewhere around 400 million citizen-owned guns. Some stats show that 42% of households have a gun and it's 1.2 guns per person. A monumental task but possible, to have them registered. The cost would be high if contracted to private industry and 3X higher if done by the government. Regardless, it would be a big number. A common fear is that registration then leads to confiscation. That fear will cause many (don't know but guessing 20-40%) to not register. That starts a list of issues with the main one being a formally law abiding upstanding citizen is now a criminal for not registering. Do we register all guns or just non-hunting guns? Suspect the answer is all since some use those scary looking guns to hunt. To the problem of those that aren't registered. If in the hands of a criminal they may eventually appear. In the hands of the law abiding citizen they may never appear, or as a minimum it would take many years. But since those guns are not used for crime maybe that's not a huge problem. Well, except when it gets stolen or inherited by someone less responsible. I agree that something needs to be done. The challenge is what.

1 & 2) Yes, the number of guns would decrease. Wonder how long it would take for there to be an effective decrease in guns? One thing it would do is remove guns from those that aren't hardened criminals. That would decrease many street shootings. Also wonder how long it will take for the cartels to begin shipping guns into the US. Once guns became less available and criminals shift towards knives or some other weapon, what then? Yes, laws do decrease crime. There are plenty of laws already on the books and crimes still occur. There must be some other ideas that would work. It seems to be clear that high density poverty areas have high crime rates. There are solutions but it's not easy.

If guns are highly restricted in the US and criminals have difficulty getting them it seems logical that the cartels and others would find a market in the US for guns. But that could take years to occur. The challenge is the sheer number of guns that are already in the US.

OK. So let's assume that stiff gun ownership laws are enacted. How will guns be removed from the hands of criminals? How will gun importation from Mexico be stopped? All the current laws haven't stopped drugs and other illegal cross border issues. I also disagree that police are "trigger happy." The vast majority of police are good at a difficult job. Yes, there are definitely bad cops that use the badge for protection. From your next post. Yes, the police do have to assume folks are armed, and yes they probably are more nervous because of that. And yes that can lead to errors. Following on your point that there are more police shootings - yes, suspect that is true. When the "suspects" shoot the police fire back. I'd like to see the stats on: # of police stops, # of shootings of armed suspects and unarmed suspects. It would also be good if the stats had race of the suspect and the cop. I know that where I live there are plenty of bad white folks that use guns.

Obviously you have missed prior posts, but that's OK, no one reads all this stuff. I've posted FBI and other sources of data and facts. And have made posts about binary triggers, bump stocks, magazine capacities, and the lethality of shotguns and handguns. Have also suggested methods that might be feasible to restrict guns. The point is simple. Making it more difficult or impossible for a law abiding citizen to own and/or carry self protection is a problem. Criminals will remain armed regardless of the laws.

Criminals don't follow the law.

Thanks for the article, quite interesting. If the battery is big enough it certainly could be a valuable asset to stabilize the grid. I can say from first hand experience that when uncontrollable events impact the grid the system operators will grab anything they can to help control and stabilize it. Our option of last resort was a rolling blackout. We had it in the plan and did simulations to be prepared. Other parts of the country use it on a regular basis as a standard operating practice. Public broadcasts to reduce usage were surprisingly effective. Then you can squeeze more with voltage reduction. We also had a voluntary interruptible program and a program where companies would run IC generators on request, these programs worked well. Losing the grid was always considered "not an option."

Bill - The article seems to be about technical feasibility not economics. It would be interesting to know the cost and if Telsa is cutting them a deal to demonstrate their battery. Certainly Apple can afford it with their high product prices, and CA laws on renewables and electricity cost. Would also be interesting to know the tech facts and cost on the Apple Park HQ building. It was built with many unique features to control energy use. Economics is still a real issue not just technical feasibility.

CNN stock is currently at $124. Down from a high of $310 in June 2018. About back to a value of $110 in April 2016. From Sept '96 at $67 to $115 today. Fox Corp data for the same dates is $37.50, $33 and $22. From Sept '96 at $6 to $37.50 today. Neither of these are publicly traded as they are subsidiaries of larger companies, CNN of AT&T and Fox news of 21st Century Fox.

Does that include candidates that admitted they smoked pot or had an open affair with a married man? There are current elected officials in both parties and federal employees that have allegedly broken the law and have not been investigated. Until an investigation is done there can't be charges. It appears that some are untouchable. Some believe that situation exists because they have evidence on opposing politicians. No one gets investigated because then they all go down. If true, it's a mind-numbing thought that our country is controlled by these people. Isn't it interesting how politicians can become multi-millionaires on a public servant salary. Are there politicians that are significantly less corrupt that could take over and push these folks aside? How has Hunter avoided any consequences?

Any and all politicians that break the law should be prosecuted. This is not solely an R, D or I problem. The problem is politicians that use their office to serve themselves rather than the public.

Phil - All good ideas but anyone that has been involved in "resiliency" projects knows that it's quite expensive. The carbon free goal infers nuclear or renewables both of which are usually more expensive than existing generation sources. Don't know how these goals are possible along with providing lower energy bills. Of course it sounds wonderful and for the vast majority that don't have a clue about the costs life just rolls on. We certainly agree on the union issue. One thing for sure the future will be quite interesting as the costs become more visible.

Again we professionally disagree. And my comments are specific to SC not CA or other areas. 1) The solar guy on the kWh rate pays nothing towards infrastructure if he generates 100% of his power. The infrastructure cost is collected in the kWh rate. That's a good reason to separate those costs into the components and bill accordingly. The minimum bill is $9, pays for metering and meter reading. When it's cloudy, rainy or dark, and he takes energy there is a payment towards infrastructure but it isn't sufficient to cover his share of the cost. Most of the systems are too small to meet 100% of the load requirement so on a monthly basis they are takers. I don't know the stats on that. 2) When he puts to the system he is paid full retail and his energy flows to the neighbor that is billed full retail. Therefore the utility collects nothing for accepting or transporting his power. The utility has to build, operate and maintain the system that allows the solar guy to get paid while the utility collects nothing. They don't avoid building anything, the infrastructure is the same. I read the articles and similar ones. Too many assumptions are used and it's not how the real system operates. When solar has zero output the utility still has to deliver the full requirements. Can't do that if the infrastructure was down sized. We don't have rolling black outs or brown outs like other areas of the country. In SC we aren't seeing a lower peak demand due to DR. We are seeing less energy sales, the same peaks, less revenue from reduction in kWh sales, less revenue due to payment subsidies, and an increase in revenue from the DR charge. I don't know if the DR revenue is more or less than the lost sales plus solar payments. Our Commission does not have the social welfare requirements that CA has. They don't have the charge of GHGs but they do have the charge to keep rates as low as practical. It's also not their charge to subsidize DR. That's a huge balancing act when they know that renewables (for now) result in higher average rates. When solar first started they thought it would be a blip on the map and no big deal. They didn't believe that solar sellers would flood the market and do crazy ads promising free power and no utility bills. They thought the vendors would be honest. The horror stories are large in number and fairly bad. I'm sure there are good stories but I'm hearing so many bad ones. People can't sell their homes without removing the panels because the contract sticks with the original people and the buyers won't agree to accept the contract because of the problems in the contract. The solar vendor has to approve the transfer of the contract to the new owner and some are being rejected. Roofers are charging $500 - $1,000 per panel to remove and reinstall them and there is no warranty on the roof. Some roofers refuse to touch them. I assume that is a learning curve thing but for now it is a real problem. I have a jumper friend that installed solar. Overall the system itself has operated as stated. The problem is they sold him on converting his lighting to LED, adding attic insulation adding reflective film and an exhaust fan. The non-solar work they did was done at almost twice what it should have cost (how do I know? I've done a couple million dollars of that type contracting). The attic insulation, film and fan are duplicative. Yes, he needed more insulation but that was all. The fan added more load and justified an additional solar panel. His monthly payments go for 12ish years and there is no warranty on the equipment. Guess who gets to pay for the inverters when they fail in 8-10 years? They are 40-50% of the total system cost. That means he will be lucky to get a payback on the system and house improvements before the panels fail. And that is with the full retail subsidy. The vendor screwed him big time. I've seen this same thing too many times. The residential demand rates being used are not true TOU rates. TOU is much to complicated for most to understand and there is the real possibility of what happened in TX a couple months ago. And then who is going to monitor an electronic bulletin board where hourly prices are posted? And when dramatic system changes can drastically shift the price? The large commercial and industrial customers that are on TOU or interruptible rates had to submit an application showing that they had the ability to shut down or reduce load down to a firm demand level before they were allowed to use those rates. Even then they goof up and complain about the utility bill. It's difficult. People want simple rates that are easy to understand that result in predictable power bills. But they also want other options that require more complicated rate structures but aren't willing to listen or understand the reasons.

Many points, as it works in SC: 1) A solar customer aren't paying any fee towards the infrastructure. They only time they contribute is when they buy energy. And the infrastructure is still needed because they are connected to the grid. When a cloud comes over at 3 PM on a 92 degree day the solar output drops almost to zero yet their AC unit continues to run. In the control room one can see the immediate impact of cloud cover, solar output stops and system demand immediately rises. 2) The subsidy is quite clear. When the avoided cost is 2.8 cents yet the solar owner is paid 12 cents the subsidy is 9.2 cents. Every customer has a Distributed Energy Resource charge on their bill, it's a separate line item. There is no question it's a subsidy. There is no decrease in the infrastructure or the cost to the utility for a solar owner. Same transformers, same wire and same poles. 3) Utility rate making as quite complicated by overall easy to understand. When one removes all the clutter and just focuses on this one issue the subsidy is clear. 4) As to fair. Other, non-regulated, utilities in the area use a time-of-use billing method. They set the on-peak hours and charge a demand fee. The winter hours are 6-9 am, and summer are 4-7 pm. The demand is calculated based on the hourly peak usage for the month during that period. The monthly bill is the demand charge, plus energy, plus an account charge. The demand is $12 / kW, energy is 5.15 cents, and the account fee is 95 cents a day. For a homeowner that does nothing to alter usage their bill will be about the same as it was under the previous kWh rate structure. For the homeowner that doesn't run the clothes dryer or electric water heater during peak hours the bill is quite lower. For the solar user that gets lucky and has no cloud cover during peak hours the bill is reduced. Of course that practically never happens over a 30-day period so their demand spikes. An 1800 sq ft house with a typical 2.5 ton AC unit will pull 2.5 - 3 kW. That's an incremental demand charge of $30 - $36. That's how the utility is compensated for the infrastructure cost. This seems like a much fairer method to allocate costs. The solar user pays a demand charge and the energy credit, while still a subsidy, is much closer to the avoided cost of electricity. Looking at the solar installations in the region, those areas with the time-of-use billing have a much lower number of solar customers than the area with kWh rates. The utilities with the kWh rates are simply trying to adjust rates to properly allocate costs. They have the data to show the subsidy because they do intensive metering on all types of customers. It will be interesting to see what the Commission does with this one. They are charged with protecting the consumer and treating all consumers equitably. They have no responsibility to maintain a financial structure that provides a profit mechanism for the solar companies. 5) About billing based on hourly average generation cost. Yes, that would be an equitable method to cover all the bases. In SC we have an even mix of nuclear, coal, base load gas and gas turbines. In theory they are dispatched based on least cost. Of course there are other technical factors that impact that process. Another argument has been billing based on generation source and proximity to the generator. Those closest to the nuke plant want that 1 cent power, and no share of the most expensive gas turbine that is 100 miles away. Those that are near the substation only want the transmission and distribution cost to their house since those lines are collectively 15 miles long. They don't want the system average cost. It's an interesting discussion for sure.

Not sure about the costs in your area. In SC the residential rate is approximately 12 cents. Of that, about 2.8 cents is the cost of the electricity. The remaining 9.2 cents is the infrastructure, labor, metering costs, profit, etc. The authorized rate of return is about 10.5%. Since the last rate change the actual return is closer to 8%. The problem with the current renewable rules in SC is the regulated utilities are required to credit the homeowner for any unused energy at the full retail rate of 12 cents. That is crazy when the only cost being avoided is 2.8 cents. Effectively what is happening is 99% of the customers are subsidizing the 1% that installed solar. Customers are charged a Distributed Energy Resource fee on their monthly bill and they are not liking it. The utilities are currently trying to change that. It's interesting to read and hear the testimony of the solar companies. "This will kill the solar industry, it's not fair, etc." Well duh, if the technology isn't cost effective without the 9.2 cents subsidy then maybe it shouldn't be used. Some have proposed a solar rate that includes an "infrastructure fee" as part of the base charges. The intent is to remove any subsidy.

Anyone that wants to install solar just do it. But if you also connect to the grid then you must pay a share of that cost. The generation source, transmission and distribution infrastructure is not cheap. If grid connected you are also responsible for installing the safety systems necessary to protect the lineman.

No problem. Las Vegas was bad. If the purpose of a product is to allow an unregulated semi auto to perform like, or quite similar to, a regulated auto fire gun then they probably should be regulated or banned. If find it interesting that there has been no mention about binary triggers. I fired an AR type rifle a few months ago and it had a binary trigger. It's not exactly like a full auto but similar enough.

In my statement I said, "a typical long gun is quite lethal at longer ranges but in most cases that is not what occurs in mass shootings." The word "most" was to exclude Las Vegas where a shotgun definitely would not have been as lethal. In that case, yes, smaller mags may have made a difference.