Category Archives: Economy

China, Economy, Energy, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Florida’s No-Energy Policy Is No Energy Policy

It’s not surprising that the St. Petersburg Times would come out with an editorial supporting the President’s about face on opening up 25 million acres of land off of Florida’s coast to oil exploration. They also thought that shutting down ALL oil drilling in the entire Gulf of Mexico by ALL oil companies was a good idea too! It reflects the knee-jerk reaction to pressure from the environmentalist lobby who, last I checked, does not produce energy.

Critics of the plan, like State Senate President Mike Haridopolos, are right to say that the Florida ban will cost jobs. It is preventing jobs from being created. Forget that ‘saved or created’ nonsense. This, like the rest of Obama’s economic policies are preventing jobs from being created and the economy from recovering.

Out of the lost wages and earnings, all of which BP is responsible for replacing, the Times did not give a number of jobs lost due to the leak. And didn’t BP put thousands of people to work (because of the leak) all over the Gulf coast to do the cleanup work? Sorry to say, but devastating hurricanes create jobs and work too! This is no more a justification for lax safety procedures than a hope for another accident. Point is, we can recover from accidents and disasters.

The jobs lost by extending this Florida waters moratorium another 12 years is real. Likewise, the jobs lost from our president and Ken Salazar putting the drilling moratorium in effect for all drilling in the Gulf in the wake of the 4/20 BP rig explosion was ignored by the St. Pete Times. But, that is to be expected of them.

It’s been 15 years since the Clinton administration put the kibosh on ANWR development, which would have long been producing energy by now had that not happened. Now we’re to wait twelve more years for Florida and the Eastern U.S. to use its resources?

Time is long overdue for an energy policy that gets some. In every area. How many new nuclear generating plants have opened in the last 20 years? How many new refineries have been built in the last 20 years? Did you know that 57% (that’s more than half for those of you educated in government schools) of our electrical energy comes from coal? How many new coal-fired electrical generating plants have been built in the last 20 years? So President Clinton made our nation’s only low sulfur coal reserves (the largest in the world) off-limits, handing China a monopoly. And banning oil development off our East and Gulf coasts, leaves OPEC to profit. Buying coal from China and oil from OPEC is not good for national security, nor is it a good energy policy.

Long story short. Unless you expect the energy industry to make environmental guidelines, don’t expect the environmentalists to make energy policy.

Link:    Shelving expanded gulf oil drilling is responsible course |  Oil spills kill jobs

China, Economy, Energy, Politics, United Nations

Climate Change Conference ‘Going Backwards’

That’s the good news. Frustrated by the competition to play God, the big U.N. climate talks in Cancun are ‘going backwards.’

They are arguing over adjusting the imaginary global thermostat down 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees. While the world’s two biggest polluters, China and India, feel it is unfair that they be forced to participate, don’t want anything to do with it. They haven’t signed on to the Kyoto Protocol either.

Then there’s the rift as to who would manage the $100 billion per year fund that they say they need in order to meet their goal. The World Bank or the United Nations? No matter who it would be, you know it would be nothing more than a slush fund for dictators and despots around the world, helping them to play God while the United States mostly foots the bill for their folly.

Meanwhile, environment ministers began flying in Saturday, hoping to put new life in the U.N. talks. Don’t you wonder about ‘the cost’ that their carbon footprint places on our green earth?

Link:  Plodding climate talks stepping up to higher level

Economy, Energy, United Nations

Skeptic Or Denier?

The role of skeptic – the one who asks the questions, the one who demands answers – is generally a lauded role in modern society. At least .. as long as there’s a Republican on the hot seat. But in climate circles, they have another word, a pejorative term, for skeptics: deniers. The church of global warming has no tolerance for heresy, and even less for probing questions or investigations. And so it is that the journalist Phelim McAleer was denied press credentials for the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in sunny Cancun, Mexico this week.

Meanwhile Christina Figueres, the UN climate chief, launched the annual climate change meeting in Cancun in Mexico, asking negotiators to strike a “compromise” and weave together elements of a solid response to global warming by drawing inspiration from the Mayan goddess of “reason and creativity.”

And, more talk of the need to transfer money and technology under the belief that the United Nations can adjust an imaginary global thermostat by moving vast amounts of money from one side of the earth to the other, if only the other side of the earth will go along. Guess who from? Leaving the rest of us in the dark.

Link:  The Climate Conference Echo Chamber |  UN climate change conference opens in Mexico

Economy, Europe, Politics, Russia

Restructure, It Worked For Russia

In fact, it worked for Russia and Argentina. In fact, to keep ‘bailouts’ on the table for countries that are currently set up to spend more than they take in is, I’ll use a technical word here, crazy. It is a waste of everyone else’s money and does not solve the problem.

Socialist states must restructure. The post WWII boom days are over. The demographics are nothing like they were 50 years ago. And ‘reform’ means ‘taking away.’

The cure means a new economic model for Europe. The lesson for the United States is that transforming America into the image of Europe is not only the absolute wrong direction for our country, but is antithetical to President Obama’s responsibility of being the steward of the country and the Constitution.

Link:  In European Debt Crisis, Some Call Default Better Option |  The State Of The Welfare State

Economy, Europe, Politics

Ireland Asks EU For Bailout

What happens when markets are interferred with? Like when ‘too big to fail’ becomes the excuse to fake a ‘market correction?’ In our case, we see how well that worked out. It hasn’t. Instead, what it has done is cripple the markets, paralyze investement and economic growth.

Ireland has been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by its fateful 2008 decision to insure its banks against all losses – a bill that is swelling beyond euro50 billion ($69 billion) and driving Ireland’s deficit into uncharted territory.

Economists question whether the economies of Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece will grow sufficiently to build their tax bases and permit them to keep financing, never mind paying down, their debts.

Unfortuanetly for Ireland, they bought in to that same excuse. Problem for them is, with their much smaller economy, the consequence is more severe. Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece are all in the same boat. Hit with the financial perfect storm of unsustainable social welfare economies and handicapped free-markets, the European dominos are all in line to fall.

Link: Ireland swallows bitter pill, asks EU for loan

UPDATE: 11/23/2010 In European Debt Crisis, Some Call Default Better Option

Economy, Politics

Members of Congress Get Richer Despite Sour Economy

‘The most popular investment among congressional members reads as a who’s who list of the most powerful corporate political forces in Washington, D.C. — companies that each spend millions, if not tens of millions of dollars each year lobbying federal officials,’ states the CRP report. In addition to Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup were popular holdings. All of them received funding under the TARP.

Ahh yes. Now there’s change we can believe in.

Link:  Members of Congress Get Richer Despite Sour Economy

Economy

Monetary And Economic Worlds Collide

What happens when the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve and the economic policy of the Obama administration collide? We can all sit by and see what a currency war is all about in this global economy, and how it will impoverish us as a nation and as a people. Or, we can step up and make the hard choices. At this point, there are no easy ones left to make.

The problem we’re in was not caused from our taxes being too low. We’re in this mess because spending has been out of this world, and, woefully misdirected. Misdirected in the sense that preserving a capitalist and free market economy is the goal. And given where we are today, do you believe that the Obama administration shares that goal?

Is there an economist out there that can explain the confluence of bad monetary policy and equally bad economic policy, so that the dumb masses can understand it? And, is there a newspaper bold enough to put it on the front page, above the  fold?

Economy, Politics

Ben Bernanke’s Quantitative Easing Explained

This entertaining and informative video that explains what Fed. Chairman Ben Bernanke has done under ‘quantitative easing.’

I think it is time for the same congressional committee that on June 3, 2009 heard Bernanke testify, under oath, that the Fed is not and would not monetize the debt to call him back on this one. Forget the small stuff with baseball players lying to congress under oath. It’s time to start at the horse’s mouth.  Or, depending on your perspective, the other end.

After impeachment, sentence him to Club Gitmo for a term determined by the length of time it takes to have a Conservative (not Republican, but Conservative) majority in the House, Senate, and The White House for having caused more damage to America’s future than 19 terrorists did on 9/11/2001.

h/t The Market Ticker

Economy, Politics, Uncategorized, War On Terror

aSide Order

A random act of culture happened in Macy’s (formerly John Wanamaker’s) in Philadelphia last week, perpetrated by the Opera Company of Philadelphia. See if you can watch this video without tearing up. This brought about a union of people from all walks of life like no other. Only in America? Maybe so.

Another example of how stimulus money is being spent. How about $700,000 to study cow burps? Remember this, candidate, then President, Obama said he would not rest until every one that wanted a job could get one.

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a little shock and awe. Here is a new Israeli hand fired tank buster. Shown here destroying the ordinance in the tank and its crew. The four other Syrian tanks following this one turned around.

Want to see the reason that this global war on terror will be a long one? Maybe a generation or two? Can’t wait to see what C.A.I.R. has to say about this child preacher. Nothing Islamophobic about this. Sad thing about it is, this isn’t the first child raised with the terrorist mindset, and won’t be the last.

Child-Preacher Ammar: “A Child Must Be Raised on the Love of Jihad and on the Desire to Be Martyred for the Sake of Allah”


Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Is High Unemployment The ‘New Normal?’

The unemployment model in Europe is taking shape in the United States. When you look at historical unemployment rates across the pond you will understand why President Obama ‘fears’ the U.S. economy could enter a ‘new normal.’

The dirty little secret here is that this isn’t his fear. High unemployment is incidental to his goal. It is the community organizer’s way of moving forward with his agenda to ‘transform America.’

It is what happens when the government leans socialist and labor is pretty much owned by unions rather than a free market. It is no coincidence that Andy Stern, the president of the SEIU, is the most frequent guest at The White House. And they are nowhere near finished. The end-game where SEIU is concerned is to have taxpayers bail out the union’s underfunded retirement programs. Next up, Card Check. One step at a time.

Link: Obama says he fears economy could enter ‘new normal’ of low job growth.