Presidential Candidate Thread: Is Ron Paul good for the country?

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SHIZUMARU: You'll have to do better fact checking than that if you hope to be elected to Congress so you can vote on war funding. The Super SIV referenced in that article would be funded by banks, not government.
 
<p>In my limited opinion - all of these alternative fuel cars will never be extremely popular as long as large suv's are allowed to careen down the freeway and put everyone in small cars in danger. As much as I would like to be a responsible citizen - I can't be one if I am dead. Alternatively, if the price of these cars was much lower than regular cars then people might buy them. </p>
 
Moving, gas at $3.35/gal isn't expensive enough to keep consumers out of 6000lb trucks. Yet another acquaintence just traded her paid-off Civic for a Tundra. Does not own a home, does not own an RV or any kind of trailer for that matter. Has nothing to haul around. WTF?
 
Eff, it's a visibility war. When those stupid soccer moms started toting around the crumbcrunchers in minivans, the rest of the world began to struggle to see around them. Then Ford came out with the non-off-road 4x4 (Explorer) and suddenly men, stuck in Chrysler K-cars who were frustrated that the Windstar in front of them kept blocking the view, had a viable "luxury" truck-ish thing which gave them much better visibility. Fast-forward to today, and you have various crossover vehicles that don't come with more than front-wheel drive but look like the bastard children of a Hummer bred with an '87 Hyundai Excel, but man....you can see tailights for MILES on the 5 freeway.
 
<p>Maybe if everyone would drive the speed limit, and in general act like adults on the road then those "stupid soccor moms" wouldn't need to buy minivans to try to keep their children safe. </p>
 
I refuse to put my children in a low-profile car after I a semi-truck tried to occupy the same space as the Saturn sedan I was driving. She said she never saw me. Luckily, no one was hurt. Just feel much safer in a car that rides a little higher, so my choice is a minivan. (Sorry, my crumbcrunchers and I will be blocking the view of your Echo).
 
<p>What about the fact that Canada is second only to Saudi Arabia in oil....can't we just tap our friendly neighbors to the north ?</p>

<p>I think solar needs to get it's act together and develop a viable, affordable consumer product. My neighbor in CT has huge solar panels on his roof (unsightly but effective) and he sells energy BACK to the power company and has a $0.00 electric bill every month.</p>

<p>Can you imagine what a bank of solar fields in the outer Palm Springs area could do ? I have no actual data, but it seems plausible with technology the way it is. At least I like to think so....</p>

<p>Agree that the lobbies are the main reason that these alt fuels ideas and cars keep getting shelved....</p>

<p>And Nude, your comment about "stupid soccer moms" and "crumbcrunchers" was crass. My best buds have 2 yr old twins and switching from an SUV to a mini-van (which they swore they would never do) has made their lives much easier.</p>
 
<p>I expect solar to play an increasingly important role in meeting future energy needs. Right now, the largest barrier is the cost of the panels and the unreliability of sunlight. Thankfully there are some interesting technologies on the horizon which could bring the cost way down in the next 5-10 years.</p>

<p>As for mini-vans and SUVs, I've always maintained that nearly all SUV owners would be best served by a mini-van. They have superior handling, safety, versatility, cargo capacity (sometimes), and fuel efficiency. SUV's are winners in a couple of narrowly-defined applications and losers in every other. That entire class of vehicle is wildly overrated. </p>
 
I always envisioned it working as a sort of hybrid for the short to medium term.





Using oil for things like daily commutes in single passenger cars and powering our houses when we have sunlight battering us all day just seems silly.





Also we need to recycle as much plastic as possible.





All that said, I still see legitimate uses for oil. Large industrial vehicles, necessary plastic applications, etc.





We don't have to do it all at once.
 
The <a href="http://teaparty07.com/">Tea Party weekend</a> was pretty successful. <a href="http://www.ronpaulgraphs.com/dec_16_extended_total.html">Over $6mil raised</a>, over $18mil for the quarter, and the site crashed from the traffic.





<img src="http://www.ronpaulgraphs.com/dec_16_extended_total.png" alt="" />
 
<i>"awgee - just wondering if you are buying gold? i have put some money into it as an inflation hedge"</i>

<p>

ukyo116 - I think gold, other precious metals, and commodities in general are a good inflation hedge. And as we watch the ECB and the Fed print money, (inject liquidity), I can not help but conclude that inflation is inevitable.
 
One thing I am quite unhappy about US is how much tax we pay and how little we get in return. The combined tax rate for CA was around 46% for my family, including health care cost, it was close to 60% ( I consider health care a form of tax, most other developed countries in the world has a low cost health care systems). In fact, the tax rate for CA is higher than France and Germany, the traditional high tax countries. (Switzerland does not tax on capital gain, neither does Italy). For that high tax, we don't get anything in return.





Having lived in Paris for the past two month, I am amazed at how low my living cost was (besides housing of course). I only spend around 120 Euros a month on transportation that gets me to where I need to go within 10 minutes, in CA, the insurance/gas/car payment/maintance will cost close to 1000 dollars a month. I went to a emergency room for stomach flu in Paris and only spend 30 Euros (30 Euros!!!), a similar visit to a CA emergency room will cost close to 4000 dollars.





I only pay tax on my regular income (no capital gain), and I am exempted from France's social tax since I am not French. (In US, even though new immigrants like H1B do not qualify for unemployment benefit, they are still taxed for it). Food is expensive comparing to US, but they are always fresh, and the best part is I can pickup grocery on my way from the subway station to the apartment so I don't have to drive around and spend time on shopping. I think US government is quite smart in breaking tax down into small pieces, and call half of them benefits instead of tax. It gives the American people an illusion that we are paying lower tax than everyone else
 
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