As reported by the Guardian, 160 MB of private emails and documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world's leading climate scientists during the past 13 years were recently stolen by hackers and leaked online. The article reports that "[c]limate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide 'smoking gun' evidence that some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real, and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind." This news, coupled with the Telegraph's recent piece suggesting that Al Gore could become the world's first carbon billionaire begins to make this entire situation feel a bit like insider trading.
The Heritage Foundation recently highlighted a video produced by two EPA attorneys showing that Cap and Trade actually does little to nothing in the way of helping the environment. In reality Cap and Trade legislation simply is a way for the government to make money by issuing permits to pollute and for multinational corporations and Wall Street to make money by creating a new commodity to trade. It is little more than the redistribution of wealth on a global scale.
I will leave it up to you to decide for yourself if man-made global warming is a scam or not, but if you truly care about the environment you should join in the fight to prevent these frauds from passing legislation that does little more than further bind us in the chains of economic slavery. After all, President Obama himself has said that under his Cap and Trade system "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket" in spite of the fact that a fully implemented Kyoto Protocol would at best reduce global temperatures by one tenth of one degree Celsius by 2100.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Are we facing a debt explosion?
The answer is an emphatic YES! The New York Times recently ran an article on the wave of debt payments facing our federal government.
With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.
In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These figures, by the way, don't include any additional expenditures that will undoubtedly arise from the institution of so-called "Health Care Reform" or a "Cap and Trade" system.
The article continues:
Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.
The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.
For far too long Americans have been pretty juvenile in their demands on government, much like the child that wants a pony for Christmas but doesn't bother to consider how they're going to house or feed it, let alone how mom and dad are going to pay for it. We have some difficult choices ahead of us and we'd better make sure that we make some tough decision before the decisions are made for us.
With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.
In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These figures, by the way, don't include any additional expenditures that will undoubtedly arise from the institution of so-called "Health Care Reform" or a "Cap and Trade" system.
The article continues:
Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.
The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.
For far too long Americans have been pretty juvenile in their demands on government, much like the child that wants a pony for Christmas but doesn't bother to consider how they're going to house or feed it, let alone how mom and dad are going to pay for it. We have some difficult choices ahead of us and we'd better make sure that we make some tough decision before the decisions are made for us.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Breaking News - The House Passes the Health Care Bill
The House just passed the Health Care Bill HR 3962 by a margin of 220-215. Now the attention shifts to the Senate...
What exactly is Speaker Pelosi trying to hide?
President Obama stopped by the House of Representatives today in an effort to rally support for HR 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act." Speaker Pelosi will not be allowing the final language of the bill to be posted online 72-hours before a vote comes to the floor of the House even though she pledged to do so only a little over a month ago.
Why the change of heart? Could it be because she doesn't want the American public to know that you can be fined up to $250,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years for willful failure to purchase an approved policy? Incidentally, according to the CBO such a policy would cost a family of four at least $15,000/year.
Maybe she doesn't want the American public to know that the reason that AARP is suddenly behind her plan is because they stand to make a significant amount of money given a sizeable source of their revenue is from the sale of, among other things, supplemental insurance policies for medicare recipients. Of course seniors will be needing plenty of supplemental insurance policies given that Pelosi's health care bill aims to pay for itself via more than $400 Billion in cuts to medicare.
Perhaps she doesn't want Americans to know that the medically uninsurable will have to wait a full six-months before they are eligible for government-subsidized insurance plans. Given that most of these people are uninsurable due to terminal illness, I'm sure that they'll be happy to know that they will most likely not survive the six-month waiting period.
By not posting the final language of the bill online for 72-hours prior to a final vote, Speaker Pelosi is virtually ensuring that the members of congress will not have the opportunity to read the bill prior to voting on it. Of course this is probably of little consequence to the millionaires club given that they already have top-of-the-line health insurance of which the government pays up to 75% the cost.
Oh and by the way some members of Congress are still wrangling to get illegal aliens access to the health care plans as outlined in the bill.
The current session of Congress has made a habit of ramming through bad legislation that is not in the best interests of the American public. Contact your Congressman today and let them know that you aren't going to stand for it anymore. After all, there's an election in 2010 and their job depends on it.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Central PA Voter Guide - Elections are this Tuesday!
Election day is this Tuesday, November 3. PennLive.com has put together a pretty nifty voter guide that allows you to view candidate biographical information side-by-side for all of the elections in your district. Check it out here.
Not sure where you are supposed to go to vote? PA Department of State has a page here that will help you figure it out. Need you zip+4? USPS has a page here.
It is important that each and every one of us participates in the process. As Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
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