Forum Post: Something on our list of demands with a butterfly effect.

Just wanted to offer something to assist with your collection and march for change. I hope someone uses this.

Solar power. I know it's simple and has been promised etc etc but there's a few quirks to it. That 50 billion dollar bill obama signed a few years ago was spent on infrastructure, and to this day him and the media are moaning about creating jobs, lifting the sagging economy, and removing the dependence on foreign oil. If he used that 50 billion for solar power, he could have purchased 19 Gigawatts of solar power at retail. With government purchasing power, that could have been even higher. New York City consumes about 4 Gigawatts, and had he used that money to pay for solar power, we could have 1, created jobs for the installation and maintenance of the panels, 2, removed quite a few oil and coal power stations to help the environment and air quality, 3, returned quite a bit of money to the economy from saved electric bills, heat, and hot water which could have been generated over Obama's 4 year term to be respent on further solar power purchases. The benefit as well would be a wider electrical acceptance capability to buy more chevy volts, sending more work to an american company's product line.

Here's a secondary way it could have been done, with similarly magnificent returns: Spending that money to provide solar power to the nation's poorest neighborhoods. How uplifting to the society would it be if single mothers who couldn't get more than a minimum wage job didn't have to worry about electric bills, heating bills in the winter, hot water, or gas to cook with? All they'd have to worry about is rent and food. A minimum wage job could cover that, and still leave money leftover to save up for a car, widening their ability to earn something higher than minimum wage, as well as putting a little money aside to get their kids into community college and off the streets, resulting in less crime and less illegal drug distribution. Who contributes more to the economy than the little people? Why not help them first? Then the whole unemployment thing wouldn't be so tough to weather.

There was an article I can't find now that says over the past year, solar costs have dropped about 20% and large purchases are being driven down to the $2-4 per watt range, and with that kind of purchasing power, nearly 8 times the amount of power could be purchased, driving the amount of purchaseable power to approximately 150 gigawatts with 50 billion dollars, which is actually MORE than the amount that the entire New York State uses. Imagine removing NY state from the power grid, and that state returning 1.2 billion per month in bills to the economy. Obama could have had that 50 billion RETURNED TO THE COUNTRY within 4 years, actually having accomplished something REAL for us, and having something to get re-elected with and the ability to remove another state or even two from the grid 4 years later. Imagine, in 8 years, having 3 states completely absolved of energy related bills, and after that, maybe 5 or 7. Within 20 years, our kids would have had a much greater life, which is the point isn't it? We're always talking about "our kids are the future" and needing to leave something behind so their lives are better than ours were right? What better way to do that than this? Less crime? Less drug distribution? A higher standard of living? More jobs? Less overall expenses taxing the general population? A higher education rate? Or a higher debt ceiling >_>

If government continued to operate the way they do, how much more in taxes could they get from us that way, if we had more money to keep from not having electric, gas, heat, and hot water bills? How much more money could we divert to pay for proper schooling and books and supplies in the poor school districts? State funded hospitals? Police and fire support? General town maintenance?

Just like it says in the income description in the game SuperPower2: The higher the tax rate, etc, the more the people expect that money to be used towards things like infrastructure, education, healthcare, telecommunications, etc. Speaking of which, how easy then would it be to move some of those taxes towards implementing a feasible universal healthcare system? It has to start somewhere, and increasing our quality of life and standard of living has been available for decades. We DEMAND solar power because it's here NOW, and we can't continue to survive paying all these unnecessary bills AND dealing with gas that's constantly over $4 a gallon.

If they can't do that, think of it this way, which is idea possibility number 3: The electric companies like UI or ConEd could install ONE panel on each domicile and reap immediate return on investment, meaning the consumer sees no benefit and is actually paying for the panel with the energy the panel collects or an extra dollar or two per day or month or whatever. Once that first panel is paid off, the consumer owns that panel and its benefits, as the company installs a second panel across all the domiciles and repeats the process until EVERYONE has enough solar panels to cover their bills. In essence this puts them out of business, but also reincarnates their business to that of an installer and maintainer of the panels etc, which additionally would give them about 30 years to change up their business plan.

There are so many easy and painless ways to do this, and we're going to have to evolve at some point. If politicians, corporate america, and the government refuse to take care of its own people, the least they can do is give us solar power and eliminate a lot of mental and physical stress, and let a lot more of us get a better nights sleep. If not for us, do it for the children!!

I Sincerely hope you put this to use. If we get absolutely nothing from the demonstrations, we NEED to at least walk away with THIS. I've got one more topic that involves liquifying Congress and essentially shifting their power back to the people which i'll post once it's written up. It's pretty convincing and just as valid as this argument. If anyone thought this was good, please comment or let me know what you think on twitter at #DMajlak