Tag Archives: investment

Not clear houses are more important than agriculture —John S. Quarterman @ LCC 12 July 2011

If somebody puts a subdivision next to your field, beware of trash, and the same if you buy a lot in it. For that matter, why do we need more houses?

Some of what I said:

To expand a little bit on that subdivision next to our west field, one of the builders continued to push trash into our field until I had to sue him for trespass in Superior Court to get him to stop.
I meant to say in Magistrate’s Court.
I called code enforcement multiple times and they did nothing to help stop it. Now that there’s a new fire chief perhaps things are better, but anybody who’s got a field nearby might want to watch for that.

Anyone who hopes to buy houses in the subdivision might want to watch to see if there are any dumpsters in there, because the subdivision near us, the trash was buried in the yards; you can ask anyone who owns one of those lots.

As far as needing houses for Moody, there are usually ten houses for sale in that subdivision, and roughtly 10 or 15 more that are for rent. So it’s not clear we actually need more houses.

As far as lot size, this is the same issue as came up last year with Glen Laurel on Old Pine Road. … The room was filled with people for the same reasons that you’re hearing now. At that time the commission decided to say ….

You can see for yourself what happened in May of last year: Continue reading →

Private prisons are a bad investment —Tucson Citizen

Cell-out-arizona wrote in TucsonCitizen.com 12 July 2011, ARIZONA DOESN’T NEED, CAN’T AFFORD MORE PRIVATE PRISONS
The Arizona Department of Corrections has given a green light to four private, for-profit correctional management corporations for the construction and management of an additional 5,000 state prison beds.

The American Friends Service Committee condemns this action as unnecessary and deeply irresponsible given the state’s economic crisis and the dismal safety records of all four of the corporations involved.

Arizona’s Auditor General estimates this expansion will cost us over $640 million by 2017. Yet our prison population only grew by only 65 inmates in 2010.

This year, our corrections budget is over $1 billion, consuming 11% of the state general fund. The Department of Corrections was the only state agency whose budget saw an increase this year.

Hm, a billion a year, like Georgia’s “950 plus million budget” that we also can’t afford.

The Tucson article cites the NY Times article that demonstrations private prisons don’t save money, continues with examples of worse public safety at private prisons, and concludes: Continue reading →

SolarCity gets big investment from Google

Google invests megabucks in SolarCity, the California company that handles all financing of solar panels and provides them to the customer with no money down and a reasonable monthly payment.

Steve Hargreaves wrote in CNNMoneyTech 14 June 2011, Google invests $280 million in SolarCity

Google and rooftop solar power company SolarCity announced a $280 million investment deal Tuesday, the largest such deal for home-based solar power systems in the United States.

The investment will give San Mateo, Calif-based SolarCity the funding to build and lease solar power systems to a 7,000 to 9,000 homeowners in the 10 states where it operates.

Founded five years ago, SolarCity has 15,000 solar projects around the nation completed or under way. Customers who wish to have the company’s solar system installed at their home can pay for it outright, but most choose instead to let SolarCity retain ownership of the equipment and rent back the use of it through monthly solar lease payments.

Another financing method is Solar Mosaic, where people pool their money to buy shares in a solar installation.

-jsq

PS: This post owed to M.J. Kuntz.

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox urges drug legalization

Sandra Dibble writes in signonsandiego 6 April 2011 that Former Mexican president urges drug legalization

Photo by Omar Martinez — Frontera
Legalization of drugs in Mexico would not only lead to lowered violence and drug consumption but also boost its economy, former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday during a speech to a convention of newspaper editors from the United States and Latin America.

“Things are going very badly for Mexico with the issues of organized crime and violence,” Fox said in Spanish. “We’re losing large volumes of tourists, if not in the interior, then at the border. We’re losing a great number of investments.”

And if there were more jobs in Mexico, from tourism and investments, there would be fewer Mexicans trying to sneak into the U.S. for jobs.

Will legalization cause more drug use? No:

On Wednesday, Fox cited the example of Portugal, where he said drugs use has fallen by 25 percent a decade after they were legalized there.

That would be better than locking up more people for private profit while not decreasing drug use, and that’s what we’re doing now.

-jsq

$100 million for large-scale solar projects

James Cartledge writes in BrighterEnergy.org:
Investment firm PowerFin Partners LLC is offering to finance more than $100 million worth of commercial and utility-scale solar projects in the US and Canada.

The company based in Austin, Texas, is looking for projects above 2 megawatts in size (DC), for which permitting is nearly complete.

Projects must be a minimum of 300,000 square feet across as many as four sites.

Hm, where could we find something like that locally?

-jsq