Monthly Archives: October 2008

Obama promises to follow Europe’s lead on treating carbon dioxide as a pollutant; Europe may head the opposite direction

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If he’s in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after Nov 4, Barack Obama said he would classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant, and use the Clean Air Act to curb emissions by power plants and manufacturers. Such a move could halt construction on as many as half of the 130 proposed new coal-fired power plants.

“The U.S. has to move quickly domestically so we can get back in the game internationally,” said Jason Grumet, Obama’s energy advisor. “We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus. So he’ll move quickly” (Jim Ofstathiou Jr., Yahoo! News 10/16/08).

Meanwhile, many Europeans, seeing the punishing financial costs of emissions reductions while already in a fiscal crisis, are saying “Not me!”

In 2006, Chancellor Angela Merkel promised to eliminate coal and nuclear power in Germany. Now she is calling for new coal-fired plants and for protecting chemical, steel, manufacturing, cement, and automotive industries from ruinous emissions caps (Paul Driessen, FreeRepublic.com 10/13/08).

“It cannot be us, who have the biggest manufacturing economy in Europe along with Germany, to take on the costs that would depress our economy, our automotive sector, compared with other economies, in a moment of crisis,” said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Eight other countries (Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia) also asked the EU to recognize their economic difficulties and block the EU climate plan (Francesca Piscioneri and Pete Harrison, Reuters 10/21/08).

The British government has “spent more than three years paving the way for the next [U.S.] president by chipping away at the road block the US has long represented on getting a binding agreement—designed to ‘penetrate every layer of American society’.” The Prince of Wales, religious leaders, and dozens of members of Parliament have been involved (Times 10/20/08).

British politicians, however, are being pummeled by a voter backlash, as cash-strapped families struggle with the £1,000/yr cost of climate policy (Daily Mail 10/17/08).

Half of America’s electricity is generated using coal. Demand is growing twice as fast as supply, and brownouts could occur as early as 2009 (Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, September 2008).

EPA-proposed rules would require permits to emit carbon dioxide from the majority of American small businesses, farms with more than 25 cows, and even large single-family homes, as well as schools, hospitals, and public buildings. “It is difficult to overemphasize how potentially disruptive and burdensome such a…regulatory regime would be,” commented the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy (Physicians for Civil Defense, July 2008).

Sen. McCain has not said how he would approach CO2 regulation under the Clean Air Act (Estathiou, op. cit.).

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Is wealth redistribution America’s future?

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As worldwide economic meltdown continues, and the cost of the U.S. bailout/”rescue” soars, the question looms: how will government pay even the short-term costs? Political candidates are not addressing this issue.

The make-somebody-else’s-children-pay-later strategy may soon reach the ultimate limit. Somebody has to load money into the Treasury now. Investors have been fleeing to the supposed safety of U.S. Treasuries, but how much debt can even a superpower accumulate before would-be creditors begin to worry about repayment?

The take from income taxes depends, of course, on the amount of income people have. If that isn’t enough, what next?

France and a number of other welfare states have a net wealth or “solidarity tax.” In 1999, Donald Trump once proposed a one-time net worth tax of 14.25% on individuals and trusts worth $10 million or more, claiming it would generate $5.7 trillion, which could be used to pay the national debt—before it got swollen by the bailout/”rescue.” This is not likely to be indexed to inflation.

No political candidates, of course, are publicly announcing a plan to confiscate assets. However, in a 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview, Barack Obama signaled his approval of wealth redistribution—and said it was a tragedy that the civil rights movement did not accomplish that. A tape including Obama’s discussion of using legislative or legal means to force redistribution is posted on the Drudge Report.

Of particular note was Obama’s answer to an audience member, probably a small businessman, who said, “Your plan’s gonna tax me more, isn’t it?”

“It’s not that I want to punish your success,” Obama said. “I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success too. I think than when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

This doesn’t sound like the redistribution of wealth from the foolish to the prudent that occurs in a free market when a bubble bursts, but rather government redistribution, bailing somebody out of trouble by putting somebody into trouble, with a hefty “toll for the troll,” as Arthur Laffer describes recent government panic reactions (“The Age of Prosperity Is Over,” Wall St J 10/27/08).

Obama’s remarks are compatible with Marxist ideology—and he has yet to disavow the ideas of his Communist associates (Wes Vernon, RenewAmerica 5/28/08, Cliff Kincaid, Schwarz Report, October 2008).

“Whenever people make decisions when they are panicked, they are rarely pretty,” writes Laffer.

The election is occurring in a time when panic may be just beginning:

  • A front-page article in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily said Asian and European nations should banish the U.S. dollar. “The grim reality has led people, amidst the panic, to realize that the United States has used the U.S. dollar’s hegemony to plunder the world’s wealth,” said Shi Jianxun of Shanghai’s Tongji University (Reuters 10/24/08).
  • The dollar rally, in the face of deteriorating fundamentals, has been called a “death dance.” The gap between the paper gold market and physical gold market is widening. In Toronto, a multimillion-dollar off-market transaction in physical gold involved paying $1,075 per ounce—settled in euros. Foreigners may force changes causing the U.S. dollar to lose its global currency status. A freeze in short-term credit could interfere with distribution channels of railways and truckers in the U.S. (Jim Willie, Hat Trick Letter 10/23/08).
  • The Federal Reserve is inflating at 341% per annum. Banks are buying Treasury debt; the Treasury spends the money. Businesses must compete with the Treasury to get money. Without productivity, it is not possible to emerge from a recession (Gary North 10/24/08). See charts from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and other sources.
  • A £516-trillion derivatives “time bomb” is ticking away. Warren Buffet called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” (Independent 10/12/08).

Apparently, both parties hope that the day of reckoning can be postponed until after November 4.

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Is ObamaCare Constitutional?

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ObamaCare Lawsuit – AAPS v Sebelius

On March 26th, 2010 AAPS filed suit to invalidate the new massive health care bill.

The Glenn Beck Show Covers AAPS Lawsuit

The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (“AAPS”) fought Hillary Care in the early 1990′s and won!

On March 26th, 2010 AAPS filed suit to invalidate the new massive health care bill, which passed the House by only 4 votes on a party-line vote (with 34 Democrats voting against it). Forcing patients to buy insurance that may not even cover the care they need is wrong for patients, physicians, and our nation, and is unconstitutional.

  • Press Release of March, 29, 2010 – “Doctors Sue to Overturn the Health Care Bill”
    READ RELEASE
  • Talking Points and information for medical societies interested in signing on to suit – 03/29/2010
    READ TALKING POINTS
  • Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia – 03/26/2010
    READ COMPLAINT

Teacher suspended for posting video

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A middle-school teacher at the Urban Community Leadership Academy in Kansas City, Mo., was suspended for posting a YouTube video of a slogan-chanting drill squad.

The video features 10 black male students in 8th or 9th grades, wearing military-style uniforms, marching and chanting slogans supporting Barack Obama. The students also recited claims about Obama’s healthcare plan.

A chant of “Alpha, Omega,” possibly originating from the black fraternity step-team tradition, gave way to “Yes, we can.” Each student proclaimed that “Because of Obama, I’m inspired to become the next doctor (architect, chemical engineer, firefighter, etc.).”

Further drill activities were halted. The teacher had been warned in a letter not to post the video, and was accused of insubordination for doing so anyway.

The video is imbedded in the story “Obama Commandos’ Teacher Disciplined,” (WorldNetDaily 10/6/08).

Other news concerning Barack Obama:

Which candidate’s health plan will hurt the most?

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The basic difference in the major candidates’ proposals for “health care reform,” according to Mark Pauley, writing in Health Affairs, is that McCain recognizes that workers earn their health benefits, while Obama apparently views benefits as the employer’s money (Greg Scandlen, Consumer Power Report 10/16/08).

Obama and supporters claim that the McCain plan will cause workers to lose employer-sponsored insurance, while Obama’s will permit those who like their employer-sponsored plan to keep it.

Summarizing the only two academic studies of the McCain and Obama plans,
John Goodman writes that, according to the Lewin study, 9.4 million would lose employer coverage under McCain, and 13.9 million under Obama. That means for every three people who lose coverage under McCain, four would lose it under Obama. The loss under Obama could be much higher. Employer-based coverage could actually increase with the McCain plan, while dropping by 60 million under Obama, according to the analysis by Roger Feldman of the University of Minnesota.

Obama promised that people buying insurance on their own would have access to the same coverage as members of Congress. The Lewin study assumes that the government-sponsored “national plan,” with the same on-paper benefits, would pay providers 25%, or even 40% less than private plans do.

Medicaid rolls would swell by 16.6 million under Obama, and shrink by 12 million under McCain, as Medicaid enrollees shifted to private plans.

Neither candidate has proposed a realistic way to pay for his proposal. The estimated 10-year cost is $2.1 trillion for McCain and $1.1 trillion for Obama (according to Lewin), and $2 trillion for McCain and $6 trillion for Obama (according to Feldman).

According to an analysis by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), the McCain plan would help to end job lock, and result in a wage increase averaging $9,000 per year. PRI states that the Obama “job-killing” taxes would be especially harmful to low-income workers, and his reforms would lead to a “death spiral” for privately chosen health insurance (John R. Graham, “Presidential Prescriptions: Diagnosing the Candidates’ Health Reforms, PRI 10/14/08).

The McCain tax credit would correct the “arbitrary, unfair, and wasteful” distribution of tax benefits for health insurance, writes John Goodman. The Obama proposal would “build on today’s regressive, discriminatory subsidies for employment-based insurance,” while new rules would make insurers “little more than functionaries in a new federal government regulatory regime,” states Grace-Marie Turner (Health Care News, September 2008).

Senator Obama seems to be confusing a tax credit with a tax deduction, suggests Ralph Weber, who spoke at the 2008 AAPS annual meeting. A $5,000 tax credit is the equivalent of a $20,000 deduction for most families. It actually is enough to pay the average family health insurance premium in New Mexico, leaving $2,000 to start building up health savings. McCain has also proposed allowing the purchase of health insurance across state lines (FlashReport 10/16/08).

The New England Journal of Medicine shows its political colors in its Oct 16 article, “Primum Non Nocere—the McCain Plan for Health Insecurity.” It concludes that “Senator McCain’s plan does not demonstrate the kind of judgment needed in a potential commander in chief of our health care system”—assuming a “system” that has a commander in chief (David Blumenthal, N Engl J Med 2008;359:1645-1647). For balance, however, Joseph Antos of the American Enterprise Institute writes in an accompanying article that Obama’s “hopes are too audacious to be believed.” A pay-or-play mandate amounts to a tax on labor (N Engl J Med 2008;359:1648-1650).

The “usual suspects show up as savers: health information technology, prevention, and comparative-effectiveness research”—but none is “likely to produce savings any time soon,” Antos writes.

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