The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Hugo Chavez was a hero to the poor in Venezuela, and many here in the U.S.  What most fail to realize however is that the progress that he made in helping the poor will be short lived.  Why?  Plain and simple, he got lucky.  He took over just at the time that Oil started to skyrocket.  He used those petro dollars to improve the lives of those in Venezuela, but did nothing for the rest of the economy.  Compared to the rest of the region, the Venezuelan economy is in shambles.  To top it off, Venezuela today is even more dependent on Oil dollars than it was before, just as the world is starting to move away from oil.  Ford, GM and Chrysler are all making trucks that run on Natural Gas, cheap and plentiful here in the States and long before it runs out, the move will be to solar and Fuel Cell technology.

Instead of investing in the future, Chavez used oil as his cash cow to finance his socialist dreams.  Even worse, Chavez lavished over 100 Billion dollars on his buddies, while putting at least 1 to 2 Billion in his own pocket of the estimated Trillion Dollars in oil wealth generated since he took over.  What will happen to Venezuela in 10 years when more and more cars, buses, trucks and Power Plants are converted to run on Natural Gas and as Solar continues doubling in efficiency every few years.  Even worse, what would happen to Venezuela if a Conservative takes over the White House in 4 years, and removes most restrictions on drilling, and increases permits on Federal lands, thereby flooding the market with cheap oil?  The U.S. has  the largest untapped reserves in the world.  Just look at what happened during the Reagan era when he conspired with the Saudi's to make oil super cheap, bankrupting the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, history will look upon Chavez as a short sighted opportunist who beat the populist drum of vilifying the U.S. and Capitalism.  He spread the disease of Socialism in Venezuela and set them up for a major fall.  The King is Dead, Long Live the King.

Climate Reconstruction Shows Long Term Cooling Trend

Climate in northern Europe reconstructed for the past 2,000 years: Cooling trend calculated precisely for the first time

Calculations prepared by Mainz scientists will also influence the way current climate change is perceived / Publication of results in Nature Climate Change

An international team including scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has published a reconstruction of the climate in northern Europe over the last 2,000 years based on the information provided by tree-rings. Professor Dr. Jan Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC. In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling. "We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low," says Esper. "Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy, as they will influence the way today's climate changes are seen in context of historical warm periods." The new study has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Was the climate during Roman and Medieval times warmer than today? And why are these earlier warm periods important when assessing the global climate changes we are experiencing today? The discipline of paleoclimatology attempts to answer such questions. Scientists analyze indirect evidence of climate variability, such as ice cores and ocean sediments, and so reconstruct the climate of the past. The annual growth rings in trees are the most important witnesses over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years as they indicate how warm and cool past climate conditions were.

Researchers from Germany, Finland, Scotland, and Switzerland examined tree-ring density profiles in trees from Finnish Lapland. In this cold environment, trees often collapse into one of the numerous lakes, where they remain well preserved for thousands of years.

The international research team used these density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees in northern Scandinavia to create a sequence reaching back to 138 BC. The density measurements correlate closely with the summer temperatures in this area on the edge of the Nordic taiga. The researchers were thus able to create a temperature reconstruction of unprecedented quality. The reconstruction provides a high-resolution representation of temperature patterns in the Roman and Medieval Warm periods, but also shows the cold phases that occurred during the Migration Period and the later Little Ice Age.

In addition to the cold and warm phases, the new climate curve also exhibits a phenomenon that was not expected in this form. For the first time, researchers have now been able to use the data derived from tree-rings to precisely calculate a much longer-term cooling trend that has been playing out over the past 2,000 years. Their findings demonstrate that this trend involves a cooling of -0.3°C per millennium due to gradual changes to the position of the sun and an increase in the distance between the Earth and the sun.

"This figure we calculated may not seem particularly significant," says Esper. "However, it is also not negligible when compared to global warming, which up to now has been less than 1°C. Our results suggest that the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia."

No Deal Pending on Sequestration, Because of the Opportunity it Presents

Joe Scarborough got it got it right, when he said that America won't remember the Sequester of 2013 "as some cataclysmic fiscal event", but when he goes on to say about the Republicans that "you would think its leadership would have taken to heart Mr. Obama’s warnings and struck a deal before their abysmal approval ratings sank even lower", he fails to see the point.  Obama had absolutely no intention of striking a deal.  These cuts after all, amount to a paltry 2% of PROJECTED spending (which is always a MINIMUM of 3% higher than the previous year).  As the former White House Chief of Staff to the President, Rahm Emanuel used to always say, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste".  This issue literally presents the President with yet another opportunity to slam the Republicans and get more public support for his programs, his methods, his tax increases and so on.  So what was Obama's end game?  Blow this up to an issue, even though he knew it's a non issue, then blame the Republicans!

 

Think about it, Joe himself reported on how the Republicans wanted to give the President control over exactly what would be cut, yet he refused?  Not only did he refuse, he actually threatened to VETO any bill that gave him that kind of authority and responsibility!  Why would he do this?  Simple, the President doesn't want ANY cuts whatsoever, no matter how small and no matter how much waste is pointed out, but more importantly he wants to have another issue to beat up the Republicans over.  The plan is to hype up the damage to the economy over the next year so the Republicans lose in the Midterm elections.  Obama ends up with Nancy Pelosi in charge of Congress again and he can go back to pushing things like his Climate Change agenda and other tax increases.

DEBT LIMIT - A GUIDE TO AMERICAN FEDERAL DEBT MADE EASY.

For those with short attention spans:
Total Household Debt:                          $140,000.00
Household Income:                                 $21,000.00
Household Spending:                              $38,200.00
New Debt:                                             $16,500.00
Amount Cut:                                                $385.00

Translated to the Federal Government:

Total Federal Debt:             $14,000,000,000,000.00
Federal Income:                    $2,100,000,000,000.00
Federal Spending:                 $3,820,000,000,000.00
New Debt:                            $1,650,000,000,000.00
Amount Cut:                              $38,500,000,000.00

Either way you look at it, it's only about 1% of the budget.  Let's keep in mind this video was made about a year ago with the original budget deal.  The new budget deal calls for "800 Billion" in cuts... [over 10 years], or about 80 Billion a year.  Pretty much all the other numbers are about the same, except the income has increased to around 2.3 Trillion a year.  The new "cuts" will amount to only around 2% or about double the original budget deal a year ago.

If the new numbers were put into the video the amount the guy had "cut" from his budget would be around $800.00 a year, instead of $385.00 a year.  Either way we're talking about tiny, insignificant "cuts" that only perpetuate the incredible levels of spending.

Obama Close to Shutting Down Alaskan Pipeline

The entire NPRA area joins ANWR in now been deemed "Off Limits' by the Obama Administration

President Obama is campaigning as a champion of the oil and gas boom he's had nothing to do with, and even as his regulators try to stifle it. The latest example is the Interior Department's little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the "energy needs of the nation." Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan "will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives." He added that the proposal will expand "safe and responsible oil and gas development, and builds on our efforts to help companies develop the infrastructure that's needed to bring supplies online. The problem is almost no one in the energy industry and few in Alaska agree with him. In an August 22 letter to Mr. Salazar, the entire Alaska delegation in Congress: 

The Areas we WERE drilling were relatively tiny, in comparison to the size of Alaska or even the U.S.A.

Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young—call it "the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades." This decision, they add, "will cause serious harm to the economy and energy security of the United States, as well as to the state of Alaska." Mr. Begich is a Democrat.

The letter also says the ruling "will significantly limit options for a pipeline" through the reserve. This pipeline has long been sought to transport oil and gas from the Chukchi Sea, the North Slope and future Arctic drilling. Mr. Salazar insists that a pipeline could still be built, but given the Obama Administration's decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline, Alaskans are right to be skeptical.

Alaskans also worry that the National Petroleum Reserve will become the same political football as the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, or ANWR, which Washington has barred from drilling because of dubious environmental objections. The greens now want Congress to rename the energy reserve the "Western Arctic Reserve" to give the false impression that it is a fragile wildlife area. Some parts of the area are environmentally sensitive, but those 1.5 million acres (around Teshekpuk Lake) had already been set aside. Most of the other 11.5 million acres are almost indistinguishable from acreage owned by the state that is being drilled safely nearby.

The feds and Alaskan officials disagree about how much oil and natural gas is in the petroleum reserve. Some early federal estimates put the range between six and 15 billion barrels of oil, but in its latest survey the Bureau of Land Management projects closer to one billion. State officials and industry experts put the figure much higher based on the earlier surveys and improved drilling techniques.

The truth is no one knows. Prudhoe Bay turned out to be much more productive than originally believed, but surely the best strategy is to allow private drillers to risk their own money to find out. The oil and gas industry isn't in the business of drilling dry holes on purpose.

The Interior power play couldn't come at a worse time for Alaska, whose economy and government are heavily reliant on oil jobs and revenues. As recently as the 1980s, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline carried some 2.2 million barrels of oil a day from the North Slope to the port of Valdez. Yet as the once-rich fields of Prudhoe Bay and the Kuparuk River have declined, oil flow has dropped to one-third of that volume. North Dakota recently passed Alaska as the second highest oil-producing state behind Texas.

The problem isn't that Alaska is running out of oil but that federal rules are preventing the state from developing those resources. No matter what Mr. Obama says now, in a second term his great Alaska energy shutout will continue.

This story originated on WSJ

The Five Trillion Dollar Lie

Romney is planning on cutting taxes by 20% across the board, in conjunction with eliminating some tax deductions.  The plan is to broaden the number of people who the Government collects taxes from while at the same time lowering the overall rate.

Obama counters by asserting that this amounts to a Five Trillion Dollar give-away to the rich over the next 10 years.  

The problem with Liberals is that they see taxation as a zero sum game.  They fail to realize that cuts in taxes produces more economic activity that produces more taxes

The whole thing reminds me of the Reagan era.  Let's face it, Reagan had a plan to cut taxes from 75% to 50%, then subsequently to 28%.  So overall, he cut the rates by 67%!  Or more than THREE TIMES what Romney's proposing. If Obama was running against then "Candidate" Reagan, he would have claimed that Reagan's plan would cut taxes by 15 Trillion in today's dollars.  However, the truth is, that Reagan's plan DOUBLED total revenue for the Federal Government over the 8 years that he was President.

In fact, if you look throughout history, every time that tax rates have been cut, Federal Revenue's end up increasing.  Why?  Simple.  When Job Creators get to keep more of their money, they create MORE JOBS.  With more jobs, the government needs to support less people and instead collect taxes from more people   Not just Income taxes, but sales, gas, Import, ... everything.

If we look to history as our guide, when Harding cut taxes from 75% to 25%, unemployment went from near 14% to less than 2% over the next 4 years AND paid down all the debt the Government had racked up from WWI!

When Hoover increased taxes from 25% to 63% in reaction to the Market Crash, instead of the anticipated boom in Revenue, revenue PLUMMETED with new company creation coming to a halt, and unemployment hitting 15%

When FDR increased the rate to 90%, revenue fell even more and unemployment hit nearly 1 in every 4 workers!  A stat that stuck for nearly an ENTIRE DECADE!  Only the War ended up pulling us out of that malaise.

Tax cuts passed after FDR eventually got the economy going again, but since they kept going up and down over the next several decades, not until Reagan was elected did we see another "Harding Style" revival of the economy.

Let's also not forget that the last time the budget was balanced was when Clinton cut the capital gains rate from 28% to 20%.  Sure he increased the "INCOME" tax from 28% top rate to 39%, but that happened during his first term and DID NOT close the budget gap, instead it widened on his first term!

The problem with Liberals is that they see taxation as a zero sum game.  They fail to realize that cuts in taxes produces more economic activity that produces more taxes, more jobs and removes people off government doles.  Increased taxes have the opposite effects, Job creators move to other countries or change operations to get out of paying the increased taxes.  Apple is a perfect example.  Apple used to manufacture most of their components here in the U.S.  With the tax and regulatory environment here in the U.S. becoming increasingly unfavorable, they moved their operations to the Asian rim, where the top rate is 25%, Capital investments are fully tax deductible and Capital Gains taxes are half what they are here and also tax deductible.  What good does it do California and the Federal Government to have an effective rate of nearly DOUBLE, when they've moved their operations offshore?  They now can't collect it.

There is one thing though that's undoubtedly true about that Five Trillion Dollar Number, while Bush added 4 Trillion in debt in his two terms as president, Obama has added 5 Trillion in new debt in just his first term.

Blacks: ‘SLAVISH DEVOTION TO THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’

The Bishop E.W. Jackson, founder of Chesapeake, Virginia-based Exodus Faith Ministries, recently released a controversial video calling for African Americans to make a mass exodus from the Democratic Party. Throughout the clip, Jackson delivers stinging blows to both liberals and the African Americans who continue to support them, while decrying what he sees as a “slavish devotion to the Democrat Party.”

They have insulted us, used us, and manipulated us. They have saturated the black community with ridiculous lies,” he said, speaking directly to the black community. ”They think we are stupid and that these lies will hold us captive while they violate everything we believe as Christians.
”Jackson went into detail in the video, taking aim at the “unholy alliance” that he sees between Democrats, faux-civil rights leaders and Planned Parenthood.
“The Democratic Party has created an unholy alliance between certain so-called civil rights leaders and Planned Parenthood, which has killed unborn black babies by the tens of millions,” he proclaimed. On the morality front, Jackson took issue with the party’s internal debate over “God” being dropped from its platform and derided the notion that homosexuality should be equated “with being black.“ He called the later tenet of the Democratic Party an ”outrageous lie.”

“We as Christians ought to know better. Shame on us for allowing ourselves to be sold to the highest bidder,” Jackson continued, telling his fellow black pastors that they, too, would need to make a decision between supporting Democrats and embracing Jesus.

Blacks should be OUTRAGED by the fact that "Margaret Sanger" is an AWARD that the Democrat Party still gives out, and yet she was one of the BIGGEST racist in the country.  She STARTED Planned Parent hood to "exterminate" the Negro population and would often speak at the women's branch of the KKK!

We're Supposed to Believe a JUNK YouTube Video Did this?

Think about this for a moment.  In countries where the majority of the people don't even have computers, supposedly they're all sitting around watching YouTube Videos disrespecting Mohammed?  Anyone who's seen this video can see that it's CLEARLY an amateur job that could have been put together by kids, yet this is the video that's causing mass rioting all over the world?

In the meantime, when Bill Maher put together a professional FULL FEATURE FILM absolutely SLAMMING Islam, nope, nothing nada!  How does this make any sense folks?    No it seems to me that these people are being purposely riled up to protest on this garbage video while the majority have not even seen it.  In the mean time, instead of our leaders condemning the Riots, the Killing and the all out chaos, INSTEAD .... they're out there "apoligizing" for this video, as if "WE THE PEOPLE" put this dammed thing together! The truth is that this is something that is being used to manipulate people.  To what end, I have no idea but even the Libyan President is saying that all of this was planned!

Romney Can't Help Himself, He Sees a Problem He Fixes It.

On the night of July 6, 1996, 14-year-old Melissa Gay, daughter of Bain Capital executive Robert Gay, went missing in New York City, after going out without permission. Gay went to Mitt Romney, his business partner, and explained the situation.  Mitt Romney, immediately took charge and paid for his 50 employees to fly to NYC and put them all up in a Hotel to assist in the search.

"And so I said," Romney recalled when asked about the incident during a town hall meeting in March 2012, "‘Let’s close the firm, let’s close the company. Let’s all of us fly down to New York and try to find her.’ And so we closed the business, we went home and packed our things, we got a hotel near the airport where we all went to, we set up a headquarters, we met with the detectives with the New York City Police Department, we hired a private investigative firm to help guide us through this process."

Gay, Romney, and team literally fanned out on the streets of Manhattan in suits and ties, distributing 300,000 fliers and asking passersby point-blank if they had seen the missing girl. Their efforts quickly paid off in the form of a phone call from a private residence in Montville, New Jersey, where it turned out Melissa was staying, after going to an all night Rave Party without her parent's permission. She was retrieved by police and reunited with her parents in the early morning hours of July 12.

"She's OK," Robert Gay said in a statement to the Associated Press. "How can you ask for anything more than that?"

Yet people say that "Romney can't relate to people with problems"?  Just watch the video and judge for yourself.

Here Comes Inflation, AGAIN!

Here we go again guys, the Fed is up to no good, and on a Rampage printing money as fast as it can run the presses.  I guess we learned nothing from the 70's and how Inflation got out of control with excessive Government spending.  With all this money flooding the system, Food, Gas and Energy prices, which are already at an all time high are going even higher!  This action will undoubtedly Further push down American's disposable income, which in turn will cause even more job losses!  I mean let's face it, if you're having to spend $100.00 in gas just to go to the restaurant, you probably can't afford to go to that restaurant anymore right?  As Investors business Daily says, 

The government's addition of $1 trillion a year to our nation's debt hangs over this economy like a dark cloud, keeping entrepreneurs and big businesses alike on the sideline. The "fiscal cliff" we're about to go over will sock Americans — especially entrepreneurs — with a tax hike of almost $1 trillion. That's why the economy's dead — not insufficient Fed money printing."

 But don't worry there's a bright side to all this money printing, I'm sure that within just a few years of the coming inflation, we could do like the Germans did in the 1920's and use all that extra cash as a heating source for our homes. Hey at least no one will freeze to death in the Winter of 2016!