Day: March 12, 2009

More On Cap And Trade Energy Plan

Found this analysis in the Green Party’s website.

After the Clinton and Bush administrations refused to take minimal steps to confront climate change, at least the Obama administration has offered modest plans and intends to seek a new post-Kyoto international treaty. However, given scientists’ recent warnings of accelerated warming, Greens oppose carbon emissions trading schemes such as the one proposed by President Obama, asserting that permits for polluting companies to trade emission permits are ineffective at curbing global climate change.

“The failure of emissions trading in Europe over the past three years proves cap-and-trade plans are full of loopholes, are vulnerable to widespread abuse, and threaten the air quality in communities near industries that buy credits. The solution must involve drastic cuts in greenhouse gases, reduction of fossil fuel consumption (especially car traffic), carbon taxes, energy conservation, and new jobs in conservation, retrofitting, and cultivation of safe, clean energy sources. There is no way to solve the global warming crisis without profound changes to our economy and way of life,” said Budd Dickinson, energy engineer and co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.

The Green Party has offered a set of ‘First 100 Days’ action for the new administration (http://www.gp.org/committees/ecoaction/documents/First_100_Days.pdf). Green Parties throughout the world have urged developed countries to commit to domestic reductions of at least 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, in comparison with 1990 emission levels, and support conversion to a “low or zero carbon society.” (“Global Greens, representing 70 Green Parties and Green groups, issue declaration on reduction of greenhouse gases,” Green Party press release, December 7, 2007, http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_12_07.shtml).

Finally, The Truth Comes Out

If you have been watching the drama on the Potomac then you have noticed that the GOP seems to be the party of “no”.  That is they will not get behind anything the president is attempting to do.  But they, the Repubs, say that it is not that they want him to fail, it is that they do not like his policies.  But absolutely nowhere do they offer anything as a plan B other than tax cuts.

So you think the GOP is trying to do the right thing for the country by opposing Obama at every turn?  But now, after I have been telling people that this is not about policies it is about politics.  And once again I have been proven right…and what a good feeling that is…..

GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, a key player in helping craft the Republican message, has offered an unusually blunt description of the Republican strategy right now.

“We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., an outspoken conservative who has participated on the GOP message teams. “Our goal is to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

McHenry’s spokesperson, Brock McCleary, says his boss is standing by the quote.

McHenry’s description of his party’s goal — to “bring down approval numbers” for Nancy Pelosi and House Dems — is being much talked about today among Congressional Dems. It’s likely that Dems will grab on to the quote today to bolster their charge that Congressional Republicans aren’t interested in playing a constructive role in governing and see their hope for political revival in the eventual failure of the Democratic majority’s policies.

There you are….it is politics…..the repubs have NOTHING constructive to add to the economic conversation, so they must be as destructive as they can and as obstructive as they can.  It is ALL about the 2010 election, nothing else.  The economy can fail completely, that will be acceptable to the GOP.  Why?  Will give them wins in 2010.

Hope you Repubs are proud of your party…because they care less for you and your family…..as long as they can return to power…they will sacrifice you and yours.  Happy now?

2009 Omnibus Bill

Opposition to the left and opposition to the right…..for now a cork has been put in Cantor and the new mouthpiece of the GOP is Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.  Obama is catching all the flack with Dems coming in second, but the truth is that little of this spending bill is that of Obama.

In November, House Democratic leaders hope to tee up in the next six weeks an omnibus package consisting of the nine remaining fiscal 2009 appropriations bills so President-elect Obama can sign the legislation into law shortly after he is inaugurated, senior Democratic aides said Tuesday. The plan, also heard in lobbying circles, would require the new Congress to come into session before the Jan. 20 inauguration to approve the package.

During debate on the CR Sept. 25, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said Bush sought to cut $14 billion from domestic programs, including research funding at the National Institutes of Health and low-income aid for home heating. Rather than capitulate, said Obey, “we would kick the can down the road … so that if we have a president that will negotiate” some of that funding could be preserved.

The CR, which included three fiscal 2009 spending bills — Defense, Military Construction-VA and Homeland Security — funds most programs at fiscal 2008 levels. Along with three spending measures, the CR includes up to $22.9 billion in disaster relief funding; $2.5 billion for the Pell Grant program; and $5.1 billion in low-income heating assistance. The $25 billion loan program for the auto industry is part of the CR, costing $7.5 billion for the fiscal year.

Congress on Tuesday sent President Barack Obama a once-bipartisan bill to fund the domestic Cabinet agencies that evolved instead into a symbol of lawmakers’ free-spending ways and penchant for back-home pet projects. The Senate approved the measure by voice after it cleared a key procedural hurdle by a 62-35 vote. Sixty votes were required to shut down debate.

Obama is expected to sign the measure Wednesday to avoid a partial shutdown of the government. But the White House has kept the bill at arm’s length, calling it last year’s business. Obama is also set to announce steps aimed at curbing lawmakers’ so-called earmarks.

The $410 billion bill is chock-full of those pet projects and significant increases in food aid for the poor, energy research and other programs. It was supposed to have been completed last fall, but Democrats opted against election-year battles with Republicans and former President George W. Bush.

Blame all the Dems you would like, but I would say that to blame Obama is a bit of a stretch even for a party that has NOTHING constructive to say, other than revenge for losing an election.

Is Bernanke Helping?

He talks and talks and yet …NOTHING!

Mr Bernanke argues that the roots of the current global economic downturn stem from global imbalances in trade and flows of capital in the late 1990s.

Mr Bernanke says the imbalances “reflect a chronic lack of saving relative to investment in the US and some other industrial countries, combined with an extraordinary increase in saving relative to investment in many emerging markets.”

As a result, saving flowed into developed economies for more than a decade, despite low interest rates, he argues.

Risk management systems in the private sector and government regulation then failed to “ensure that the inrush of capital was prudently invested,” he says.

Federal Reserve boss Ben Bernanke took a somewhat belated step toward restoring it in a speech on Tuesday. His diagnosis of the roots of the economic crisis – “too big to fail” banks, ad hoc financial infrastructure, pro-cyclical regulation, fractured oversight – makes sense.

And Bernanke focused on how to manage these firms through risk controls, liquidity requirements and capital standards, rather than how to wind them down – or whether to intervene to keep future Hank Greenbergs and Sandy Weills from assembling ungovernable monsters. He did, however, rightly call for a new resolution regime for failing institutions.

Reforming financial infrastructure during a period of unprecedented financial innovation is no mean feat. Despite this, Bernanke’s agenda in that area is probably too modest, focusing on tweaks to the plumbing – money fund, derivatives and repurchase market improvements – rather than more ambitious reform.

Lawmakers and regulators should consider added restrictions on assets that money funds can own and a new “limited system of insurance” to protect investors, Bernanke said yesterday in a speech yesterday urging broad changes to U.S. financial oversight.

The comments signal Bernanke favors less aggressive rules for money funds than those recommended by a group including Volcker, an adviser to President Barack Obama. The group proposes regulating money-market funds more like banks, with reserve requirements and mandatory federal insurance.

Money-market mutual funds have drawn scrutiny since the collapse of the $62.5 billion Reserve Primary Fund in September. The New York-based money fund was the first in 14 years to break the buck, or drop below $1 a share. Its collapse, caused by losses on debt issued by bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., rattled confidence in the money funds, long considered the safest investments after bank accounts and Treasury debt.

These learned people just keep pushing the liquidity point………all well and good but without demand liquidity means squat!

Cuba Gets A Breather

Cuban-Americans will be allowed to travel to the island once a year and send more money to relatives there.

Curbs on sending medicines and food have also been eased. The measures were part of a $410bn bill to fund US government operations.

The legislation was approved by the Senate after clearing the House of Representatives last month.

The legislation overturns rules imposed by the Bush administration which limited travel to just two weeks every three years, and confined visits to immediate family members.

President Obama – who needs to sign the bill – has said he supports it.

But he has said that like previous American presidents, he will only consider a full lifting of the embargo once Cuba’s communist government makes significant moves such as the holding of democratic elections.

Cuba’s President Raul Castro has said he is prepared to negotiate with the new US administration, providing there are no preconditions.