Rano's Random Rants

One of the easiest political targets are tax-cuts. Nobody likes to work really hard and then see a large chunk of the fruits of their labors going to taxes. It’s therefore become common wisdom that cutting taxes is the only way to grow the economy, by “returning” this hard earned money back. There are however a class of people with so much money they don’t need to work. These people are the true capitalists. The invest money into businesses or property and reap the dividends and capital gains. It’s harder to justify giving large tax cuts to the already wealthy who aren’t really working for their money. Many also take small but high-level part-time jobs such as on a board of directors for their own or friendly companies. They might also given themselves an executive level position but actually delegate the day-to-day operations of the company to underlings. They can run multiple companies this way and spend time traveling to procure other business opportunities. Though others are ac...

  New Jersey Assembly Bill A577 purports to be about supporting clean renewable energy, but in reality it is nothing of the sort. When Joe Biden negotiated a bi-partisan infrastructure deal, there were some funds to help develop new clean energy sources. While most people think about clean energy they are probably expecting zero-emission sources like solar, wind, or hydroelectric power. There was another more esoteric item included in this clean energy initiative: so-called “renewable natural gas”. The idea for this new fossil-fuel product is that methane can occur as byproducts of the agriculture industry, waste treatment, or from decomposition occurring at landfills. Currently, these small amounts of methane are released into the atmosphere where they are a potent greenhouse gas component (far more than carbon dioxide). Since these industries are ongoing, the idea is that these quantities of gas can be collected and used as fuel in a renewable process. Currently there is ...