They aren't prayers, because there is no one to pray to and prayers don't work.
They are just select, somewhat realistic, wishes or dreams, and I have little ability to do much to make them happen or not.
U.S. Politics
* Harris wins the Presidential election.
* Democrats win the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
* Democrats hold CO-8 and win CO-3 and maybe even CO-5.
* The filibuster is abolished in the U.S. Senate.
* The U.S. Supreme Court is expanded to 13-15 seats, allowing Harris to appoint 5-7 new liberal justices.
* D.C. gains statehood status.
* Trump is sentenced to and serves several years in prison on his current charges of conviction, is not released pending appeal, and is ultimately convicted of at least some charges in the three other criminal cases that were brought against him with the classified documents case dismissal reversed on appeal.
* Justice Thomas is punished for corruption.
* Abortion bans fall one by one, state by state.
* The MAGA movement collapses.
U.S. Culture And Daily Life
* Christianity continues to decline in the U.S. in favor of secular worldviews.
* The percentage of people who own guns falls.
* Crime rates continue to fall.
* Police become less likely to use excessive force and less likely to act inappropriate when accountability measures and training are improved.
* Life expectancies and general health improves with new medical advances and better public health measures.
* Southern and country culture, and cultures of honor ebb and wane.
U.S. Economics
* Electric vehicles increase their market share.
* Coal consumption continues to plummet.
* Petroleum consumption plummets.
* Fossil fuel dependent economies like Wyoming, Alaska, and Texas see huge, long term stagnation similar to what was seen in the Rust Belt.
* The U.S. becomes more urbanized.
* Anti-fraud enforcement becomes more successful.
* Lawns and grass landscaping become more rare in the arid West.
* Land use regulations are relaxed.
* Unnecessary occupational regulation is relaxed.
* Immigration remains substantial and undocumented immigrants are largely legalized.
* Copyright laws and other intellectual property laws are weakened.
International Affairs
* Ukraine wins its war with Russia.
* Putin dies or is removed from office.
* The Houthis are defeated in Yemen.
* Hezbollah is defeated in Lebanon.
* Iran's efforts to make war with Israel prove futile.
* North Korea and Russia cease to be able to support their large military forces and greatly reduce them.
* Countries with fossil fuel economies like Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia see long term stagnation as fossil fuels become less important in their economies, and this undermines their authoritarian leaning regimes.
6 comments:
When wishing for sane water usage out West, don't forget golf courses and private pools.
Golf courses are an issue. Private pools, not so much. The biggest issue, however, is water conservation practices by farmers who are very wasteful (and whose use of large quantities of water for low value crops is itself a waste).
Hum... The "rights" that govern farmers water are complex, as you well know. The laws and regulations in that area are old, entrenched and heavily litigated. Would you advocate some sort of preemption by the federal government, or conversely that the states gain rights that are currently controlled by the Fed? I would guess that the value of those right is large, but well within the reach of the government to pay for. Let the states start buying water rights (eminent domain style?) and repurpose that water for other uses?
I was thinking more along the line of state laws that would mandate efficiency measures, perhaps by penalizing farmers who don't use them by x% per particular measure not taken of their water rights since the reduced amount would be sufficient to meet their historic uses if they were utilized.
Low-value crops follow from excessive subsidies.
Then if Colorado wants to encourage conservation for legitimate uses, it needs to start pricing water like the scarce resource that it is.
Excessive subsidies for low-value crops can be a problem. But Colorado's water law system doesn't allow it to price water like the scarce resource that it is. Water rights are owned by individual farmers and municipalities and other water users (like ditch companies), with 80-90% of the water owned by farmers, and while those water rights can be sold, selling water rights is a complicated matter because you need to consider the amount of the right, the priority of the right, and the water basin it is located in. You can't easily sell Gunnison River water rights to front range cities, for example. The owner gets the water (to the extent that it is available), basically for free, and can use it, sell the rights or the water for a particular year to someone else, or waste it. It is a good example of a situation where the Coase theorem doesn't work very well due to the high transaction costs and geographically limited available markets for water. Given the low price and the difficulties involved in repurposing irrigation water rights for other purposes, the incentives to use it more efficiently are weak. The main policy options are (1) tax water rights, (2) impose water conservation regulations, (3) improve the marketability of water rights with market strengthening and transparency improving reforms, and (4) take water rights via eminent domain and then re-distribute them at appropriate prices through periodic bidding on government owned water rights (similarly to how publicly owned grazing land and mineral rights are managed).
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