The Economics of Cloning Armies or Super Families

Let's put the religious part of the debate for a moment, there will be time for that later. Currently there is much ethics debate from many different religious beliefs about cloning in both the scientific communities and the church. Enough in fact that the US Senate and Congress have already made a law against human cloning. This law effects US citizens and it is expected that future laws will be sanctioned and conditions enforced through trade agreements for all civilized and industrialized nations against cloning. Literally a world wide ban. However this does not mean that cloning will not exist in the future as we already see groups claiming the first human clone and others following suit. So for the sake of debate, and at the World Think Tank, all topics are to be discussed, worked out, all sides heard and all concepts evaluated. Below is such a cost study, which seems to indicate that cloning is not a profitable from a pure economic standpoint as one might think. Here are some real numbers thrown out to shed some light on the subject of the economic viability of human cloning.

I offer no solution to the problem only to study costs associated with the much debated subject of cloning. Now then put yourself in the driver's seat and let's begin.

If you wanted to have 20 clones of yourself, there will be a huge investment on your part. The cost to raise them until age 16 provided you ran the household like a business would be approximately $500 per month minimum until age 6, then $700 per month each until age 12, then $900 per month until age 16. This would include all the necessary things that you had while growing up; Cub Scouts, soccer shoes, little league, bicycle, after school activities so they arrive at age 16 with the proper social norms, strength of character and development necessary. This would not include schooling, which we assume would be paid by the state. However if you had 20 clones this is an overburden on society and there would surely be a law against that sometime in the future. In other words if the cloning was allowed and you were responsible for the costs, you would be responsible to subsidize for the extra units you brought into society. If you home schooled, then you would need a tutor or several, perhaps a coach and some extra educational or vocational training and we are assuming the need to clone on a massive level was for a business purpose. So the ROI would be considered within the costs.

Now let's go over the costs above. 20 clones at $500.00 per month is $10,000 per month. Six years of this would be 72 months or $720,000.00, so then now you have 20 of "you" at age six and your job is hardly over indeed. Now then to take those kids to age twelve will cost you even more, another 72 months but at the rate of $700.00 per month or $14,000 per month, multiplied times 6 years is 1 million eighty thousand dollars. The last four years would be crucial to the development of strong, smart and worthy home grown leaders therefore you would spend about $900 per month per teen times 20 teens is $18,000 per month. Forty-eight additional months is going to cost you $864,000. So to get 20 clones to age 16 will cost you $2,592,000.00 in today's dollars, yet we all know about inflation and it's real costs. Now then to hire the help of in-house tutors, baby-sitters and instructors and of course mentors, coaches and teachers you are going to need a staff of no less than 3 people at an average of $35,000 per year for each for the first 6 years of cloning. 4 people for the next 10 years and better trained people with skills as well, for instance being able to teach physics, calculus, trigonometry, World history, sports skills also since these young people are you, you will want the best and perhaps up the ante or have special guests come in such as famous basket ball, football, baseball, golf, athletes or coaches for first class training in tactics, skill, finesse and sportsmanship and of course winning. How to win is what you are looking for.

This means about $55,000 times four staff members are needed. So let's add in $100,000 per year for specialists to give them a first class leg up on the world. Now we have staff costs of $210,000 for the first six years per each staff member times three, which is $630,000. The next ten years staff costs are $2,200,000.00 plus special seminars and sports camps of 1 million. So training these clones and nurturing them costs you $3,200,000 minimum without inflation plus the $2,592,000 for food shelter, clothing, bicycles, sports gear, Nikes, etc which is $5,792,000.00 which in today's money is considered a large cost. With proper tutoring at age sixteen they should be ready to accelerate to college level if you have done everything right. Four years of maximum study, five at most and they should be ready to run the family businesses. Each clone is costing you $289,600.00 even with the economies of scale of a huge group effort.

Let's talk about mortality rates shall we. Currently the odds of getting a clone to age sixteen are almost nil as the negative aspects of aging are greatly exaggerated and therefore presently it is unlikely that any would reach age sixteen. Birth mortality rate is about 1/16 or so now, so you might have 21 or 22 to make sure 20 survived birth. Currently the birth mortality rate of cloning is probably more like 20:1, which means to get 20 you have to try 400 times. But after you have twenty born you still have other issues with infant death syndrome, disease, etc, which means you may need a few more to make sure you get to 20. if they are like you they will most likely do things like ride motorcycles, jump bicycles off jumps and generally do things which are dangerous and we have all had close friends growing up who did not make it. If you add in 3 extra clones assuming that all these issues of cloning and deaths is figured out in the future then you add $289,600 times three or $868,800.

With all these high costs, it seems cloning may not be such a good idea after all and perhaps it might be better for you to simply get married or adopt and split the costs with your spouse or significant other.

What say you, tell us your thoughts on the value of cloning, your thoughts on the costs associated, ways to cut costs, mistaken notions of the costs projected here. Porjected date of reality of cloning in the future? 5, 10, 20, 30 years to viability of concept, longevity of clone, death and mortality rate estimates? Tell us of your desire to have a clone of yourself? How such ideas effect you, cost to the general welfare, state, taxation rate, costs to society, health care. Would we all be created equal if in fact we were copies of ourselves? Tell us your thoughts, it is a subject of interest and soon there will be clones in the world, whether we like it or not, since many have the desire. Do you care? What can we do, should we do, any thought

Alternative to Land Mines in Middle East

With the recent threats from Bin Laden and Al Queda to attack Oil Fields, Pipelines, Facilities, Refiners and Assets of Oil Companies which supply the United States with it's need fuel, such operations will have to upgrade and defend themselves. There are many options from robotics to land mines. Yet many options involve killing trespassers indiscriminately with robotic sentinels:

The problem is it might shoot the wrong person. Putting in landmines is also a long-term tragedy as they are there long after the threat is gone and often blow off the limbs of children and locals. These landmines are a serious problem in the world kill and maim tens of thousands each year and are extremely difficult to remove and remain long after the original planters of the mines are gone.

Instead of planting land mines or using robots to defend, a simple non-lethal plan is needed, one which prevent crossing of an area without killing anyone. Since the Middle East has many oil fields and these oil company assets need to be defended as well as areas prone to insurgent crossing, we should use the oil as a barrier to entry. An idea to defend a region may need to take into consideration some of the available close at hand opportunities. For instance creating a mote like perimeter around a region and filling it with oily, seawater. The oily seawater is already in the ground in many places as it is pumped into underground cavities created when the oil is pumped out. By mixing this oily saltwater and chemical polymer chains to make a "Goo" and then covering the mote with a layer of sand. This can be done easily by digging the mote, 100 feet wide and 10 feet deep and lining it with a plastic bottom. By increasing the underground pressure and drilling down and allowing the salt-water, which has been pumped in, to flow out into the newly dug lined mote, the canal can be quickly filled.

Once the mote is completely filled and before any of the oily water moisture evaporates, create a wind or dust storm to cover the "goo" with a layer of sand. Thus you have created a gooey mess covered with sand, which cannot be seen, but provides a barrier to stop crossings. Such a barrier will be able to prevent crossing or be penetrated by surface movement such as Camels, walking insurgents, Toyota Trucks or suicide car bombers. Oil Companies may also wish to defend their assets in this way. The United States government cannot defend all company assets or track down and defend every possible international terrorist target and it is also necessary that the United States stick to protecting Americans, due to costs and readiness to defend against future threats without over extending our resources.

If the Oil Companies are able to defend their own assets and secure the perimeters of their facilities against International Terrorists without such things which have been determined to be inhuman such as landmines or the outright shooting any trespasser for fear they might have hostile intentions, the human race is better served. If we can keep out insurgents as we complete our Nation Building post-war efforts, then those peoples will create their much over do democracies and experience the freedoms they need much sooner. By securing borders in this way we can prevent loss of US and Iraqi security forces today and protect other free nations in the future, by assisting them to better protect themselves, without the wasteful expenditure of life on either side, which propels further reciprocal responses and revenge motivated behavior. Such a tactic as an alternative to landmines makes a lot of sense.

Super Voting Ink and Vaccines

In the future when we decide to help nations vote and enter their new freedom of democracy at a time when we have significant resistance in the form of a guerilla contingency or insurgency we should specially modify the ink die to prove a vote was cast to identify the good citizens.

By mixing a specific chemical which is safe biologically, but shows up under UV light, we can tell when they approach a check point at night if they are the good guys or bad guys. This will be a very good technique for taking stress of peace keepers at checkpoints and prevent good citizens from feeling negative about check points and foreign soldiers in their country.

Further the ink could contain leaching properties and contain flu vaccination so it will be absorbed into the skin and protect those good citizens who voted and are trying to rebuild their nations and create a safe and secure country for themselves and families. During the reconstruction period fresh water supplies, sewer treatment facilities and a clean environment may effect the health of the nation. Those who are brave enough to stand up for their rights deserve a little extra for their efforts and we should stand with them along with all of our modern day advances of medicine and healthy living.

If you have other thoughts on how the Voting Ink we saw used in the Iraqi elections and believe that such a solution has other benefits please contact the World Think Tank.

Should Judgeships Be a Political Event?

Thought of the day; Questions about the judicial system. If the judgeships in our country are political positions based on the way they are chosen, either by election or by appointment and often debated by opposing politicians, then is there really a three branches of government? And if there is not three separate and unique branches then how can we base our trust in any of the other two branches. And is such an obvious question not adding to the mistrust already inherent in the dog eat dog world of politics? If the Judgeships in this country can be either lobbied against or for by other branches and cause a sway in their future opinions then in fact we are blowing smoke up our rears to think that we have a quote FAIR system. If we lie to our selves about the vary nature of our court system, then that proves nothing.

Since we live in the greatest and closest to fair nation in the World why not work on completing the process admit our mistakes and let justice run its "true" course. Can we say with a straight face that there is actually justice in this country? I think the intent has been lost along the way somewhere. If someone has a better idea then lets here it, but as it stands we have violated our Constitutional promise to ourselves and we are the ones to blame, not the perpetrators, lobbyists or the judges listening to such, as they are all human and will do what humans so often do? Screw things up. Perhaps we should abandon the three branches of government equation since we do not use it anyway in its rightful context. Perhaps the Constitution needs some re-working, because it is not working in this regard. I mean, everything is working fine as long as we admit that we are cheating our selves out of our constitutional rights, after all, we are the people and we are the government, right? Why change since everything is working so well these days. After all it is so easy to continue the charade and lying to our selves and pretending everything is great in the Roman Empire?

Hey without blasting anyone on this issue or giving more content to the political late night TV shows. Who the heck are we kidding any way. Why do we have the blocking of appointments of Judgeships? Why are judgeships political events? Why are Sheriffs? District Attorneys? Why not have a royal family and king and royal court and throw away this non-sense of equality and truth, justice and the American way? We do not live it, we just talk it, who are we kidding really? The next generation? Why, so they will work hard so we can get our Social Security now, knowing that they will be holding a bag? The former emperor with no clothes is not any worse than the lies and promises we purport now? And believe you, I am not complaining, happy to be American and happy to live here and participate, but surely we can do better than the façade and charade with politician judges?

If we want the system to be correct, we must as a Nation set down ground rules for truth and revise the system to work in accordance with the wishes of the masses, founders of our Constitution and of course government can get back to its true mission of protecting people from enemies foreign and domestic, instead of fighting ourselves and fighting over the means to get the ends that we all want anyway. All this infighting over nominations and appointments is rather silly and it shows how ridiculous the process and system is and makes fools of us in our own living rooms. Surely the greatest civilization in the history of mankind can do better than this? Is this the best we got? Truth, Justice and The American Way? Show me.

Make Plastic Out of Corn

Here is an interesting thought; Corn to make Plastic An interesting new way to make plastic from corn has been discovered and will be put into process by big chemical companies, which could further erode the Oil prices. And it is of interest that the companies involved in this process are huge, as big as the oil companies they will compete against. Also of interest is the fact that automakers will have to do some fancy footwork to keep car sales moving in the 2003-2004 time period with zero/zero financing now. People will be upside down in auto loans for a while and no reason to take a huge financial hit by trading in those cars, SUVs and light trucks.

So with the cost of engineering a new body style in the millions and time to test in years, they will need to pull a rabbit out of their hat in the future. Or maybe just give up and totally re-engineer the cars to use alternative fuels. They will be easier to clean also since the polarization caused by ionic bonds will be less than those exhausts gases, which create oxides.

People of course will want the new cars, which run on water instead of gasoline. Oil will no longer be needed for the plastics and other things from the bi-products and therefore less will be needed. With OPEC and other nations deciding it is okay to do the Rockefeller shuffle price fixing game and cut production, we may find it a good timing to go ahead and fix the problem and to make the oil we use here and not import anything. We will not therefore be reliant on Middle Eastern Oil, and if we stop buying then their economies will back slide and they cannot afford to give money to terrorists. Many think that Afghanistan has no exportable product but they do, poppies (used to make Opium). They use this to fund our demise in attacks. Other countries can give them money from the oil we buy from them and use it against us.

But what if we do not need it anymore, or at least in quantities we can buy from ourselves. Plastics from corn are also good because they are slightly different and can be recycled easier. In Waste Age magazine in July 2001 we see a ten fold increase in HDPE-High density Polyethylene Resin. Things like Water and milk bottles, margarine, and yogurt containers. Also bottle caps, sacks and trash bags. This also means a lessening of extra debris in dumps.

This typical recycling process is only about $256.15 per ton, and recycling collection and separation is about $1K per ton still way under the cost to produce from the original corn. So when the corn yield is good, but prices are too low for farmers, make plastic, when it is low stockpile oil that year. We buy from within, we are beholden to no one. We can trade other stuff. We cannot expect our US companies to not be allowed to justify price stabilization and then buy from foreign governments and companies who break the rules we enforce on our own corporations. The FTC ought to sue OPEC. How can we allow this? Either we all participate on an even playing field or we forget about trade organizations and go our separate ways. It is a sham to enforce mergers, monopolies, cartels and allow OPEC to run free and hurt American Consumers.

There are many pieces to the puzzle for sure, but one thing is certain, the American people get screwed every time someone screws with the Friedman Economic Model, which defines our capitalistic Infrastructure. If we limit our petroleum buying to only those who do not conspire against us, we may have a short term increase in prices, but that increased price will put America to work and profits at home, here. The short-term price increase will work itself to the proper medium eventually through increased competition and everything will be great. Meanwhile we can start our process into a ten to twenty-year plan to change our technologies to have cars run on less and do more and pollute less. We still need our energy, gas and oil companies for everything else.

Just some thoughts on technology, agriculture, fairness, economics, auto industry, oil resources and pollution.

Wealth Distribution and Inheritance, What Will They Buy? Cars

Wealth Distribution is often discussed at length in periodicals such as American Demographics Magazine, much of this information does not hit the main stream media. A recent article on the huge transfer of wealth to the Baby Boomers, revealed some very interesting facts about such trends in the United State. The amount of money expected to transfer is an unbelievable. What may surprise you is that many of these wealth older generation folks have skip generation trusts and much of that money will end up in the hands of X'ers, while still a good portion will end up with the baby boomers. Actually both groups we have studied buy cars, SUVs, Boats, Light Aircraft, Houses and Pick-ups. Why does this excite me? Well personally it excites me a businessman because I see opportunity to serve the needs of the active aging.

So just how big is it estimated of transfers? So far they say; 41 trillion total. Well 25 trillion is to transfer to X'ers and Boomers and of that 7.2 Trillion to Boomers and the rest a whopping 17 trillion will go to non-profits and private foundations in excess of 6 trillion and the rest about 11 Trillion to go to the X'ers. The rest? Well how much will go to Uncle Sam?

Still worried about 1.8 Trillion estimated in Federal Debt? Not me. 42-25=17 Yes, we are talking 17 Trillion Dollars, so what if we spend a little in advance? This takes into account current market conditions and I expect after this shake up in our Stock Markets and even putting in Sir John Templeton's doom and gloom report this week (I have a lot of respect for Mr. Templeton), but disagree with his predictions. We will be seeing a DOW at 12,000 in five years, even if we have a huge bump in the Real Estate Market as many markets go thru a bubble scenario and a pull back in the stock market due to the jets idling in the economy and time to re-spool up the engines. But this economy is a little different than previously, in that these new engines are like the newer GE Engines on modern airlines or even combat aircraft, they return to full throttle much faster with the increased flow rate in electronic transactions we as consumer have become so accustomed too and as the markets and wire transfers in commerce have grown to expect. What will these people buy?

Well the government will be busy protecting our people and invest in R and D and security and better efficiencies meaning less burden on paper work shuffling or need for manual labor to do it. Downsizing will come as industry rekindled needs more labor cuts and expect another merger craze causing some additional job cuts along with government right sizing. There will also be a robotics revolution as well. Government will also be laying off to control its costs. Those who currently work for government will find the lucrative private sector much more inviting to accomplish their finish line during their pursuit of happiness for themselves and family and the kids, they will be going to college to upgrade skill sets, hopefully not to become lawyers. 17 Trillion is almost more than the government will need and it means that our incredible nation will remain the strongest in the world even after all the international terrorists are long dead or so beaten down they give up and realize that we really do know a better way, join the mainstream of politics.

This is the Boyd Theory of warfare, which unites with the SunTzu and Clauswitz with plenty of historical record. We will remain number one as long as we pay attention to money flows leaving the country and do not over burden the entrepreneurs with lawsuits or over regulation. Of course currently we are falling down in both those areas due to the ever increasing PC'ness of the national politic.

When will all this transfer of wealth take place? Well it is already starting now and will continue for about the next 46 years by my estimates. 4.6 decades of extra umph pushing us forward and that number is bound to increase both in reality and on paper provided we continue our present course and do not allow bureaucracy or over government regulation or socialism to destroy all we are and all we have built thus far. We know what kinds of cars, SUVs and Boats that the Boomers and Z'ers will most likely be buying. Some of the cars and SUVs will be foreign manufactured, it will be up to us to increase our domestic automobile marketability in such free markets to attain the lion share of the transfer of wealth, thus employing more people and flowing more money to more Americans. NAFTA demands 51% of all cars to be made in North America and this also will help Mexico and Canadian trading partners who will hopefully reciprocate.

The economy is a short-term issue during elections and it is a cycle of cycles all cumulatively affecting our long-term outlook for prosperity. Which even the doom and gloomers agree, how can they not, all indicators show positive things with only a few short term speed bumps along the way. The US Dollar and US Market is the place to be and hopefully we will have a properly controlled monetary and trade policy to see our future destiny thru?

Why Dont We Listen To Entrepreneurs?

I just got done reading a series of articles dating from December 2000 to September 2001 (pre-9-11) regarding Larry Ellison's bush to get the government to link all it's databases. Now everyone agrees, but now we are post 9-11. I wonder if Larry Ellison as loud as he can be sometimes ever stood up and said I told ya so? He would have every right to. He warned us. Gates did too, maybe not as verbal about it or graphic as Larry Ellison described the government's computer databases like a file cabinet where one drawer was here and another across the ocean in china in a dim lighted room.

Everyone kind of laughed and it was funny, he is good at poking fun. His hard line attitude may not have gotten the message across then, and we did not listen because he did not have the political clout or proper snobbish decorative language of the polished and so eloquent politician slinging the Bull, but he was right. Gate's was right too and said that government needs to reduce paper, yah no kidding. Well if they will not say it, I will. They told you so. But you did not listen and therefore we got embarrassed by a group of criminals who barrowed an airplane and had no intention of finding a place to park.

So now we spend 250 Billion in upgraded IT work after the fact and try to force databases and outdated hardware together for a seamless something that is suppose to protect us? But darn we are stupid. Should we continue to make the same mistakes, or should we follow the lead of the entrepreneurs who now have accumulated one hell of a lot of know how. Next time a major Entrepreneur or Capitalist makes a statement about a trend they see out there, we ought to listen, because 9-11 could have easily have been prevented if we had our teams of agencies working together with cohesive databases. Let's pay attention in the future.