April, 2013 Global Warming Update Part 2: Cap and Fail, China's Appetitie For Coal and More

Yesterday was part one of our updated global warming discussion. During that discussion, we learned that a number of global warming advocates were having second thoughts on the subject since the forecasted results of global warming were not matching up to what their models predicted.

We also learned that China is making its large presence known in Ecuador where it is doing extensive work to develop oil fields which, according to global warming theorists, would increase the global warming threat. This effort underlined our assertion that unless China, and other developing economies, get their global warming acts together, anything the U.S. does, e.g. cap and trade, would be meaningless.

Let’s continue our discussion today, where I continue to be a believer in science but a global warming doubter:

1) On February 18, 2013, the Space and Science Research Center (SSCR), located in Orlando, Florida, issued is annual Global Climate Status Report for 2013. According to this organization’s website, the Mission of the SSRC is “to provide an independent un-biased resource for governments, media, corporations, and the people on important areas of scientific research, in particular the cause and effects of climate change, and to serve as an objective resource for the planning and analysis of the next climate change - predicted to be one of decades of record cold weather.”

What? A climate research group of scientists is predicting a coming a global COOLING period ahead, not global warming???? How can that be, Al Gore said that ALL climate scientists agreed that global warming was an oncoming issue? How dare the SSCR differ from Al!

I do not know anything about the SSRC. For all I know, they could be a front for the oil and coal industries and their research is pure propaganda. However, they apparently do deserve a hearing, a peer review of their findings to either verify or refute their findings and conclusions. That is what science is all about.

Because, if they are right, and a global cooling/ice age is about to hit us, that is a whole different set of problems and agendas vs. global warming. Remember, just two generations ago, in the mid-1970s, the mainstream media and climate scientists were predicting a new ice age, a prediction that never came about. In light of that missed forecast, who is to say whether cooling or warming is in our future, especially in light of this research and the suppressed EPA report that the Obama administration never let get published.

The SSRC website and scientific credentials can be found at:

http://www.spaceandscience.net/index.html

2) The International Herald Tribune reported on March 2, 2013, that citizen level concerns about global warming and major environmental issues are at all time lows and trending downward. These are the results from a huge international study involving thousands of people across almost two dozen nations:

“Scientists report that evidence of environmental damage is stronger than ever — but our data shows that economic crisis and a lack of political leadership mean that the public are starting to tune out,” said Doug Miller, the chairman of GlobeScan, the company that carried out the study.

The study shows that survey respondents clearly still had serious environmental concerns but fewer people were “very concerned” about various environmental issues than at any point in the last 20 years. The sharpest decrease in global concern occurred over the last two years. Thus, maybe the citizens of the world are also becoming skeptical about global warming claims that never come true.

3) A February 20, 2013 article in Forbes magazine:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/20/as-the-consensus-among-scientists-crumbles-global-warming-alarmists-attack-their-integrity/

reported on a recent survey of over 1,000 geoscientists and engineers regarding global warming. The survey was done by peer-reviewed Organization Studies.

The bottom line results found that only 36% of those surveyed agree with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim that human activity is causing a serious global warming problem. A majority of scientists in the survey believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.

The article goes into detail defending the results and comparing the findings to assertions of global warming advocates who, rather debunking these findings with science, seem more content to attack the integrity of the survey and those who participated in it.

Again, I do not have the answers but at least in this group of scientists, far from 100%, sorry Al Gore, disagree with the theory of man made global warming.

4) One of the supposed ways to save the climate and mankind from the dangers of global warming is through massive, and massively complex, so-called cap and trade programs. As I understand cap and trade, these programs set up a process where companies pay extra when they create certain types of global warming gases using credits as payment.

Companies that are energy efficient and do things that allow them to not use their allotted cap and trade credits, can then sell those credits to companies that need them because of their climate impacting activities. I assume that the basis of this system is to have the cost causer, those companies that contribute to global warming, to be the cost payer for those activities.

The value of those credits, once they are issued, is to be determined by the free market so that the prices charged between credit buyers and credit sellers can vary over time. The trick of such a convoluted process, is to have the exact right amount of credits in the market. If there are too few credits, economic activity is stifled since companies cannot expand.

If there are too many credits available, the economic laws of supply and demand take over, driving down the cost of the credits. Low credit costs results in low costs to doing activities that theoretically contribute to global warming, defeating the whole purpose of the credits to begin with. I am sure there are more elegant, more correct ways of describing the process but you get the idea.

According to an article from the April 1, 2013 issue of Business Week, the cap and trade effort in Europe is about to collapse. Highlights of the article, “Europe’s Carbon Market Is Crashing,” include:

• Slower economic growth in Europe is stifling business growth, resulting in less expansions and need for the credits, reducing the value of the credits.
• The lower prices is not spurring industries to make the necessary investments in clean energy to offset global warming.
• Earlier this year in Europe, it was possible to offset 581 TONS of emissions, about what one average European citizen generates during an 80 year lifetime, for about $30.
• At such a cheap cost, it does not pay for an industry or company to do the “right” thing for global warming since the cost to do so is much higher than the cost of the credits to offset their behavior.
• When the program started, central planners expected the final price of credits to settle between 25 and 30 euros per ton. However, in January, the cost to offset the aforementioned 581 tons was just over 23 Euros, total.
• Thus, according to the director of ClimateCare in Oxford, England: “It’s (cap and trade) is not spurring large emitters to make investments in reducing emissions.”
• The European Union is scheduled to take up the issue by considering a number of remedies but many members are opposed to these remedies, making a solution doubtful.

A massive bureaucracy that is failing massively. Elsewhere, Japan has already killed its cap and trade program, in 2010, and Canada and Russia have refused to take part in the second round of global warming restrictions, quotas, and rules as outlined in the second Kyoto agreement. As a result, industries and companies in these three major industrial nations are not bound to offset their behavior with the expense of credits.

In light of all this cap and trade failure, President Obama wants the U.S. to implement a cap and trade process. Europe is proving such a process cannot be managed to the desired results but Obama still wants it.

Three international economic competitors will not hamstring their industries and economies but Obama will hamstring ours.

China is doing nothing in this area, especially considering the following point, but Obama wants only the U.S. to do something.

And while there is now so much doubt about global warming, Obama is willing to ignore that side of the argument to screw the American economy with little to no effect on the environment, given what the rest of the world is doing. This is not leadership, this is economic suicide.

5) Speaking of China, consider an article from the March 25, 2013 issue of Business Week. According to the article, China has a bunch of large, energy hungry cities in the eastern part of the country and a western region where most of the natural resources, particularly coal, are located. The challenge has been how to best get the energy and value locked up these western natural resources to the benefit of the large eastern metro areas.

Their approach will be as follows to solve this energy problem:

• The government plans to build 14 massive energy bases in the western part of the country by 2015.
• These hubs will combine coal mining operations with energy power plants.
• Note: the article points out that China generates about 80% of its energy needs via burning coal, a no-no when it comes to global warming advocates.
• These hubs will create energy onsite that will then be sent over a series of transmission wires and facilities to the east for use in the metro areas.
• The Chinese view this as a better approach to energy management then shipping coal a long ways over land despite the fact that some electric energy will be lost along the transmission grids.

In other words, China could not really care less about global warming. They are making massive investments in their coal based energy economy with new coal power plants, coal generated electricity transmission lines, and expanding their coal mining.

If Obama really wanted to make a dent in global warming, he should be in the Chinese leaders faces before they expend so much wealth into this plan. Because once they do, one has to assume they would not abandon their investment for an iffy global warming theory. For Obama to insist that U.S. industry get hamstrung with a cap and trade program while China continues to build out its coal infrastructure would be a disaster for our economy and our country.

6) One last set of stats on why a cap and trade program for us is a silly, unmanageable, and economic disaster along every dimension:

• According to the previously cited Business Week article, the world’s use of coal, outside of China, has stayed about the same since the mid-1980s, around four billion tons a year. In that same time frame, China’s use of coal has about quadrupled, from less than one billion tons a year to close to four billion tons a year, with a strong upward trend. This makes China the consumer of almost the same amount of coal as the rest of the world combined. They must be severely changed out of their coal mentality for any cap and trade program anywhere in the world to have any impact at all.
• According to an article in Salon.com that was summarized in the September 28, 2013 issue of The Week magazine, carbon dioxide global warming gases in the U.S. are at their lowest point in 20 years, down 14% from their peak in 2007 as a result of fracking and the expanded use of natural gas, which is less damaging to the environment than coal and oil. This reduction is resulting in 500 megatons worth of emissions not going into the air, which is twice the amount of positive impact than what the original Kyoto agreement had on every other country in the world.
• An article from the Washington Post that was summarized in the March 1, 2013 issue of The Week reported similar numbers when it claimed that U.S. carbon emissions had fallen 13% relative to 2005 levels with a large part of that due to the increase use of natural gas and wind power.
• A Reason magazine article that was summarized in the January 18, 2013 issue of The Week magazine reported that U.S. power plant emissions were down 12% from their peak in 2007 even though the economy is larger than it was six years ago, mainly due to the wider use of natural gas.
• And finally, a Business Week graph in the January 7, 2013 issue of Business Week claimed that the demand and use of coal is up in every region of the world except the United States, with coal energy production almost catching up to oil energy production, not a good thing if you believe in global warming.

Thus, apparently we have not been doing to badly when it comes to reducing our carbon footprint. That is the reality that Obama should be taking to the rest of the world, not trying to further inhibit our country and its economy with a nonsensical cap and trade program.

So, that’s the update from a believer in science but a global warming doubter. What have we learned over the past two days:

• There is a lot of doubt, which seems to be growing, that global warming actually exists or is caused by mankind. In fact, we are now seeing some scientists predicting a global cooling threat.
• Forcing the U.S. to hamstring its industries and companies with taxes and cap and trade programs that are unlikely to work without getting the rest of the world on board to do the same is economic suicide.
• If Obama was truly a world leader, he would be in China’s face about their severe global warming activities.
• The U.S. has been doing pretty good getting its carbon emissions under control, without cumbersome and ineffective government intervention, over the past few years with substantial declines in its carbon emissions.

And this last point is the key, without government intervention. The best advice out of all of these news sources comes from the Salon article: “To combat climate change, our best bet is energy innovation that will create new sources of energy - not artificial caps on emissions that haven’t worked anyway.”

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Wishing Al Gore Would Shut Up, Why I Am A Global Warming Doubter, Part 2 - Problem Solving 101

Yesterday, we reviewed the classless act, in light of the current suffering of victims of Hurricane Sandy, and what we classified as “garbage science” of Al Gore with regards to the theory of man made global warming. We noted how we had previously discussed the scientific potential of the falsehood of man made global warming in the following two posts:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-am-global-warming-doubter-and.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-am-global-warming-doubter-and.htm

We also reviewed a simple to understand and simple to execute plan that would address the problem independent of whether or not man made global warming is a reality:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/united-states-of-purple-presidency_09.html

This solution would solve many real problems and address the potential problem of man made global warming in such a way that was market driven, was fair, kept any additional wealth out of the hands of our politicians, and did not need a huge government bureaucracy that would likely be inefficient and ineffective, like every other government bureaucracy.

Given that setup and background, today’s topic is to review what an adult conversation and problem solving process might look like relative to man made global warming. It is a conversation that people like Al Gore refuse to have, relying instead on only one set of scientific investigations and calling those not on his side a serious of insulting and frankly, slanderous names.

Problem solving does not have to be complicated. This exercise will consist of a simple set of yes/no answers to get to the root cause and root solution of the problem. How might that process flow:

A) Is there a global warming trend underway? The latest data from temperature monitoring locations around the world show that the earth’s temperature has been unchanged for the past 16 years. Thus, one could make the case that global warming is a fallacy and that would end the discussion.

B) But let’s assume that other analyses indicate there is global warming. Then the next question becomes whether or not the global warming is caused by mankind’s activities. If we believe the folks at the world famous CERN scientific organization in Europe, an organization with impeccable scientific credentials, who have shown that global warming, while occurring, is not the result of mankind activities but solar activity, then the discussion would end. This is because no matter what we do it will not impact global warming since mankind is not causing it.

C) But let’s assume that the unchanged global temperature results are wrong and that CERN screwed up somehow, what if there is global warming going on and mankind’s activities are contributing to it. Then the next logical question: are we too late to stop the process?

If we cannot stop the global warming process, then we need to start activities that protects resources, food production processes, vulnerable coastlines, etc. since trying to reverse unstoppable global warming will divert wealth, resources, and attention away from the fortification process.

4) But let’s say our analyses show that we can stop mankind’s contribution to global warming. How would we stop the process.

Putting a massive, bureaucratic, inefficient, and ineffective cap and trade process in place in the U.S. would be an abject failure. Why? Consider some reality and documented facts from Step 25 of “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”

• When “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” was published in 2009, China and India were expected to bring at least EIGHT HUNDRED coal power plants by 2012 to handle their growing populations and economies. As most global warming advocates will tell you, coal burning plants are major contributors to global warming
• Although I do not know this as a fact, I would assume that pollution control was not a major consideration in bringing so many coal plants on line so quickly.
• Just these new power plants are expected to burn NINE HUNDRED MILLION tons of coal every year. Obviously, their existing coal fired plants would add more.
• Just these additional power plants will dump and additional 2.5 BILLION tons of global warming gases into the atmosphere ever year.
• These numbers do not include the additional coal plants brought on line by other growing economies like Brazil.
• Since the book and these statistics were published, China’s annual industrial output of global warming gases has surpassed the output of the United States.

Thus, it would make no sense to put severe limits on United States global warming activity via some monstrosity like cap and trade. Such limits would increase living costs of Americans, restrict our global competitive economic position, and reduce domestic economic growth for no reason since no matter how much we reduced our bad global warming behavior it would make no difference in light of what China and the rest of the world is doing.
In addition, there is no way our current Federal government entities and the politicians who operate them could even execute a half decent cap and trade program.

What would be needed at this point is a worldwide effort to have EVERYONE curb their global warming activities to keep the economic playing field level. Thus, if we got this far down our decision and problem solving process, Obama and Gore should not be badgering the U.S. economy and its businesses and citizens, they should be overseas getting the entire world involved. That's called leadership, a trait that has grown extinct in our current political class.

This is the discussion and problem solving approach that needs to happen if we are to ever get out of the rut of name calling and inaction, a game that Al Gore propagates. Mr. Gore immediately jumps to Step D without considering all of the scientific data and findings available, without considering the fact there are other causes of global warming, without considering whether we are too late to stop the process if it exists, and looks only domestically while this is a worldwide situation that requires a worldwide solution in order to not burden U.S. citizens in a hopeless cause.

If there is no clear resolution to any of the discussion points and conclusions discussed above, we can still revert to the solution outlined in:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/united-states-of-purple-presidency_09.html

As always with our political discussions relative to the issues of our times, emotion and irrationality prevails over problem solving techniques. And Al Gore is the leader of the irrationality wing.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

United States of Purple Presidency - Some Final Words And Observations

We have spent the last  week or so presenting the solutions that the United States of Purple Presidency will bring to the nation's major problems. These problems have been plaguing the nation for decades and include the lost war on drugs, failing public schools, leaky borders and the resultant illegal immigration, a counterproductive tax code, and skyrocketing national debt.

During those decades, the political class, Republicans and Democrats, have proven that they are incapable and/or unwilling to put aside their drive for personal enrichment to address the root causes of our problems and launch courageous solutions to them. The United States of Purple solutions will work because we examine the root causes of the problems and do not care what lobbyists or campaign fund raisers are hurt by the implementing real solutions to our real problems. These solutions can be reviewed by reading the posts of this blog over the past week or so.

Today's post cleans up some loose ends and provides some additional details supporting our approach:

- This week, Federal law enforcement authorities arrested a Moroccan citizen in Washington D.C. who planned to carry out a suicide attack in the Capital building. The man thought he was dealing with fellow terrorists when he bought what he thought were suicide vest components and explosives. Fortunately, the man was dealing with FBI undercover agents who had been keeping round the clock observation of the man for about a year. The materials they provided to the suspect were dummy explosives.

How is this related to the issues we discussed this week? The man is in the country illegally and had been illegally in this country for years. How many other potential bombers are likely already in this country or will be able to easily enter the country via our leaky borders, potential bombers who may not end up dealing with undercover agents and fake explosives? The need to secure our borders is made more vivid by this failed attack.

- One of the tenets in our income tax reform proposal was to change the situation where about 45% of Americans pay absolutely no Federal income tax. While our plan would increase the effective tax rate for wealthier Americans, we overlooked a way to get more Americans to have "skin in the game," i.e. pay at least some share of taxes.

Our proposed income tax reform package reduced the number of Americans not paying income taxes by about 50%. However, that meant about 24% of Americans would still pay no income taxes but still get all of the benefits of the Federal government. Thus, one enhancement we need to add to our income tax reformation is a minimum Federal income tax on all Americans of at least 3%, i.e. all Americans will pay at least a 3% income tax regardless of their income.

This minimum tax rule would collect about $16 billion a year in additional Federal income taxes, taxes that would be directed towards paying down our national debt. The political class would never get their hands on this money. The tax percentage of 3% would be reduced to 2% once the national debt was reduced 20%, it would drop to 1% once the national debt was reduced 40%, and would disappear once the national debt was reduced by 50%.

By taxing every single American, the leverage that could asserted on the political class to finally get our out of control spending under control would increase significantly. For the first time in a long time, every America has an incentive to force the political class to cut government spending and waste since they will see the impact in their own wallets when that is done. It all has to do with leverage and taking everyone's money is leverage.

- We proposed a series of both long term and short term solutions to the the Social Security system. This system, in reality a giant Ponzi scheme, is about to collapse as more and more people will soon be receiving Social Security checks (as a result of Baby Boomers retiring) and there will be fewer and fewer working Americans to provide the wealth to fund these checks.

Our short term solutions would shore up the financials of the system so that the neediest elderly Americans would be more likely to get support in their older years. We proposed a long term solution which is to find a way out of the current system altogether. Social Security as a retirement option stinks. It would be far more beneficial to put Social Security funds into individual investment accounts than to give it to the government and the politicians to waste.

We know this is the case because of the studies cited and our own analysis that we did which prove, without a doubt, that the Social Security system is a horrible way to save for retirement. Chile has proven our point since for the past few decades, Chile did exactly what we proposed: they eliminated a centralized, government/political class controlled retirement scheme and replaced it with tax deferred personal savings accounts that enabled Chileans to invest their retirement funds anyway they wanted.

Prior to May 1, 1981, the Chilean government run retirement system required contributions from workers and was clearly in financial trouble. Instead of making minor changes, like reducing benefits or raising the tax rates, which would have fixed the problems for a short time only, José Piñera, Secretary of Labor and Pensions under Augusto Pinochet, decided to do a major overhaul of the system:

"We knew that cosmetic changes — increasing the retirement age, increasing taxes — would not be enough. We understood that the pay-as-you-go system had a fundamental flaw, one rooted in a false conception of how human beings behave. That flaw was lack of a link between what people put into their pension program and what they take out. So we decided to go in the other direction, to link benefits to contributions. The money that a worker pays into the system goes into an account that is owned by the worker."

This is exactly what the United States Of Purple proposes. How did it work out in Chile after 30 years? Consider the findings of  John Tierney, a writer for the New York Times, who wrote about his personal findings in 2009.

Tierny apparently went to visit Pablo Serra, a friend of his in Santiago, Chile a few years ago where they compared notes on how well each of their respective retirement programs were doing. It turned out that they both had been contributing about the same amount of money, so the comparison was apt, and startling, said Tierney:

• Pablo could retire in 10 years, at age 62, with an annual pension of $55,000. That would be more than triple the $18,000 Tierney was told by the Social Security Administration that he would be receiving.
• Pablo could also choose to retire at age 65 with an annual pension of $70,000. That would almost triple the $25,000 pension promised to Tierney by Social Security who would have had to wait an additional year.
• Pablo could also choose to retire at age 65 with an annual pension of $53,000 and also a one-time cash payment of $223,000, an option not available under Social Security.

Looks like our plan might be viable and certainly a better deal for Americans than the current Social Security set up.

But this is only one case. What has the more global impact been? Tienery continued the positive news in the rest of his article:

• According to Investors Business Daily, the average annual rate of return for Chilean workers' retirement accounts over the last 30 years has exceeded 9% annually, after inflation, whereas “U. S. Social Security pays a 1% to 2% (theoretical) rate of return, and even less for new workers.”
• As expected, the capital accumulated in these privatized accounts have generated substantial growth in Chile’s economy, making it one of the most stable and prosperous nations in the region.
• High domestic savings and investment rates helped drive Chile’s economy to average growth rates of 8% during the 1990s. The privatized national pension plan (AFP) has encouraged domestic investment and contributed to an estimated total domestic savings rate of approximately 21% of GDP.

Unbelievable. Compare this to our 2-3% annual economic growth over the past decade or so, fiscal insolvency fast approaching for our Social Security system, our low savings rate, and the other bad economic news the U.S. has been experiencing. But Pinera anticipated all of this positive economic momentum thirty years ago:

“The Chilean worker is an owner, a capitalist. There is no more powerful way to stabilize a free-market economy and to get the support of the workers than to link them directly to the benefits of the market system. When Chile grows at 7 percent or when the stock market doubles … Chilean workers benefit directly, not only through high wages, not only through more employment, but through additional capital in their individual pension accounts.”

Sounds like a win-win solution to me. However, it is a solution you will never see form the Democrats or the Republicans. Only the United States of Purple will have the courage and the leadership to pull this off, even though the proven benefits and upside are so obvious and enormous.

- Regarding our lost war on drugs, we discussed how the lost war is tearing Mexico and other countries apart as the drug cartels become more and more powerful, rich, and violent. Since we posted that solution a few days ago, we have come across some more examples of the absurdity and the carnage from this lost war on drugs that should have been included in that post to illustrate the need to change our strategies:

• According to an article in the January 27, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, five of the top ten deadliest cities in the world, outside of war zones, are now in Mexico, according to a Mexican research group. 40 of the top 50 deadliest cites were in Latin America. One cannot help but conclude that many of these dubious rankings are a result of the violence spawned off of the war on drugs.
• A recent Associated Press report reviewed how the bodies of two decapitated people were found inside the burning remains of an SUV at the entrance to one of Mexico's most luxurious malls.  The mall was located in an area that was the location of major international corporations, diplomats and some of Mexico's wealthiest individuals. There is little doubt on the part of the police that these were drug cartel related killings.

Imagine living in a country where just going out shopping can be fraught with concerns about violence and killings. Our war on drugs is a big part of the violence and breakdowns in sovereignty that we are witnessing right in front of us.

- Our proposed solution to our illegal immigration problem needs to be fashioned so that we still have a viable, coherent, and effective immigration strategy, not a lock down the borders and let no one into the country strategy. Our plan is to lock down the borders but only allow in the people we want to allow in.

A primary reason for that is the energy, the fresh ideas, and strong work ethic that many immigrants bring to our country, our culture and our economy. This was reinforced in a short  article in the January 20, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, an article that was originally from Reuters.

According to the article, immigrants founded almost half of the recent, top start-up companies in the U.S. Of the top 50 venture-backed companies today, 23 have at least one immigrant founder and 37 employ an immigrant in a key management position.

We need an immigration policy that encourages these types of immigrants so to come to our shores and discourages and blocks illegal immigrants with intentions of blowing up themselves and the Capital building from ever getting close to our borders.

- We proposed a solution that would address both the global warming issues and the fact that this country does not have, or ever had, a coherent and strategic national energy policy that would eliminate our dependence on foreign energy sources. Our solution was market driven, leveraged the values, freedom of choice, and needs of every American, did not require a massive new Federal bureaucracy, and greatly minimized the role of government and the political class in attaining our goals.

We pointed out this was in stark contrast to what the Obama administration wants to do. They want to install a massive new Federal government bureaucracy under their Cap and Trade strategy. Under their plan, a new market would be created that involved energy and carbon credits and offsets, all run out of a central government organization. In other words, their plan would credit a new currency in energy credits that would be managed by political type people.

The amount of fraud and mismanagement that could happen in this type of craziness is unimaginable. Given how poorly the political class manages existing bureaucracies, there is no reason to believe they would be able to handle something as widespread and complicated as energy usage.

This point was proven in an article in the March 14, 2011 issue of Business Week, "The Great European Carbon Heist." Apparently, Europe already has a Cap and Trade system in place but according to the article, "The Continent's carbon trading market has become an easy mark for cyber-criminals."

The article starts off reporting on a case involving a company called Blackstone Global Ventures, a small Czech firm that trades emissions permits through the European Union's market. One day, the Blackstone people came to work to find out that a cyber-criminal had stolen 475,000 of Blackstone's permits worth about $9.7 million.

But Blackstone is not alone. In the five months prior to their loss, over $80 million worth of carbon credits had been stolen throughout all of Europe and where they went and who stole them is still unsolved as of the writing of the article. So much for Europe becoming the benchmark of how to run a successful cap and trade program.

Given our politicians' inability to run any efficient government organization and the already crime riddled Cap and Trade experiences in Europe, it is clear that our decentralized, individual approach to solving the global warming and energy independence problems are the better solution, if only because government bureaucracy is minimized.

There you have it, our solutions to all of the nation's problems. It is high time that we try some new approaches and fresh ideas, lord knows that waiting for the Democrats and Republicans to solve anything is long overdue and high unlikely to occur. That is why the United States Of Purple is the only chance of finally solving something, anything. 


“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:


http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/


The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.


The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Another Month, Another Doomed Political Class Stimulus Program

According to an Associated Press article today, the political class is about to pass a $30 billion piece of legislation that is supposed to jump start the small business market and get the economy moving again. Components of the legislation include the following:

• Establish a $30 billion fund to help community banks lend to small businesses.
• Cut some taxes on both small and large businesses.
• Boost Small Business Administration loan programs by cutting loan program fees, raising loan guarantee limits and spending limits.

According to the article and common sense, this stimulus package will fail just as dramatically as the other ones that the political class has implemented:

• According to the article, demand for credit and loans is down and many businesses are sitting on cash reserves, precluding them for needing to go out and get a loan. Thus, this money set aside could go unused and have no impact on the economy or unemployment.
• According to Jade West, a lobbyist for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors: "It won't do any good. Business doesn't need credit - business needs customers. If they don't have a customer base because demand is down, they're not going to borrow because there is nothing for them to borrow for."
• The Republicans' concern, and it may be a valid one, is that the banks may start to lend some of this taxpayer money to businesses with less than desirable credit worthiness, eventually sticking the taxpayer for the bill if these shaky small business loans go sour since the banks will not be at risk, the government in the name of taxpayers is taking the risk.
• Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart said: " What we have today before us is junior TARP." And we all know that the original TARP was useless.
• According to tax counsel Bill Rys of the National Federation of Independent Business: 'There's some OK stuff in it, but the impact's going to be minimal."
• The small business tax cuts include tax breaks for restaurant owners and retailers who remodel their stores or build new ones. However, if unemployment stays so high, what good will better looking stores and restaurants be if no one has any money to spend in them? How do new paint jobs and new carpeting help grow the economy?
• And, what good is a tax break for certain small businesses is if Obama has his way and does not renew the Bush tax cuts for those small business people making over $250,000 a year? Any savings they get from this mini-TARP are likely to be offset by higher income taxes.
• Let's do some math. According to the trade association that supports community banks, there are about 20,000 community bank locations in the country. If you divide the $30 billion by the number of bank locations, each bank location will get about $1.5 million to loan out. If the average small business loan is $100,000, each bank location will only be involved in about fifteen loans, hardly enough to move the economy forward. And this assumes, that the small businesses around each community bank actually needs a loan (see the points above).
• More math. There are about 14 million unemployed Americans workers today. If you divide the size of this stimulus program by the number of unemployed, we see that this program is the equivalent of spending about $2100 per unemployed American. Now, if spending $800 billion in the original stimulus program did not prevent unemployment from soaring to about 10% and 14 million (about $57,000 per unemployed person), this program is highly unlikely to do anything but waste another $30 billion.
• And finally, if this idea of a program is so good, why was not not introduced sooner? It seems that this is the "hail mary pass" or the scraping the bottom of the economic idea barrel. Nothing else has worked, even programs that were considerably larger, so what makes anyone think that this johnny come lately program will do anything but waste $30 billion more of taxpayer wealth?

Obama and the political class do not get it. They keep trying to "push" the recovery through the economic system. They push out rebates for Cash For Clunkers and Cash For Appliances, they push out money for infrastructure jobs, they push out money for teachers' pay, etc. The problem with this push strategy is that everything is finite. Once the Cash For Clunkers rebate money is distributed, the incremental economic stimulus affect, if any, is gone. Once the infrastructure work is done and paid for, the incremental economic stimulus effect, if any, is over. These push tactics provide no lasting, positive changes to the economy or the players involved, as witnesses by our first hand negative experience over the past two years.

More of a pull strategy is needed, especially since all of Obama's push tactics have been failures. In this context, a pull strategy would provide, positive, long lasting, stable incentives for the economy. This means that tax rates for individuals and businesses and families would be as low as possible for as long as possible. Families and businesses could then plan around this stable tax environment and think longer term with certainty.

With certainty comes confidence and growth. The money that is in family and business pockets can now be confidently and efficiently spent to pull economic activity through the economic system based on the personal needs of each family and business, not the dictates of a central government. That is why the one year exemption for small business self employment taxes is so inane. Next year those expenses are back so why would anyone do any long term planning and spending for such a short term exemption?

In addition to a pull strategy, the political class needs to remove the tremendous amount of uncertainty they have introduced into the market and the economy, with uncertainty comes a hunkering down mentality that no amount of Clunker money, home mortgage relief money, or short term tax exemption money can overcome:  

• By stretching out the debate on what Bush tax cuts will be extended, the political class has introduced uncertainty into the market and economy, resulting in depressed economic activity, since no one knows what the tax bite will be.
• By passing a mammoth and probably ineffective health care reform bill, the political class has introduced uncertainty into the market and economy, resulting in depressed economic activity, since no one know what the increased business and family tax and health costs will be, and there will increases.
• By proposing a mammoth and probably ineffective cap and trade energy program and legislation, the political class has introduced uncertainty into the market and economy, resulting in depressed economic activity, since no one knows what the increased energy costs will be for their business and family.
• By passing a health care law that requires any extraordinary amount of incremental business paperwork and bureaucracy, the political class has introduced uncertainty into the market and economy, resulting in depressed economic activity, since no business knows how much financial and human resources they will have to divert to fulfill the increased paperwork requirements of the law.

 We have seen what push economic stimulus planning has done and what uncertainty has done to the economy: it has done nothing of any positive significance. Sky high deficit spending and sky high unemployment. It is time for a change and a move away from silly programs like this $30 billion waste. All it does is satisfy the egos of those in charge in Washington, it gives them a sense of accomplishment.

But, to use an old cliche, they have spent a lot of time and effort to line up the deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship continues on a disaster course. These programs are way too small to leverage the economy, it is like pushing on a string. Nothing usually happens. You need to get  to where you are pulling on that string to leverage things and enable growth.

A number of steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would help move to any effective pull approach to fixing the economy, would remove uncertainty from the market, and reduce overall government spending to help pay down the national debt and offset lower family and business taxes:

• Step 1 would reduce the size of all government functions by 10% a year for five years to get Federal government spending under control.
• Step 3 would keep ALL of the Bush tax cuts in place in order to help pull demand through the economic system.
• Step 5 would increase government fraud and waste investigation resources in order to greatly reduce the self-admitted waste of $100 billion a year in government programs.
• Steps 10, 11, 12 would finally put Social Security on a solid financial footing in order to get this major government expenditure under control.
• Step 23 would implement an expert driven, not lobbyist and politician driven, strategic planning process for the development of a coherent and doable national energy program that would provide clear long term goals and tactics for national energy usage, removing the uncertainty and confusion of Obama's doomed cap and trade program.
• Step 28 would implement a comprehensive and expert driven, not lobbyist and politician driven, analysis and planning process to determine the root cause of rising health care costs and implement a coherent, understandable plan to address these causes, providing certainty in tactics and costs going forward. This, of course, would require the repeal of Obama Care.
• Step 30 would implement a process to return virtually all foreign deployed U.S. military personnel to significantly reduce our defense budget without sacrificing  homeland security.
• Step 44 would prohibit the use of Federal taxpayer money on any program or project that did not materially affect a large number of citizens in at least five states.

This should not be this hard. We know what does not work, why do we have to have the same repackaged bad "push", non-leveraged, ineffective ideas come around every month? The political class needs to learn from its mistakes and start doing something different, something innovative for a change. Its called leadership and unfortunately, it is in short supply in Washington these days.

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/

http://www.flipcongress2010.com/