The Office of Senator Adam Griffin (SEN. GRIFFIN ANNOUNCES SOMETHING)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It seems like Atlasia is now more competitive than I can remember at any point since joining shortly after dissolution. We currently have a Labor-friendly Federalist President, and a Senate that was completely divided until this most recent vacancy. Because of this, it is hard to accomplish anything of substance that has even an iota of controversy attached to it these days. Don't the people of Atlasia deserve better?

I would hate to think that the 30 plus bills and record setting 91 amendments to legislation were all just so much trash. At the very least those who worked hard on passing them would consider them to have been of substance.

This Senate election may very well be the most important election since dissolution, and certainly will be the most important one since July of last year. The person holding this seat will determine whether we will have continued gridlock or a governing majority that matches our progressive, socialist, leftist and moderate hero constituencies.

How is record setting numbers of legislation in spite of a record number of amendments and redrafts to be considered gridlock? And the percentage of failed bills is about the same as previous Senates, around 20%-25% or so. Just because nationalization and so forth is rejected, doesn't mean we have gridlock, even from a Progressive standpoint.
 

RESPECTING REGIONAL RIGHTS

I have always supported regional rights, especially when it was to my benefit. Way back when, my Five Region Strategy was successful in bolstering activity through all regional governments, and I wish that the strategy would have been continued. It is no secret that the Midwest and Pacific have had informal talks about merging their two regions. I am not sure of the exact count, but it would appear that a majority of residents in each region support this measure. Frankly, without a sixth progressive, leftist and/or Labor Senator, this will never occur.

The Senate has the power with a simple majority to address this issue. Unfortunately, progress has been thwarted because some are worried about an imbalance being created that cannot be solved via constitutional amendment. I reject this notion, and will work tirelessly to ensure these regions are allowed to pursue the pathway that is best for them. I will elaborate further on remedies to solve the resulting imbalance that would be present with one "missing" Senator in the coming days.

Anything can be solved via a Constitutional Amendment as far as I know. Also, I am pretty sure the Senate approved merging the governments of the Midwest and the Pacific by a wide margin. There is a reluctance understandably to wade into "Senate Altering" measures that could easily lead to what would otherwise indeed be passed by a simple majority, to instead end up failing miserably when the region was in crises and there was a sense of urgency.

NATIONALIZING ELECTRICITY

I have always stood for regionalizing key utilities at the regional level, and have supported similar intents federally, too. Energy is not a job-dense industry; energy companies can essentially drain dry all the natural resources in this great country without creating anywhere near the number of jobs that we'd expect in other industries for similar profits to be made. The result is very little competition, higher prices, accumulation of liquidity and in some cases, increased income inequality - all of which lead to a volatile, unnecessarily expensive scenario in which potential economic growth is ignored in the idea of the "free market", something of which does not exist in the slightest in the energy sector.

By eliminating the concept of profit from the equation - and only breaking even on labor/operating costs - we free up anywhere from 1-2% of GDP for direct injection by consumers into other aspects of the economy - where profit actually equates job growth. Such a move over the long-term would provide an additional ladder for millions with which they can climb out of poverty and be a part of a thriving, healthy economic engine. It also will reduce energy costs for businesses of all sizes.

My preference would be to break up the monopolies with regionalized or even localized electrical co-opts that don't just buy from and resell, but can even somehow compete directly with the power monpolies. I doubt the ability of a federally nationalzied system to reduce costs to the consumer and businesses, if for no other reason then the risk for politically motivated decision making and the lack of a more localized community focus. In fact there was a meeting here in NC just today or yesterday between an Environmentalist group and the Libertarian Conservative John Locke Foundation to dicuss just how Duke Energy could be reigned in.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Uh oh. This is what I get for posting in the Federalist convention.

Very little if any connection. Been meaning to "check this for mistakes" as George Carlin once said, for a few days but just got around to it now.

It seems like Atlasia is now more competitive than I can remember at any point since joining shortly after dissolution. We currently have a Labor-friendly Federalist President, and a Senate that was completely divided until this most recent vacancy. Because of this, it is hard to accomplish anything of substance that has even an iota of controversy attached to it these days. Don't the people of Atlasia deserve better?

I would hate to think that the 30 plus bills and record setting 91 amendments to legislation were all just so much trash. At the very least those who worked hard on passing them would consider them to have been of substance.

A large number of amendments is indicative of a divided Senate, with each side trying to water down the other side's bills. That's a natural process, but let's not brag about the overall number like it's some type of accomplishment. Maybe you also have ready the counts on what percentage of those 30 bills were introduced by the same one or two people? A quick glance suggests that TNF & X have introduced around half of the bills since January.

Actually it is substanial accomplishment because it occured in the context of not having a slide in the number overal bills completed, in fact there may even be an increase when it is all said and done over last Seante on number of bills completed.

It seems that you missed your own point and are trying to duck over to another issue. Gridlock implies that nothing is getting done and that most certainly is not the case. Some things are being defeated because they are considered poorly designed, are bad ideas or there is a better way of doing it. And you speak of the number of amendments as a bad thing, I would hardly consider improving legislation, which is what most of them have done as opposed to "watering them down" (of course that probably is a matter of perspective to some extent as well), a bad thing also. Most people would expect that I would think.

This Senate election may very well be the most important election since dissolution, and certainly will be the most important one since July of last year. The person holding this seat will determine whether we will have continued gridlock or a governing majority that matches our progressive, socialist, leftist and moderate hero constituencies.

How is record setting numbers of legislation in spite of a record number of amendments and redrafts to be considered gridlock? And the percentage of failed bills is about the same as previous Senates, around 20%-25% or so. Just because nationalization and so forth is rejected, doesn't mean we have gridlock, even from a Progressive standpoint.

See above for the first part. Thankfully, we have a reasonable Vice-President, who recently faced criticism over his tendency to not do exactly what most in his party would want him to do. Not all bills are controversial, so of course those are going to slide on through.

If a bill is controversial it is for a reason. It is because someone views it as a bad idea or that it is a bad way of going about it. Like the DemPGH Fortunate Fairness Act, where most of the evidence suggests that it would be counterproductive and have the same effect as similar legislation in real life, which was to encourage stock options as opposed to salaried compensation and thereby exascerbate the  wealth gap, not narrow it. Understandably noble intentions, but a counterproductive approach clearly.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

RESPECTING REGIONAL RIGHTS

I have always supported regional rights, especially when it was to my benefit. Way back when, my Five Region Strategy was successful in bolstering activity through all regional governments, and I wish that the strategy would have been continued. It is no secret that the Midwest and Pacific have had informal talks about merging their two regions. I am not sure of the exact count, but it would appear that a majority of residents in each region support this measure. Frankly, without a sixth progressive, leftist and/or Labor Senator, this will never occur.

The Senate has the power with a simple majority to address this issue. Unfortunately, progress has been thwarted because some are worried about an imbalance being created that cannot be solved via constitutional amendment. I reject this notion, and will work tirelessly to ensure these regions are allowed to pursue the pathway that is best for them. I will elaborate further on remedies to solve the resulting imbalance that would be present with one "missing" Senator in the coming days.

Anything can be solved via a Constitutional Amendment as far as I know. Also, I am pretty sure the Senate approved merging the governments of the Midwest and the Pacific by a wide margin. There is a reluctance understandably to wade into "Senate Altering" measures that could easily lead to what would otherwise indeed be passed by a simple majority, to instead end up failing miserably when the region was in crises and there was a sense of urgency.

I still view the current measure as a patchwork solution rather than one worthy of our efforts. Sure, it may work (and thankfully the SC did not grant certiorari for that case against it), but ultimately it will still be a case of two regions acting as one but acting as two. Like I told you prior: I'm not a Federalist, so I don't worry about there not being a perfect balance of representation in the Senate between the regions and at-large; that's not the biggest issue we face or would face with respect to the issue. If anything, as supporters of the Duke Plan, you and I could agree that a reduction of Senators is a prerequisite for a lower chamber given the consistent concerns vis a vis activity and the number of offices in the game.

Of course a bicameral legislature solves the problem of balance and absolves the need for perfect number equality by way of seperating the chamber into two and making sure one represents the Regions while the other, the people of the nation. But you cannot get to point b, without getting to a, a had 65% support in polling and still failed (in three regions and only got 40% or so support total nationwide) whilst b had only 48% in the polling to begin with, so caution is inevitable, the region is in crisis and thus the change passed, while not the perfect Griffin model, assured a solution that was doable in the short term.

NATIONALIZING ELECTRICITY

I have always stood for regionalizing key utilities at the regional level, and have supported similar intents federally, too. Energy is not a job-dense industry; energy companies can essentially drain dry all the natural resources in this great country without creating anywhere near the number of jobs that we'd expect in other industries for similar profits to be made. The result is very little competition, higher prices, accumulation of liquidity and in some cases, increased income inequality - all of which lead to a volatile, unnecessarily expensive scenario in which potential economic growth is ignored in the idea of the "free market", something of which does not exist in the slightest in the energy sector.

By eliminating the concept of profit from the equation - and only breaking even on labor/operating costs - we free up anywhere from 1-2% of GDP for direct injection by consumers into other aspects of the economy - where profit actually equates job growth. Such a move over the long-term would provide an additional ladder for millions with which they can climb out of poverty and be a part of a thriving, healthy economic engine. It also will reduce energy costs for businesses of all sizes.

My preference would be to break up the monopolies with regionalized or even localized electrical co-opts that don't just buy from and resell, but can even somehow compete directly with the power monopolies. I doubt the ability of a federally nationalized system to reduce costs to the consumer and businesses, if for no other reason then the risk for politically motivated decision making and the lack of a more localized community focus. In fact there was a meeting here in NC just today or yesterday between an Environmentalist group and the Libertarian Conservative John Locke Foundation to discuss just how Duke Energy could be reigned in.

As long as we take the notion of unreasonable profit out of the equation and the industry away from private interests, I'm open to a variety of solutions.

The unreasonable profit is because they are a monopoly. This is bad for both the consumers and the environment, which is why you see Progressive environmentalist teaming up with a bunch of libertarian conservatives here in NC on the issue. If your theory is correct that the profit is rising the costs so then eventually, the co-opts would probably undercut the power companies and drive them leaving customer and/or worker owned operations as the primary providers. The risk of a national system is that rural areas get screwed for NYC and LA and so forth, and that down the line corrupt politicians can use it to enrich their friends at the expense of the consumer, the environment and there workers. A decentralized system, united only on a limited basis (like state to state partnership, SE Atlantic Coast etc) and customer/worker owned, you separate the politicians thusly and remove that risk.