Dan Logue is my assemblyman, so I’m pleased to pass this bit of news on to WUWT readers.
SACRAMENTO-Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Marysville, today announced that his bill, Assembly Bill 118, to suspend the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) will be heard in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on Monday, January 11, 2010.
and…
From the Wall Street Journal:
Could Californians finally be serious about turning around their sputtering economy? One hopeful sign is a ballot initiative that would repeal the Golden State’s version of a cap-and-trade carbon tax.
This feel-good law to reduce the state’s carbon footprint was enacted with great hoopla by the Democratic legislature and Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006 when the state’s economy was growing and the jobless rate was 5%. The law requires that starting in 2012 the state must ratchet down its carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The politicians and green lobbies told voters this energy tax would create jobs—the same fairy tale many in Washington are repeating today.
Now the jobless rate is 12.3%, 2.25 million Californians are unemployed, and the state government is broke. So Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue has begun collecting signatures for “The Global Warming Solutions Act,” a ballot initiative that would suspend California’s cap-and-trade scheme until the unemployment rate falls below 5.5%. He’s aiming to get it on the November ballot.
No matter what one thinks of climate science, it makes little sense for an individual state to unilaterally impose major new tax and regulatory costs on its own industries. The impact of California’s gesture on global temperatures will be infinitesimal, but the economic impact will make the state even less attractive to start or expand a business.
Read the rest of the article at the Wall Street Journal
Repeal a tax? Good luck with that.
btw, I drove across the Carquinez Bridge the other day, for the first time in 20 years. The toll was $4.00!!! It’s an okay bridge, fully paid for about 50 years ago. I made an amusing comment to the toll babe while I grubbed out my wallet, but
she didn’t think it was funny.
Highway robbery is a way of life in CA. Dan has his work cut out for him.
Now I am on topic.
“Macro-economic inflationary pressures and the potential collapse of the carbon credit market are two emerging risks in 2010, according to Lloyd’s of London’s 360 Risk Insight.”
Inflation, potential of carbon credit market collapse among emerging risks: Lloyd’s
http://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/issues/ISArticle.asp?aid=1000353924
“Last month, the European police agency Europol reported that the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) had fallen victim to fraudulent trading activities over the past 18 months, worth €5 billion for several national tax revenues.
It estimates that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.”
Four charged with carbon trading fraud in Belgium
http://www.risk.net/energy-risk/news/1585509/four-charged-carbon-trading-fraud-belgium
British carbon traders charged with money laundering relating to alleged Carousel Fraud
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6969007/British-carbon-traders-charged-with-money-laundering-relating-to-alleged-carousel-fraud.html
Three Britons charged over €3m carbon-trading ‘carousel fraud’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/11/eu-carbon-trading-carousel-fraud
About G&#D%$N TIME!!!
(in voice of kid on Simpsons) HAAA HAaaa!*
That’ll teach ’em not to think with their dipsticks, umm, legislator’s brains!
If drop-kicking cap’n trade into the Pacific, will help restart the (former) eigth largest economy in the world, maybe CA will lock WAX-Man and his evil co-conspirators in stocks in the town square, for a fanny-kicking contest.
hmmm, I seem to want to KICK something!
[Reply: finally, a chance to use *this. ~dbs, mod.]
The politicians and green lobbies told voters this energy tax would create jobs—the same fairy tale many in Washington are repeating today.
An extremely valid point and an issue that the populace NEEDS to be aware of. Killing jobs will not change the climate, neither will Cap & Trade.
Cap and trade: not just an inducement to corrupt practices but a cap ON trade. Green lobbies promised that cap and trade legislation would bring new jobs, but at an estimated cost of $134,000 to each small business every year, it will cost jobs. Many small businesses will vote with their feet. This time the wagons will roll east;->
Interesting, California has been strangling its business climate for a long time without any reversal in sight, but I like the idea of linking such regulation to a healthier (lower unemployment) economic environment – seems like a logical approach.
Kudos to the WSJ, they have been extremely proactive on AGW articles and exposing the ill effects on business and the economy for some time now…
I was just reading a article before coming on WUWT and it had a link to Climate Progress – wow, those folks are just plain goofy over there, either that or their losing there cool…
until the unemployment rate falls below 5.5%.
Which will be the 12th of never.
What I mean is unemployment is bad in California. It will be a long, long time before it is down to 5.5%
the Democratic legislature and Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006
2006 was before the housing crash hit. For those outside of America and who don’t know: the housing crash hit hard in California.
Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger? For those also who don’t know: Arnold Schwarzenegger is far from acting like a Republican. He married a Kennedy, a family of hardcore Democrats.
mkurbo (01:55:54):
Agreed on climate progress- it came up in a google search for me recently, so I followed the link to see what was there. What was there was a bunch of people screaming hate for skeptics, deniers, flat-earthers and big oil shills. On the two pages that I read, not one person actually discussed any science, except to say there was a lot of evidence and it was all settled. The most vehement comments seemed reserved for Anthony Watts, who was called names that were indeed creative in their breadth and depth.
Back OT, the Australian cap and trade (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or CPRS) recently defeated in the Senate will likely be shot down again for the same reasons. There’s no point for a country such as Australia, contributing less than 1% of global greenhouse emissions, to throw it’s resource based economy in the trash for no environmental gain. The reductions are so ridiculously small but the impacts to the economy are large. Even the fervent believers should start to look for other solutions apart from cap and trade.
jobless rate is 12.3%, 2.25 million Californians are unemployed, and the state government is broke
I live in California. The government will not cut spending enough to solve the State debt problem. That is why the state is broke. Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for Governor on the promise he would be responsible with money. He has not done it. He is the same with money as his Democratic predecessor.
Democrats have an iron grip in California. I don’t expect a Republican to change anything. I suppose that even if this finds a way on to a ballot and the citizens of California approve it some judge in California will strike it down and it will not be implemented, which has happened to other non-Democtrat-like votes by the people of California. The best example is gay marriage. The people vote against it, twice. A judge strikes it down. And the governor does nothing about it.
Climate Progress – wow, those folks are just plain goofy over there, either that or their losing there cool
Record breaking cold and snow, and a general cooling trend around the world does that to trolls.
It’s typical isn’t it. When the public and small business suffers enough pain, most come to their senses. It’s a shame that human stupidity can’t be eradicated. I expect Obama to suffer a huge defeat at the next election if the economy is still heading south in a big way by then. I wish I could say the same about Rudd but his election is this year so the people haven’t suffered enough yet. Who knows, he might still get the CPRS passed. If he does it will damage the economy no end. Strange that China and India refuse to agree to such crackpot schemes in order to maintain their economic growth. Why is the West so desperate to wreck their economies?
Mmmm…Organized Crime…
Mmmm…Cap and Trade…
And the State is getting broker by the year. Every time they do a round of cuts, they hack into what’s left of the consumer market. Since they have driven every producing business they can out of the state, the cuts always raise the unemployment rate. An endless loop in a capital city of Black Hole thinking, with Walmarts and unemployment for all.
The reality of Green Jobs is that they cost US jobs and are replaced with imports. America, and California in particular, had better wake up and realize that if they don’t start making things again, it’s bye-bye economy and to the graveyard of nations we go.
As the whole carbon trading scheme is a fraud how do we tell how much is a private fraud and how much official fraud?
I live in California BUT !!!!! work in China, was,,, best of both worlds, BUT !!!! thinking about cutting down on travel time.
“Green jobs” are jobs that the market does not create because there is no demand for them. The government could just as well hire people to dig 10’X10’X10′ holes in the desert, then move those holes twenty feet north every six weeks. There’s no demand for that either. They could call it green jobs, and claim it was cutting unemployment. But green jobs actually increase unemployment. Here’s why:
Jobs created where there is no demand must be paid for by taking the earnings of productive workers who are satisfying market demands by producing goods and services that others are willing to voluntarily pay for. How much in additional taxes will be taken from each productive worker in the private sector to pay for every unnecessary “green” job that is created?
Thus, the government confiscates money that would otherwise be spent on needed goods and services, and forcibly redirects it into make-work jobs, mostly of the bureaucratic, paper pushing kind. Result: less money is available for goods and services that are in actual demand. Both taxes and unemployment will rise.
Those lucky few who get the “green” jobs will benefit at the direct expense of everyone else, who will have to pay substantially more in taxes to fund “green” job creation. And being government jobs, “green” jobs are exempt from market forces; they will form a new bureaucracy that will instantly become a new vested interest, practically impossible to reduce or eliminate.
When steeply rising property taxes got out of control in the late ’70’s, the result was an initiative [Prop. 13], passed in 1980, that largely cured the problem. It will be interesting to see if history repeats. Be prepared for the squealing, wailing, outrage and cries of impending eco-doom and disaster if an initiative is on the ballot that would void the AB 32 nonsense. We’ll see if the electorate has finally had it with endless tax increases, which only benefit narrow special interests at the expense of productive workers.
Sign me up for that anti-AB 32 initiative.
@Peter, why are western “liberal” (they’re really exactly opposite of the classic dictionary definition of liberal, except with how they like to spread our wealth around) politicians so desperate to destroy their countries’ economies?
As Frank Laughtenberg once ranted “It’s about CONTROL!”
See the New Jersey incident where the Democrats were allowed to illegally replace their quickly falling “torch” Torricelli with Laughtenberg to avoid a loss of a Senate seat to the GOP. His rant was on live TV, so it’ll never ever be seen again. After that first outburst line he had a look on his face like he was thinking “Ohhh crap! I just told the truth! Gotta adlib fast!”. I’ve been trying to find a video of that ever since.
What it really goes back to is Joseph McCarthy being stopped from purging all the communists from the American Government. Contrary to Hollywood propaganda, McCarthy had nothing at all to do with any so-called “persecution” of actors, directors and writers. His focus was soley on Soviet infiltrators and the American traitors and sympathizers who were helping them in various ways.
In 1995 the Venona Project was declassified. What Venona was, was interception of phone calls and telegrams and other communication between the USSR and their embassies in the USA. It also involved decryption of coded messages. What the declassification proved was that not only was McCarthy correct, he didn’t know the half of the problem he was trying to root out. IIRC, there’s still a huge number of coded intercepts that have never been decoded. Looks like a job for SETI@Home type of project. I’m certain the declassification of Venona and the subsequent spread of the truth from it is why the latest Hollywood smear campaign against McCarthy, the George Clooney movie “Goodnight, and Good Luck” failed big time. Only the hardest of the hard core believers in the lies went to see it.
Assemblyman Logue is correct in attempting to hobble AB 32, but the reality is that Democrats will never vote for his bill. I wish they would. But Democrats have the mistaken belief that AB 32 is already creating jobs, and will create many more in California. They have studies by consultants that prove this. Yet they are wrong.
I wrote on AB 32 and Green Jobs here:
http://energyguysmusings.blogspot.com/2009/10/green-jobs-and-energy.html
The basis of AB 32, its underlying foundation, is that producing energy without carbon emissions will ultimately put more cash in consumers’ pockets. The extra cash, disposable income, will then be used to purchase more goods and services and create jobs that supply those goods and services.
California’s Air Resources Board paid for an economic analysis of AB 32. That economic analysis concluded that the extra cash involved is $4 per week per person, enough for a large latte coffee. Yet the economic analysis was severely flawed. Two things are supposed to occur under AB 32: 1) electric power prices increase due to large quantities of renewable power such as solar, wind, and geothermal, and 2) electric demand per capita decreases due to better insulation and more efficient appliances.
AB 32, when fully implemented, will place a disproportionate burden on the poor and those on fixed incomes, such as retirees. Prices for all goods and services will increase, as they must when utility prices increase yet there is no opportunity to upgrade the insulation or appliances in a rented apartment or home, or leased business space. Only landlords can perform such upgrades, and they have zero incentive to do so. I wrote on this here:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/ab-32-hypocrisy-vs-health-and-poverty.html
If green policies such as AB 32 created jobs, then California would long ago have had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. California already has the highest percentage of green (renewable-generated) electricity in the USA, already has draconian environmental laws for air emissions, yet the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation at 12.3 percent.
Assemblyman Logue is absolutely correct.
““Green jobs” are jobs that the market does not create because there is no demand for them”
Yes, and almost by definition, green jobs created by government dictat are unproductive jobs. As you shift labour and capital away from productive into unproductive jobs you reduce the wealth of society as a whole.
Government can easily create jobs – there is no mystery nor any great genius required to do so. You can put millions to work on the land, tilling the soil behind a mule – a return to a peasant society. But society at large would become exceedingly poor.
Yet Republican’s don’t seem to get it at all and don’t know how to refute the Obama job creation propaganda. There are some individuals like Peter Schiff who are warning about this, but they are outside the political machine.
Like the failed Soviet experiment of the twentieth century, it will eventually collapse under its own weight, corruption and inefficiency – but not without first destroying the economies of the West.
The notion that cap and trade would create jobs just boggles the mind. So we’re going to deliberately increase costs to every business, and the net result is going to be more employment? I wouldn’t think you’d have to study economics, or even logic to know something is wrong there, even if you don’t immediately see what.
I guess this is just another religious characteristic – faith and suspension of reason as far as AGW is concerned.
Ian W
“The notion that cap and trade would create jobs just boggles the mind.”
Cap & trade is not intended to create jobs of itself. It is the revenue earned from this that is intended to create “green jobs” by direct or indirect subsidy.
It is important to understand the distinction between job creation and wealth creation, because Obama supporters will continue to claim job creation. Can making energy more expensive lead to job creation?
Yes it can. However, what they don’t expain (or more likely don’t understand) is that this kind of job creation – unproductive and labour intensive – will come at the expense of wealth creation that will ultimately impoverish society as a whole.
Oh good. That’s like telling the business community that they won’t kick ’em while they’re down; they’ll wait till they get to their feet, then they’ll kick ’em.
So, rather than the tax kicking in in 2012, it might kick in then or when unemployment drops to 5.5%. If I’m a businessman, that tells me I may have an extra couple years in which to move my business out of state.
This proposed suspension changes nothing, it merely prolongs the agony.
I still think that some country or state in the world has to try it with such a disastrous results, that the whole world will understand it is no way. Why not California?
Why don’t they put their money where their mouth is? For instance, several of the big names in climate alarmism have said in the past few months that there’s a better than even chance that 2010 will be the warmest year ever, and yet the odds offered on that bet at https://www.intrade.com/ are just 1 in 4, not (say) 3 in 5, as they would be if warmists were sincere.
Or, if that bet’s not to their taste, there are nearly a dozen others they can take. (Click on Market –> Climate & Weather –> Global Temperature.)
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Vincent (05:01:38) :
Yet Republican’s don’t seem to get it at all and don’t know how to refute the Obama job creation propaganda. There are some individuals like Peter Schiff who are warning about this, but they are outside the political machine.
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Too many Pubs play the political game. Buy into the idea even if it’s BS, just try to find a way to leverage it to their political advantage. Any politician who plays that game that stupidly should be voted out no matter what the party.
You can stop the US Congress and the Obambi administration from taking the nation down the same rathole as California by helping elect Scott Brown to the US Senate next Tuesday (the 19th). Assuming we can keep the sob sisters from Maine in line, Scott Brown will be the 41st Republican vote, enough to prevent the Democrats from stopping a filibuster.
Even if you don’t live in Taxachusetts, send Scott some money: http://www.brownforussenate.com/
And advise any friends or relatives you have here to vote for Scott Brown.
/Mr Lynn
Remember how they used to say that California was going to fall into the Pacific Ocean?
The never mentioned that they would be lopping on the branch themselves.
Cap and Trade will create new jobs. The financial skimmers behind the worlds great financial fraud require extra gardners and maids.
CO2 trading a giant ponzi scheme by white collar criminals.
“green jobs”
Green for lobbyists wallets and for the Waxman, Malarkey cartel.
The green jobs refused to define what green jobs ar. If you ask what they are on Climate progress, your question must be deleted. EU companies like vestas, Seimens and lesser names are getting millions in bribes and kickbacks to build factories and extablish windfarms. Wind farms are not working in blizzards. The extremists are drooling on green jobs but when we see the pilot program in http://www.clepair.net/windsecret.htmlain, it means sitting on a park bench in a green park and unemployment.
There are lengthy lists of layoffs in the wind power manufacturing. They have to hit the granny/nanny up for more subsidies to grow the business.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/6957501/Wind-farms-produced-practically-no-electricity-during-Britains-cold-snap.html
A wind industry generating nearly zero electricity. A fraud. Joe Romm has lost his cool and is angry during the blizzard setbacks. He will glorify the windmill fiasco and must be backed by big wind.
Dear Lord.
Maybe we can recover our good senses.
My hope is that the Democrats lose control of Congress in the fall and the Republicans grow a backbone. If CA insists on keeping legislation like this, they should get no bailouts from the rest of us, and serve to be a shining example of what happens when liberal extremists take control of government.
Cap and trade will create jobs. Worthless jobs.
1 It will create cube farm jobs to “manage” the green monsters
2 It will create tax handling jobs to shake down companies
3 It will create inspectors jobs
4 It will create jobs to insulate homes, do home studies before a house is certified to be purchased. It will create PR and advertising jobs.
5 There will be contracts granted to GE and GE is already spending the stolen tax monies.
None of these jobs create value.
View from abroad the US is commiting suicide.
Michael (00:05:36) :
Now I am on topic.
Good man, keep it that way. There is always Tips and Notes for stuff which won’t wait for a relevant thread. 😉
I’m a little confused. (Nothing new there.) Is Logue pursuing _two_ avenues at the same time–an Assembly bill and a ballot initiative? I’m for both, but only an initiative would have a ghost of a chance in today’s Sacramento.
And here in the UK our Labour government under Gordon Brown peddles the same myths regarding green jobs.
100bn euros of investment in an offshore windelecs project have been sanctioned this week, but the jobs will all go to Germany because we have no manufacturing facilities in UK, the last having closed some months ago due to lack of orders and interest!
The national output from windelecs on the day that this triumph of stupidity over reason was proudly announced was 0.2% of the possible 5% of output from all sources, yet these idiots expect 30% of our power to come from wind by 2020 and are fast eliminating our established power sources in accord with EU instructions on that expectation.
Can no one do the mathematics in Parliament?
Hello Vincent,
Your posts are right-on!
I am going to try to buttress your arguments.
Wealth creation is the modificaiton of natural resources and labor in an economically viable way, that results in the value of the new product being greater than the cost to produce it.
High overhead costs and unproductive labor equals a loss of wealth when creating a product or service. Government, by definition, has an extremely high overhead cost and produces things at losses because of the low productivity of its workers. Patronage hires and large bureaucracies are some of the biggest issues.
Governments and government mandates don’t create wealth.
No wealth creation, no economy, no jobs.
“The impact of California’s gesture on global temperatures will be infinitesimal, but the economic impact will make the state even less attractive to start or expand a business.”
-This from the recent issue of DUH magazine.
This repeal movement is a great idea but it should be permanent.
Cap and trade is nothing more than eco-fascism.It is just another way for losers in the government,that can’t make it in the business world to take over the private sector!It is high time people in this country started fighting the Eco-Nazis!
It would be unmeasurable. Therefore, no possible verification if it had the desired effect. It’s essentially the same outcome for any carbon reduction scheme. There’s no possible way to verify whether a reduction in “carbon” will make any measurable difference in the meaningless metric called “global temperature”.
CA manufacturing losses, thus far, attributable to carbon caps (these are off the top of my head, informed by direct knowledge, and, WARN documents I’ve seen). Some of these are specific factories not the entire firm:
1) NUMMI
2) Quiksilver
3) Northrop Grumman
4) Lockheed Martin
5) Rockwell Collins
6) Boeing
7) Kavlico
8) TTM Technologies
9) Safetran
10) Ametek
11) Seagate
12) Pacific Clay Products
13) NEC
14) Cisco Systems
15) Sony Electronics
In the case of the defense contractors, the jobs moved to business friendly states such as TX, AZ, LA, MS, AL, GA. In the case of the others they typically moved to China or Eastern Europe.
“100bn euros of investment in an offshore windelecs project have been sanctioned this week, but the jobs will all go to Germany because we have no manufacturing facilities in UK,”
Breathtaking in its stupidity. I wonder which of the wonders in government thought that one through? The poor, bedraggled masses will one day start to ask for their promised green jobs, and the government will only shrug their shoulders “No green jobs here my lad, now move along,”
Never mind, their benefit payments will keep the Germans in jobs through all these renewable obligations and emissions certificates they are forced to buy to keep the whole boondangle working.
Dan Logue’s bill was defeated… the Democrats, who rule the Assembly in California voted down the party line. Real idiots!
http://www.flashreport.org/blog.php?postID=2010011118125493
Vincent (08:21:41) : You should abandon inmediately that monster called EU. A former proud empire now a shameful colony.
How did we get here? Manufacturing and raw produce processing regulations were put into place to protect health (remember the meat plants of long ago?). And then to make sure it happened, government inspection workers came round once a year and put a recommendation sticker on your front door. Much money was passed under the table during its hayday, as it was ripe for fraud. Then came the need to reduce or control the rise in governmental spending. So inspector ranks were drastically reduced. Problem was, you could not continue to operate without being inspected. But there was no one inspecting you. So you had to shut your doors.
Small but industrious communities everywhere lost their industries to bigger and more easily accessible towns and cities with similar but regularly inspected plants.
Wallowa County was one such community. We had processing plants for all forms of produce. We had meat plants, flour mills, wool mills, creameries, etc. And we shipped both raw products and finished products out of the county. But eventually the costs (government controlled and taxed wages, benefits, and regulations) to produce such things outpaced the return. And so the county sits with very little left of what was once a productive and producing economy.
California is like Wallowa County on a bigger scale. And so will go every other state in the Union if we continue to allow the government to over-regulate what an individual can or cannot do in creating a product that people can and will buy.
How to solve it? Limit the Federal Government and impose protectionism at our ports. Give us back our forests. Take away all regulations except for basic regulations against truly toxic pollution. Serve only to protect our Union and our Friends against a common enemy, and to fight for individual rights (including the right to a marriage license between consenting adults (as long as they ain’t closer than 2nd cousins, ewww).
Communities must relearn the pioneering way: how to live or die on their own successes and mistakes, not because the government has regulated them out of business. “Paint Your Wagon” is an excellent expose’ on this thinking and well worth a cold day snuggled in bed with hot chocolate.
I don’t see my post yet. Did it fall in a pothole?
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IHATEGREEN (07:25:35) :
Cap and trade is nothing more than eco-fascism.It is just another way for losers in the government,that can’t make it in the business world to take over the private sector!It is high time people in this country started fighting the Eco-Nazis!
**************
I believe that some of the more intelligent liberals have come to the conclusion that the only way to achieve the big liberal goals like no war, save the environment, etc. is to gain total control – a totalitarian world government via an organization like the UN. Then they will control what energy we use, what resources we use (or NOT), and there will be no war because there will be only one government. I have read about such goals on the web and I believe they are making strides in that direction. They need to be stopped.
Pamela Gray (09:14:49) :
With the falling dollar and the rise in Gold prices, I am surprised that the mines sit idle, though I shouldn’t be. Thousands of them in Calif., but not a sound. Forests are idle except for wildfires. Mines idle, no dredging, no timber salvage, no timber thinning. And now comes food imported from China on your shelves. WUWT? Candy, pet food, canned fruit and the list is growing. Obama promised that America would start importing food, as Ag. was considered to be a methane and C02 polluter.
How to increase energy use without raising production: Ship goods as far from the country of origin as possible. Those supercargo freighters don’t run on thin air.
Jim (09:28:53) :
I was just outside releasing some carbon (having a smoke) Yuk, thinking exactly along the lines of your post. Make no mistake that is exactly the goal; however you are incorrect to think (that they think) it will bring an end to war. The future wars will be fought (with passion) against any who don’t follow the sacred law, only these wars will be “just wars” against “eco-terrorists” and those who “threaten our way of life” – hang on, hasn’t that been used before?
Pamela Gray (09:14:49) :
The object is to take the entrepreneur out of the equation, that way we can have a society dependant on government (read totalitarian rule) for everything – how to think, what to think, what to produce, what to consume, how to die, when to die. In short a “Borg” a la Star Trek.
JonesII (08:53:27) :
“Vincent (08:21:41) : You should abandon inmediately that monster called EU. A former proud empire now a shameful colony”
There’s now widespread disatisfaction with the 3 main parties. The last elections at local level saw a profusion of fringe parties gaining strength, including bnp, ukip, english heritage. Many former conservatives are switching their allegience to ukip (uk independence party), but the electoral system works to ensure only mainstream parties win seats in parliament.
Meanwhile, the vultures from the eu continue to pick at the bones of the British carcass.
A quick lesson in manufacturing commodities out of thin air.
Louis Redshaw head of Environmental Markets at Barclays Capital recently said that Carbon will be the worlds biggest commodity market and it could become the worlds biggest market overall. But he didn’t mean carbon as in charcoal or diamonds or even carbon dioxide gas, as none of these things are new to commodities markets. What Redshaw was really referring to was the right to emit CO2. Since 2005 the right to emit CO2 has been traded on the stock market. But the right to emit CO2 is a fundamental human right, so how can it be traded like a commodity on the stock market?
Welcome to the cult of CO2 hate.
The value of a commodity is inversely proportional to its relative scarcity. A substance in abundance has little or no worth. In order to turn the right to emit CO2 into a valuable commodity first you must create a scarcity. But it would have been impossible to create a scarcity of a fundamental human right without employing a clever reality flip. The most important element in this sleight of hand was of course human compliance. This has been achieved by pseudo environmentalism or more accurately the cult of CO2 hate. Pseudo environmentalist are very easy to spot. They are the ones that think CO2 is polluting the environment but don’t actually give a damn about the multitude of examples of real pollution. The cult of CO2 hate has been perpetuated by indoctrination of a purely irrational fear of carbon dioxide. CO2 is an essential life giving gas, invisible and no more a pollutant than oxygen. Yet all across the world it is being talked about as though it is some form of toxic waste purely because it is a by-product of our existence. Healthy levels of CO2 much higher than todays paltry 385 ppm will be nothing but a boon to life on Earth yet, the cult of CO2 hate has been built into a crooked consensus and out of that consensus, restrictions on emissions have been and are being imposed.
Having created a scarcity out of the right to emit carbon dioxide, all that was required was a system by which credits for the right to emit CO2 could be issued and voila, our human right to emit CO2 has become a tradable commodity, listed on the stock market as carbon credits and traded by super rich like some modern day SLAVE TRADE.
Well I’ve got news for you Redshaw.
The next big thing in commodities is the TRUTH. Never has there been such a scarcity of the truth as in the 21st century. The truth is as rare as Rocking Horse poop and currently more valuable than pure gold.
There might be something to be said for leaving the gold in the ground until in becomes far more precious than it is now.
“Suspend AB 32” ballot initiative web site:
http://www.suspendab32.org/
Signature gathering scheduled to start Jan. 26. Can’t wait to sign.
Most politicians never realize they’ve made a mistake until the mob pulls them out from under their bed, carries them down the stairs and out the door, ties their hands, lifts them up on the roof of their Lexus, throws a rope over a strong limb in the tree their daughter planted 30 years ago, puts the noose around their neck, spits in their face, and revs the engine. Why do we keep electing mental midgets, lawyers, and Superstars to public office? Next time we need a Congressperson or Governator let’s elect an old fashioned, everyday Truck Driver, or Farmer, or… you know what I mean. Someone who understands the value our money has to us. Someone who knows how to balance a checkbook. Someone who can speak plain English to a TV camera. Someone who’s not trying to win the White House and who’s focused on the job they have now. Someone… etc., etc.
I said “plain” English, I didn’t say they had to speak it with a clear, understandable Midwest accent.
I don’t live in California and I don’t care if they go under anymore than I care if people are harmed by their own stupidity. Am I callous because I think people should be responsible for their own destinies? California offers a prime example of what happens when leftwing lunacy is allowed free reign.
California businesses are welcome in New Hampshire. I’ll send Arnold a loaf of bread in return.
Henry Chance: “Big Wind”……wonderful
Rebut all warmista arguments by suggesting that they are “the voice of Big Wind”.
And we all know where the voice of Big Wind originates….
AB 32 is just one of several problems California is facing, most of which are self-induced. Professor Joerg Knipprath (a professor of law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles) summarized the issues quite well at his blog:
“The solution to California’s budgetary crisis is to cut spending on social welfare programs, flatten out the tax base to broaden taxpayer participation, eliminate the budgetary protections for education, radically revamp the delivery of education (including state-wide funding) that costs among the highest in the country yet delivers among the worst results, break the power of public sector employee unions, put the governor’s “green jobs” fantasies on ice, reduce taxes and business regulations (especially environmental) that hamper capital formation and job creation. In other words, what is needed is to take California out of the fantasy world of liberal ideology that blankets California politics. And that, I regret to say, will not happen until that corrosive world view turns California into much more of a failed economic state than it is even now.” [bold emphasis added]
http://www.tokenconservative.com/2010/01/11/schwarzeneggers-education-funding-fantasy/
jtom (06:38:46)
/signed
my thoughts exactly. (emphasis mine)
woodNfish (11:48:15)
“California offers a prime example of what happens when leftwing lunacy is allowed free reign.”
And this is why some of us predicted what would happen when Obama and the Dems took over the Fed Gov.
So maybe we should watch CA fester and be example to the rest of the world? CA is probably hopeless, but the national Gov isn’t, yet.
Perhaps California is too big to be allowed to fail…
What?? A California politician with a shred of sense? I live here, and I will do whatever I can to get this on the ballot. And I can guarantee that I did not vote for the original ridiculous ballot measure that put this stupidity into law. We have at least 5-10 of these stupid taxes on the ballot every election, and somehow the people always vote for them…I guess the only “research” they do into the actual measure is the TV commercials that make you feel like you are a horrible child killer or want to deforest the whole planet if you don’t vote for this new tax or that one.
Lazarus Long (06:19:53) :
Remember how they used to say that California was going to fall into the Pacific Ocean?
The never mentioned that they would be lopping on the branch themselves.
Yes, they are, and they’re swearing it’s the most ‘progressive’ thing they could do!
Pamela Gray (09:16:19) :
I don’t see my post yet. Did it fall in a pothole?
It seems the moderators are having the Dickens of a time reaching in to the spam filter. They don’t know if there’s something living down there and will bite.
Pamela Gray (09:16:19) :
I don’t see my post yet. Did it fall in a pothole?
Naw, would’ve been a posthole.
photon without a Higgs (02:35:05) : until the unemployment rate falls below 5.5%. Which will be the 12th of never.
What I mean is unemployment is bad in California. It will be a long, long time before it is down to 5.5%
Oh Yeah. The financial channels have Cal. unemployment at 15% not counting ‘discouraged workers’ (of which, I am one…). IIRC, the “youth minority” unemployment was just a percent or three below 1/2 (guess what it’s going to be like in hot L.A. minority neighborhoods when folks are having their 2 nd or 3 rd year without a paycheck? )
So you could add 10% more jobs in California, and all that will happen is that the folks who are not currently being counted will start looking for a job and get counted.
The best estimate I’ve heard so far is that the actual unemployment rate in California is between 18% and 25% (on a financial broadcast, so no link) and rising. There was also discussion in the same coverage of that fact that the State will need to start layoffs Real Soon Now as the folks they were asking to hand them money have said no (including Obama and The Dems; and despite him being a sock puppet for his Kenedy spouse). Then there is the fact that the LAST “budget fix” consisted of raiding the Cities and Counties for any cash they had and leaving an IOU (honest! Reported on NPR National Public Radio so you know it’s true 😉 to be repaid some day when the State has money again… So the local governments are looking at layoffs too.
And all THAT is going to cut down on collateral spending (i.e. retail lays off folks when no state workers are buying new socks for puppets…)
We’re deep in a spiral decent into collapse and the folks in charge are just arguing over what music to have the band play and where on the deck is the best place to put them.
Oh, and I just love the way they talk about new green jobs then increasing spending that will lead to manufacturing jobs. Guess they didn’t notice that there is NOTHING sold in the stores that’s marked “Made in California” and darned near nothing “made in USA”. The “collateral impact” of any increased purchasing is going to be 90%+ in China.
Finally, I would not start a company in California if you paid me to. (I had one about a decade ago; employing a dozen folks.) I MIGHT put one in Nevada and ship stuff in, maybe. I’d strongly consider putting one on the Mexican border. And given any chance at all, I’d go Asian. (WIth honorable mention to Brazil… I just don’t know enough about local wage rates and employment law there. Yet.)
So good luck on that whole “cycle of growth” thing. Frankly, most of the folks I know with skills have bugged out anyway. (And the rest are starting to share their exit strategies with me.)
woodNfish (11:48:15) : California businesses are welcome in New Hampshire. I’ll send Arnold a loaf of bread in return.
Please include small circus … all donations welcome… would you like your windshield washed?
Pascvaks (11:31:13) : Why do we keep electing mental midgets, lawyers, and Superstars to public office?
Because while we control the ballot box; the parties and the politicians that inhabit them control who gets on the ballot. Joe Plumber is NOT a party connected guy who gets funding and all his forms filled out and filed by the party machine. It is all about the king makers and not about the puppet kings.
Pamela Gray (09:14:49) : How to solve it? Limit the Federal Government and impose protectionism at our ports. etc.
I think it doesn’t need a laundry list (though I liked the list…) The “fix” is very easy. Delete the commerce clause from the constitution. Substantially all the ‘crud’ is shoved under it.
including the right to a marriage license between consenting adults
Um, pray tell, why sould there even BE a “marriage license”? The “common law” marriage seems like enough for me. If you live together and say you are married, you are married. Don’t see that the government ought to be involved at all. (And frankly, I think that generalizes to 90%+ of everthing all levels of goverment do… from dog licenses to meat inspection. Never heard of Kosher? Better than any government plan… )
“Paint Your Wagon” is an excellent expose’ on this thinking and well worth a cold day snuggled in bed with hot chocolate.
I’d rather it was a warm day snuggled in bed with ice cream 😉
RE: Buffy Minton (12:07:11) : “Henry Chance: “Big Wind”……wonderful”
Would you believe ‘Big Money Climatism?’
Leon Brozyna (05:54:22) : So, rather than the tax kicking in in 2012, it might kick in then or when unemployment drops to 5.5%. If I’m a businessman, that tells me I may have an extra couple years in which to move my business out of state.
I’ve been a businessman here. What it says to me is that at any time I might have a sudden and massive tax / cost increase that is beyond my control and not predictable. My risk of doing business just went up, a lot. Not quite as bad and knowing you are toast right up front, but almost as bad.
So I’d not choose to do that. Few miles over is a place without the risk, with lower wage costs, with lower regulatatory burden, etc. I go there. Period.
BTW, once someone has moved, it takes a very long time and a very large carrot to get them to return, if ever.
It was amusing to watch the xx annual Rose Parade “from Pasadena” this year. The pathetic lineup of floats featured three from the nation’s government. Trouble was – that nation is China.
The greatest delusion here is the attempt to codify the belief that “California” exits anywhere but in this now sadly corrupt VR game. Time for the board to face facts that computer models, climate and otherwise, are incapable of substituting for real life.
“Acceptance is the door to clarity.”
Spector (10:48:51) :
“There might be something to be said for leaving the gold in the ground until in becomes far more precious than it is now.”
The idea is to leave it in the ground until the “ground” is owned/controlled by the bankers. The whole idea is to return us to serfdom where only the very wealthy “lords” own land and the peons/serfs are dependent on the lords for their very existence. That is what Waxman’s two bills are all about. “Cap and Trade” deprives us of energy and the means to create products and thus wealth. “Food Safety Enhancement” deprives us of the basic right to grow our food without permission/regulation of the government.
I also prefer common law marriage over a license. Stay together long enough and you have to split down the middle if things go sour, no exceptions for any reason. It would drastically reduce the shacking up on a whim thing unless you were truly committed. For us women, we would learn a lesson or two about “buyer beware”.
Clean Air Performance Professionals
Friday, January 29, 2010
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160 ( new number )
C/o Lisa
RE: Sierra Research Report SR 2007-04-01
Dear Mr. Governor
California Air Resources Board (CARB) and The Department of Consumer Affairs/ Bureau of Automotive Repair DCA/BAR have contracted with Sierra Research for a Report of Smog Check performance.
Sierra has informed me the report was final in March 2009 and released to CARB.
CARB, BAR, IMRC, and the California Legislature are using the Report for public policy but refusing to release the publicly funded Report.
Mr. Governor, I’m confused, can you refer me to someone who might help?
Cc to interested parties
From: Charlie Peters
Clean Air Performance Professionals
cappcharlie@earthlink.net
(510) 537-1796 – fax: (510) 537-9675