VAT, Inflation, and White Paint?

I’m going on very little sleep here, so I can’t say I will have the best tone today, just to warn you right off the bat.

As I look at the news the same question keeps coming to mind over and over :

What! Are they stupid?!

I know, a little juvenile at best, but… then again…

The first one that sticks out is our Nobel Prize winning Energy Secretary; obviously a man of incredible mental acumen… until he opens his mouth. Secretary Chu claims that global warming has reached a “crisis situation”. Really? Are we looking at data here or does someone have Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth looping over and over again on his DVR. What is even more mind boggling is that not only do we have to do all of the already proposed insane ideas that would crush our economy and send us into the Greatest Depression, but we also need to go up on our roof with a five gallon bucket of white paint and cover the whole thing. That’s right! Our brilliant energy secretary claims that if we painted all of our roofs white it would effectively take all of the cars off the road for over a decade. I’m not sure how on earth he came UP with that number, but as long as he is pulling random numbers out of orifices, maybe he could give me the winning Powerball numbers for tonight.

The second one is a little more wide spread. Last week a handful of ballot measures in California went down in flames after people realized that the only solution that their law makers had come up with to solve their massive budget shortfall was to create new ways to tax them to death, all while they have been giving themselves pay raises and spending BILLIONS of dollars on state programs for illegal aliens. Unfortunately this particular stupidity isn’t limited to California, in fact it is rampant in Washington. Evidently the President and the Treasury Secretary (don’t get me started on THAT guy) are hearing from “tax experts” that we really need to have a Value Added Tax (VAT) to help make up for our SOARING deficits. If you aren’t familiar with the VAT let’s just say it is ONE more way for the government to take the money out of your wallet a little bit faster. It’s also known as a national sales tax. Now, I’m not opposed to a national sales tax… just get rid of the income tax first. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a “tax expert” but I’ve got an even better idea to make up for the massive deficit that we have… STOP SPENDING MONEY, MORONS!!!! Okay, I feel a little better now.

It’s one thing for the average Joe like me to get upset with my government and yell at them for doing stupid things, but you would think they would pay a little more attention to the people that are actually lending them money (they just TAKE mine). Evidently the Chinese aren’t really happy with our monetary policy lately. For a while now they have been yelling at us to cut off the bailouts and stop spending money, but they seem to be even less fond of the fact that the Federal Reserve is buying Treasury debt. That’s right, the Fed is buying debt (or lending money) to the Treasury.

Let that process for just a second.

Got it?

Yes, that’s called printing money out of thin air. We are loaning ourselves money and if I were the Chinese (who own a HUGE portion of our debt), I wouldn’t be talking with people about this problem I would be smacking them senseless. In fact, we should all be smacking them senseless! This is a recipe for DISASTER. Can anyone say inflation?

Okay, believe it or not, I haven’t had my coffee yet. I was afraid that if I drank that first I would just throw the computer off the desk and end up on some security video, spam email that you end up getting four dozen times.

Ugh… stupid people.

Sorry, I’ll try and make the next post a little more civil.

Cap and Trade: Good Intentions are Not an Excuse for Bad Policy

A CBO report came out this morning talking about the financial impact to families of a Cap and Trade system imposed on CO2 emissions. The results of their analysis aren’t surprising, in fact the CBO backs up a good portion of what I have said before about taxing or restricting CO2 emissions.

Let me just start off by saying that I don’t agree with global warming induced by CO2 emissions on a scientific basis. I think that the climate models used were extremely flawed and from reports I’ve read don’t take into account things as complex as global energy distribution and things as simple as historical records, sun spots, and the cooling effect of rainfall and natural disasters (such as volcanoes).

Basically, I am not willing to concede that we need to limit CO2 emissions and at this point in time think that any efforts to do so would be a huge burden on our economy, at a time when we don’t need it and can’t afford it.

Given that, let’s consider CO2 emissions. We don’t know how much CO2 affects global temperatures and how significant that change is to the earth. We really don’t know what appropriate levels off reduction are. Is a 10% reduction sufficient, 15, 20, 25%? At what point do you ban things like soda, beans, and grass? Do you put limits on livestock? Do you tax livestock owners? A recent report I read said that one moose puts out more CO2 than one car. Do we start reducing wild animal herds? You can see where I am going. If you don’t know what really 'needs' to happen because you don’t really understand the complex global system that God put in place, or all of the million variables that can contribute or retract from the issue, then you can’t really say how much impact any change will have. Basically you are trying to make a significant restriction on energy and United State production capacity without even knowing if it makes ANY difference at all!

According to the CBO’s report, a reduction of 15% in CO2 emissions “…could cost the average household roughly $1,600 (in 2006 dollars), ranging from nearly $700 in additional costs for the average household in the lowest one-fifth (quintile) of all households arrayed by income, to about $2,200 for the average household in the highest quintile.”

Does this make sense to anybody? Do you understand now that when President Obama says that 95% of Americans will not see one dime of increase in their taxes he is lying? Not misleading. Lying.

Any action we take in this area is going to adversely affect poorer people in this US and in countries abroad. Production of all grain, produce, dairy, and meat will be more expensive. Shipment of any products to stores will cost more. Every drop of gas will be more expensive.

Not only is there going to be a significant cost to lower income families, the increased cost is actually part of the GOAL of the program. The CBO says,

“Price increases would be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program because they would be the most important mechanism through which businesses and households would be encouraged to make investments and behavioral changes that reduced CO2 emissions. Those increases, however, would impose a larger burden, relative to their income, on low-income households than on high-income
households.”

When you hear “Cap and Trade” you need to have your mind translate that into ONE THING, “TAX INCREASE”. They will claim that this is for the environment, but it is absolutely for money. They will claim that they are doing this for “the children” and “future generations” but what they are really doing is hurting poor children and hamstringing the potential of future generations.

There may very well be some good intentions behind cutting CO2 emissions, even if the science does not back it up. But remember, good intentions don’t always make good policy. Our lawmakers had good intentions when they started requiring a percentage of corn crops to be directed towards ethanol. The effect was higher global prices on corn. People were starving in Latin America because they couldn’t afford to buy tortillas or grain for their livestock. There were riots in the streets! Good intentions are not an excuse for bad policy.

Cap and trade means higher prices, higher taxes, a drain on lower income families, and lower revenues for businesses. I would hope after what we have seen in the last six months everyone would know how that works out, but just in case you are THAT DENSE, lower revenues means falling stock prices, 401Ks, layoffs, and more jobs transferred to India, China, and eventually Africa, where a cap and trade system does not apply.

The US needs to say NO to cap and trade... while we're at it I think I need to say no to that second cup of coffee...

Pray for the health of Pres Obama and Vice Pres Biden

Otherwise this lady will be our president.


I realize the audio is a little weak. Sorry. But she claims that 500 million Americans lose their job every month. Considering there are about 300 million people in the US, and about 135 million of them are working, then each of them would have to lose their job three times every month.

It's sad but it wasn't the first time she said it... I think someone might need to actually TELL her that if she is going to pull numbers from some random orifice, that she should at least make them believable!

BAD voters

Voting is a big deal. It is up to each person to really look at the issues that are involved and vote for someone based on their ideas, leadership ability, vision for our country, and values. Having put an enormous amount of effort into educating myself on the candidates, I get very frustrated when people don’t put in a minimal amount of effort.

I heard a tremendous example of this yesterday on the radio. Let me just clarify, the clip is from the Howard Stern show, but I was NOT listening to the dirty old man, I was listening to my normal right wing radio wackos. :)



Someone does not have to have a college degree, or even high school education to be able to find out where a candidate stands on the issues; they just have to care enough to want to find out the information. Obviously people don’t.

If you want to vote for Obama because you like his socialist stance on issues and his philosophy that the right government can not only solve all of the domestic, but all of the global problems, then that’s fine. If you want to vote for McCain because you like his fiscal conservatism combined with his desire to fix the global warming hoax and continue the semi-open border policy, that’s fine. If you want to vote for one just to vote AGAINST the other one, that’s fine too. But if you are voting for someone because they seem popular or because you like the way they speak or you think they remind you of your great grandpa, then please, just stay home.

Be educated about the candidates or recuse yourself from the process.

(HT to my buddy Steve for reminding me about this)

Seriously! Okay, now I am a staunch McCain supporter!

I found this in an article today and heard it on the news yesterday. If for no other reason, this is enough to be firmly in the McCain camp.

SUSAN SARANDON, who appeared in three films last year and won kudos for her
TV movie "Bernard and Doris," is still not a contented soul. She says if John
McCain gets elected, she will move to Italy or Canada. She adds, "It's a
critical time, but I have faith in the American people."

Teacher votes herself out of a job!!!!

Well, maybe that's my take on what SHOULD happen. Imagine you had a child that was tough to handle, not because he was a bad kid, but because he had a form of autism. Not to the point were the child wasn't functional, just a little difficult to handle. Now imagine you went to pick him up from kindergarden and found out that his classmates had "voted him out" of class.

That's right.

The teacher stood the kid up in front of the class and went through everyone in the class and asked them what they didn't like (the child understood "hated") about him. Then they voted on whether or not the child should be able to stay in class.



Here's the link incase the video doesn't come up.
Sounds to me like the principle needs to vote the teacher out of a job.

I can't say I would blame the mom if she did end up suing the school in this case.

Stupid people.

Commander in Chief material indeed...

Okay, if you made the mistake of thinking that Memorial Day was for our living Veterans, that's fine, you aren't running for president.

I'm sorry there is no excuse for it from B.O.

If W had made these same mistakes the press would be all over him.

Another symptom of the problem

People expect too much from government.

Government is not here to pay for your child care, make sure you get health coverage, guarantee the safety of your car, house, boat or whatever other toy or vehicle you want to buy.

All of the controls and regulatory agencies are the result of people whining and complaining to politicians who want to get elected. So what do they do? They pass laws that infringe upon our liberties and rights all for the sake of "protecting us". The problem is that the more you meddle with a system, like the free market, the more you have to meddle to undo the effects of the previous meddling.

For instance the laws and regulations involved in building a power plant, particularly nuclear power plants are quite steep, not to mention truly needed things like oil refineries, but let me continue. Obviously no one wants a Chernobyl incident. No one wants their kid to come out with extra appendages and no one wants an oil refinery pumping toxic chemical waste into your local fishing hole. But the restrictions have cut off the sanity.

CA is huge. People are everywhere. If you've been to So-Cal in the last few years I'm sure you've noticed that you never really leave the city. It goes on forever. So, naturally they have a power problem. When the infrastructure and power supply don't increase as fast as the demand, you have a problem.

Read about the latest solution.

In a free market, there would be two new nuclear power plants supplying most of So-Cal. As it is they are sucking up power from... Palo Verde nuclear plant. The problem now is that AZ is needing more and more of what PV is producing and the result?

The government controls the temperature in YOUR house.

Government big enough to do anything FOR you, is big enough to do anything TO you.

Just one more reason

Just one more reason to say an emphatic "NO" to another Clinton term.

Babs.

Nuff said.