Is anyone the least bit surprised by the contents of the Mitchell report? I mean, really? This isn’t news..The only surprising thing is that there weren’t more players implicated than the few dozen named in the report.
People who are 6’6″ tall and weigh 260lbs are not naturally going to have 40″ vertical jumps and sub-4.4 in the forty speed. These are freaks of nature and rarely occur naturally. So baseball players have been using steroids, No Sh*t Sherlock! How about NFL, NBA, NHL, boxers, ultimate fighters, wrestlers, college football, track, and basketball? Does anyone really believe that these athletes are clean? Puh-leeze.
These are competitors at the top of their profession and they will do ANYTHING to stay on top. As the regulatory bodies that oversee sports wakeup and enforce bans, maybe the steroid usage will decline. Cycling seems to be testing constantly, yet cyclers still dope. People will always try to get an edge. Period.
Here’s a thought, is it time to simply have a set of “unlimited” class in sports where anything goes? That might be more sensible than trying to put the genie back in the bottle, if the genie can be put back in the bottle. Let’s make ’em legal and tax them heavily – that might actually reduce the demand.
My reaction to this? Yawn. Let’s hear actual news next time…
Welcome to Part II of our series on the personal finances of the presidential candidates from both parties. Yesterday I posted about the Democratic contenders, today we’ll get to the Republicans.
With the primaries coming up and selection time at hand, I thought it would be instructive to get a glimpse into the candidates personal finances. They’ve all filed disclosures with the Federal Elections Commission and the data this entry is based on those public disclosures. The only “funny” thing about it is, candidates are not forced to specify numbers, only select ranges for asset, liability, and income classes. When a number was not specified by the candidate, the mid-point of the class was chosen. Some of the classes are quite broad, particularly when the ranges increase to amounts over $100,000. So the data below are best presented as informed estimates of the candidates net worth and most recently reported income through the FEC disclosure process.
Representative Tom Tancredo
Mr. Tancredo is the least well-heeled of his colleagues, at least according to his FEC filings. He reported relatively few assets and relatively simple and clear cut income streams. With his present net worth, it’s difficult seeing that he personally will be giving much to his own campaign during primary season.
Estimated Net Worth: $800,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $232,000
Governor Mike Huckabee
Yes, according to net worth Governor Huckabee should be ordered first on this list. But when one takes in the income differential between Huckabee and Tancredo, it’s clear that Huckabee is working it and increasing his net worth at a faster rate. One other thing to note about Governor Huckabee, his base salary accounted for about 20% of his 2006 net income, he has an interesting array of honoraria and consulting fees that make up the bulk of his compensation.
Estimated Net Worth: $700,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $488,000
Representative Duncan Hunter
While Representative Hunter checks in with the net worth of a millionaire, he is the lowest paid (at least in 2006) of the Republican contenders for office. His assets, liabilities, and income streams were simple and straightforward to interpret (unlike some of his colleagues who seem to be “creative” in their endeavors.)
Estimated Net Worth: $1,500,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $179,000
Representative Ron Paul
As an internet darling, Representative Paul has been scrutinized closely. His filing showed an array of investments and assets that were reasonably simple and easy to understand. His portfolio is likely to be non-controversial and appears to be consistent with his age and income levels.
Estimated Net Worth: $2,300,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $295,000
Fred Thompson
Mr. Thompson’s wealth has been accumulated over the last few years, largely as a result of his acting in Hollywood. It’s clear that taking a position in public service will put a serious crimp in his income stream since it will be unlikely that he carries on his show business activities during that time period.
Estimated Net Worth: $8,000,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $9,000,000
Senator John McCain
As a long time public figure, Senator McCain has endured great scrutiny of his asset and income status. McCain, like Hillary Clinton, derives the largest portion of his assets and income from his spousal partner – it’s clear that the couple have amassed a large nest egg and continue to add to it on an annual basis.
Estimated Net Worth: $40,000,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $4,000,000
Rudy Giuliani
Despite a messy personal life (divorces and subsequent asset depletion) Mr. Giuliani has amassed quite a fortune in his post-Mayoral life. He is raking in the big bucks on the speaking circuit and is capable of writing himself a big check to help in his campaign, should he choose to do so.
Estimated Net Worth: $52,000,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $17,000,000
Mitt Romney
Mr. Romney has the dubious distinction of being the most wealthy contender from either party in this race. Not since H. Ross Perot ran for office has there been a candidate with as high a wealth level as Romney (though Perot was a billionaire vs. a simple hundred-millionaire.) It’s clear that Romney can provide substantial support to his campaign should he choose to do so. The primary source of this wealth is through his association with Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm.
Estimated Net Worth: $202,000,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $38,000,000
I hope this has been an interesting article, if you liked this content, be sure to check out the entry on the Democrats as well.
An associate recently referred a text book to our attention: Geothermal Power Plants: Principles, Applications, and Case Studies. (A second edition is due to be released this month.)
Have you ever wanted to understand or model hydrothermal reservoir characteristics? Have you ever wanted to simply grok what a hydrothermal reservoir is? Would you like to be able to model/understand the thermodynamic characteristics of a hybrid flash-binary geothermal harvest system? Would you like to know where geothermal plants are installed, their conversion method, and capacity? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this is the book for you.
DiPippo does an admirable job in making the material accessible to all, yet including the deep technical details and formulae required to perform analysis of geothermal projects.
With the primaries coming up and selection time at hand, I thought it would be instructive to get a glimpse into the candidates personal finances. They’ve all filed disclosures with the Federal Elections Commission and the data this entry is based on those public disclosures. The only “funny” thing about it is, candidates are not forced to specify numbers, only select ranges for asset, liability, and income classes. When a number was not specified by the candidate, the mid-point of the class was chosen. Some of the classes are quite broad, particularly when the ranges increase to amounts over $100,000. So the data below are best presented as informed estimates of the candidates net worth and most recently reported income through the FEC disclosure process.
Senator Joe Biden
According to the disclosure documents, Biden is the least affluent of the contenders clocking in with a net worth of $93,000 and income of $201,000 per year. One has to wonder what un-reported, or under-reported assets exist for the candidate. This information comes straight from the FEC filing document with numbers at the mid-point.
Estimated Net Worth: $93,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $201,000
Senator Mike Gravel
Gravel has amassed 2.5x the wealth of Senator Biden, and his reported income is substantially higher. Still, the disclosures seem a bit on the light side prompting the question: what has been unreported or under-reported. Data source, FEC filing with numbers at mid-point.
Estimated Net Worth: $250,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $387,000
Representative Dennis Kucinich
While Kucinich ranks 3rd most affluent according to the disclosures, a significant portion of his reported assets exist in a single private company. The value of this company and Mr. Kucinich’s share are likely unknowable. In terms of real, reported, tangible assets, Mr. Kucinich is the least affulent of the contenders by far. As with Biden and Gravel, it leads one to wonder about unreported and/or under-reported assets.
Estimated Net Worth: $300,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $240,000
Senator Barack Obama
Obama’s filing has been highly scrutinized and widely reported, so there’s a lot more confidence that the numbers reported are accurate. He’s clearly in the process of making money as well as a name for himself in the political sphere.
Estimated Net Worth: $1,300,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $991,000
Senator Chris Dodd
Dodd has amassed over $2M in net worth and has managed to nearly double his Senator’s income of $165,200 per year. Though his disclosure hasn’t received the scrutiny of some of the other candidates, it is believed to be generally accurate and complete.
Estimated Net Worth: $2,400,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $303,000
Governor Bill Richardson
Richardson’s wealth was the real surprise to me in wading through these documents. Not that he shouldn’t have it, but he doesn’t present himself publicly in such a way that one would suspect the size of his personal fortune. He has tripled his Governor’s salary and his investments are diversified.
Estimated Net Worth: $6,600,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $452,000
Senator Hillary Clinton
Few candidates have survived the scrutiny that Hillary Clinton has endured, first during her husband’s Presidential campaigns, then during her subsequent Senatorial campaigns, and now with her own Presidential bid. Make no mistake about it, the Clinton household has thrived in the time since the White House days with former President Clinton pulling in $200,000 a speaking engagement (this generated most of their reported income.) The last 15 years has seriously increased the Clinton’s wealth.
Estimated Net Worth: $35,000,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $12,000,000
John Edwards
Edwards may have the most net worth of the Democratic contenders, but he’s also got the most problematic types of issues attached to his sources of wealth. He initially amassed his fortune as a personal injury lawyer winning many prominent settlements. Since his retirement from the Senate in 2005, he has been a principal with Fortress Investment group, further increasing his wealth. Fortress has ties to the whole sub-prime lending fiasco and this could become a serious liability in the campaign.
Estimated Net Worth: $55,000,000
Estimated 2006 Income: $3,000,000
I hope this has been an interesting article, I’ll give the same treatment to the Republican contenders in the near future and then perhaps a comparison and contrast to finish the series.
Via Renewable Energy Access:
Northern California Power Agency (NCPA) and SPG Solar, announced that they will together to build a 1 megawatt (MW) single-axis solar tracking system that will provide renewable energy to an existing pump station that supplies the NCPA Geysers Geothermal Energy Plant.
The array will be used to collect solar power to pump wastewater into the geysers, which is in turn used to generate geothermal power. The photovoltaic array will start generating clean renewable power beginning in September 2008.
The $8.2 million installation consists of 6,300 solar modules that will produce 2.2 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually. The solar plant will supplant PG&E-provided grid power that had been powering the pumps.
Read more…
NCPA operates two geothermal plants at the Geysers producing approximately 132MW gross, and 120MW net of electricity. In the late 1990’s, in an attempt to regain pressure in the rapidly declining Geysers field, NCPA and other operators at the Geysers entered into an agreement with Lake County to reclaim the treated waste water, pipe it to the Geysers, and reinject it into the reservoir. This is necessary because nearly 70% of the mass extracted from the reservoir is released into the atmosphere during operations of the power plants and natural recharge was not matching the pace of extraction.
NCPA Geothermal Plant at the Geysers
The good news is this scheme to replace mined mass has worked; so much so, that Calpine followed suit and created a similar agreement with Santa Rosa. The bad news is, it takes power to move the millions of gallons of water from Lake County to the injection wells. The pipeline is about 30 miles (50 km) and gains nearly 2,000 feet (600 m) in elevation over the course of its run. The load to run the pipeline operations is about 8MW, or two-thirds of the parasitic load borne by the NCPA plants.
So, in practical terms, the application of solar energy to power some of the pumping operations should be characterized as an experiment in multi-dimensional harvest. The other opportunities NCPA and the other Geysers operators have (given the location and transmission infrastructure) are straight-forward bottom cycling using the new generation units from UTC power further harvesting heat from the steam exhaust from the turbines and wind turbine installation. This is the approach Montara Energy Ventures is taking with its Sou Hills Prospect.
