When I was reading this document my jaw dropped. Now I am really convinced that We will become the cleanest third world country in the world. And the worst part is, that by adopting this legislation we will not change the world’s temperature even a 10th of a degree …
Greenhouse Gas Legislation: Summary and Analysis of H.R. 2454 as Reported by the House Committee on Energy …
From Jeff Frankels Weblog by jfrankel
The effects of a changing global climate show up gradually, decade by decade. The effects of a changing US political climate have also been showing up gradually, year by year. A watershed was reached June 25, when the US Congress for the first time approved a bill to limit emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), by a vote of 219 to 212. But the Senate hurdle will be tougher. The attempt to address Climate Change still has a very long way to go.
The problem
Climate Change is of course a global externality. Due to the free-rider problem, no single country, especially the United States, is likely to act on its own. The best solution is a multilateral treaty in which all countries commit to serious action together. In December of this year, a Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change willmeet in Copenhagen, in the hope of negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol.
Three critical attributes were missing from the Kyoto Protocol. These attributes need to be included in any realistic attempt to tackle the reduction of year-2100 GHG concentrations to levels considered less dangerous by scientists:
i) Comprehensive participation – that is, acceptance of quantitative limits on emissions – by all major countries, including the US and developing countries.
ii) A credible framework that can establish a path for emissions reductions extending throughout the century, not just five years ahead.
iii) Some reason to think that all countries will be willing to join and then comply. This precludes targets that impose enormous economic costs on any major countries in any decades relative to the alternative of dropping out of the treaty.
From ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES FROM KANSAS CITY by Stephanie Kelton
President Obama’s economic advisors are predicting that the recession will come to an end sometime this year, as fiscal stimulus spending kicks into high gear. But the conditions for an economic recovery have not been laid.
What the left hand giveth (see table), the right is quickly taking away.
And I’m not talking about the “right-wing.” I’m talking about state and local governments across the nation, who are unwittingly pulling the rug out from under the federal government and thwarting any chance for a sustainable recovery by 2010.
But it isn’t their fault. Tax revenues have fallen off a cliff, leaving states with a cumulative budget gap of more than $100 billion for fiscal ’09.
To deal with these shortfalls, states have laid off or furloughed thousands of employees, raised taxes and fees, and slashed spending on education and other social programs – some, many times over. It was supposed to balance their ’09 budgets. But it wasn’t nearly enough.
As it turns out, state officials were far too optimistic about the ’09 revenue picture, and they are scrambling to deal with widening shortfalls before the end of the fiscal year (which, by the way, is tomorrow for all but a few states). At this stage in the game, there are only a couple of ways for states to balance their ’09 budgets (it’s too late for more tax hikes and spending cuts). Most are expected to do one of two things: (1) tap rainy day funds or (2) use federal stimulus money.
For example, Ohio is expected to dip into its $948 million rainy day fund in order to deal with its worst-ever decline in tax revenue. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has indicated that his state will be forced to use some of its federal stimulus money to plug a budget gap of nearly $1 billion by June 30.
The problem, of course, is that the macroeconomic effects of these micro-level policies are working at odds against the federal stimulus effort. Jobs that are being created (or saved) through the left hand of the Obama stimulus package are disappearing at least as rapidly as the right hand slashes billions from state budgets.
And, while Obama’s advisors are focused on the silver lining in the recent job data (losses are slowing), the employment picture remains bleak. The following table shows the change in unemployment rates – by state – since the start of the recession and from April ’09 to May ’09.
From Clusterfuck Nation by James Howard Kunstler
Like the United States, Michael Jackson was spectacularly bankrupt, reportedly in the range of $800-million, which is rather a lot for an individual. Had he lived on a few more years, he might have qualified for his own TARP program — another piece of expensive dead-weight down in the economy’s bilges — since it is our established policy now to throw immense sums of so-called “money” at gigantic failing enterprises (while millions of ordinary citizens wash overboard, without so much as a life-preserver). Anyway, Michael Jackson was on the receiving end of one huge bank loan after another long after his pattern of profligacy was set and obvious. They threw money at him for the same reason that the federal government throws money at entities like CitiBank: the desperate hope that some miracle will allow debt servicing to resume. Michael could burn through $50-million in half a year. It didn’t seem to affect his credibility as a borrower. When his heart stopped last week, he was living in a Hollywood mansion that rented for several hundred thousand dollars a month. You wonder how the landlord cashed those checks.
Like the USA, Michael Jackson was a has-been. He hadn’t recorded a song worth listening to in over two decades. He had done almost nothing but spin his wheels, hop around the globe from one place to another at enormous expense, and make himself available for award ceremonies to stoke his ego (and give advertisers a reason to promote some televised award show). He existed strictly on image, an anorectic figure nourished by moonbeams of attention, famous for saying that he loved his worshippers when the truth was he merely sucked the life out of them. In his last years, he even looked a bit like Nosferatu, the personification of the un-dead, and his fascination with ghouls was the basis for his biggest hit way back in the last century. A zombie nation deserves a zombie mascot.
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