So much is misdirection and outright fraud.

For those friends of mine who are concerned about “global warming” let me reassure you. Global warming is what happens between ice ages. 

There are no straight lines in nature and there is nothing that humans can do about climate cycles. Places from New Zealand to New York are recording either record breaking colder temperatures for this time of year or the coolest temperatures in decades. By some accounts the Earth is in the beginning of a typical 10 year cooling cycle. The Sun, which accounts for all of Earth’s warming is going through a regular cycle of low sun spot activity. CO2 is plant food, not pollution.  

Liberals who worry about their “carbon footprint” can make a real contribution to our environment and reduce CO2 emissions if they would simply stop exhaling.

Waxman-Markey (aka “Cap and Trade”) sets up a huge “market” in energy credits. But, it’s not a free market, it’s a fixed market. The Federal Government will decide the price and the quantity of energy credits and Goldman-Sachs (and others) will make a fortune selling them for the government. A lot of money will be made. You will not be making money. You will be paying the taxes on energy for the privilege of lining the pockets of the politically favored while returning to a 19^th century standard of living. You will know gas lines and brown outs.

It is axiomatic that to get less of anything, just tax it. A tax on energy will produce (wait for it)… less energy! You may have thought that the problem we face is too little energy resulting in higher prices for gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, propane and electricity. You might have wondered why it is moral for the U.S. to import oil from foreign nations but somehow immoral to produce our own oil. You might have thought it a little crazy to subsidize Ethanol with $2 per gallon of taxpayer funds and create food shortages by burning our corn. That’s right, watch the numbers spin at the pump and realize that for every gallon in the tank you pay $2 over and above the price per gallon.

Think about this… When you get that shiny new electric skateboard with a bubble top from Government Motors, designed by Barney Frank, engineered by Chuck Schumer with sweetheart financing under a subsidized loan program overseen by Chris Dodd, where will you plug it in? Your freaking ear? The “Wizards of Smart” in Washington, D.C. will not permit construction of power generation facilities and most assuredly not the cheapest, most efficient and safest form of power, nuclear.

What about the “Smart Grid”? Won’t that solve our problems? Yes, if you’re a politically favored company seeking tax money. No, not if you just want ample, economical electricity. The only thing smart about the “Smart Grid” is how smart they are about marketing it. If you think that powering down your toaster after 7:00am or limiting you to two slices instead of four, is “smart” then the Smart Grid is for you. After it’s all said and done, the Smart Grid is a scheme for managing planned electricity shortages, nothing more and nothing less. 

So, if all this mess isn’t about saving the planet and increasing power supplies then why bother? What’s the point? Maybe it’s a “Jim Jones” thing on a national level? Maybe the following article has some merit.

---------------------------------

Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About 'Global Governance'  

Climate Depot Exclusive

Friday, July 10, 2009By Marc Morano  –  Climate Depot

Former Vice President Al Gore declared that the Congressional climate bill will help bring about “global governance.”

“I bring you good news from the U.S., “Gore said on July 7, 2009 in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by UK Times.

“Just two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey climate bill,” Gore said, noting it was “very much a step in the right direction.” President Obama has pushed for the passage of the bill in the Senate and attended a G8 summit this week where he agreed to attempt to keep the Earth's temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C.

Gore touted the Congressional climate bill, claiming it “will dramatically increase the prospects for success” in combating what he sees as the “crisis” of man-made global warming.

“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.” (Editor's Note: Gore makes the “global governance” comment at the 1min. 10 sec. mark in this UK Times video.)

Gore's call for “global governance” echoes former French President Jacques Chirac's call in 2000.

On November 20, 2000, then French President Chirac said during a speech at The Hague that the UN's Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of an authentic global governance."

“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance,” Chirac explained. “From the very earliest age, we should make environmental awareness a major theme of education and a major theme of political debate, until respect for the environment comes to be as fundamental as safeguarding our rights and freedoms. By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace,” Chirac added.

Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said, "Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide." Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper once dismissed UN's Kyoto Protocol as a “socialist scheme.”

'Global Carbon Tax' Urged at UN Meeting

In addition, calls for a global carbon tax have been urged at recent UN global warming conferences. In December 2007, the UN climate conference in Bali, urged the adoption of a global carbon tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, said at the 2007 UN conference after a panel titled “A Global CO2 Tax.”

Schwank noted that wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.” The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to this global fund,” Schwank explained. He also added, “It is very essential to tax coal.”

The 2007 UN conference was presented with a report from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment titled “Global Solidarity in Financing Adaptation.” The report stated there was an “urgent need” for a global tax in order for “damages [from climate change] to be kept from growing to truly catastrophic levels, especially in vulnerable countries of the developing world.”

The tens of billions of dollars per year generated by a global tax would “flow into a global Multilateral Adaptation Fund” to help nations cope with global warming, according to the report.

Schwank said a global carbon dioxide tax is an idea long overdue that is urgently needed to establish “a funding scheme which generates the resources required to address the dimension of challenge with regard to climate change costs.”

'Redistribution of wealth'

The environmental group Friends of the Earth advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations during the 2007 UN climate conference.

"A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

[Editor's Note: Many critics have often charged that proposed climate tax and regulatory “solutions” were more important to the promoters of man-made climate fears than the accuracy of their science. Former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth reportedly said, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."]

February 9, 2009

DOW 8280.59

Ratcheting up the sarcasm, the president said: "So then you get the argument, 'well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill.' What do you think a stimulus is?  That's the whole point," he said, as the audience hooted and applauded.

President Obama

February 6, 2009

The President of the United States of America would have us believe that all government spending stimulates the economy.  But, all spending is not equal.  Spending $2500 on a vacation does not have the same economic effect on a family as making an extra mortgage payment.  The vacation is an expense while the extra mortage payment increases the family’s equity.  Likewise, subsidizing health insurance for the unemployed, as this bill does, may be nice but it’s hard to see how it saves or creates a job.  It certainly doesn’t increase the nation’s wealth.  Nor does hundreds of millions spent on Honey Bee Insurance, ATV trails, waterparks in Orlando, neon signs for Las Vegas and snow machines for Minnessota (I’m not making this stuff up).

The President has also said that he rejects the same, old, tired theories and economic policies of the last eight years that have helped create the problem.  The most glaring feature of the fiscal policies of the last eight years is a doubling of the national debt from $5 trillion to $10 trillion.  Yet, this “solution” will accumulate deficits even faster and the national debt will grow even more quickly.  While it is true that we will pass this debt on to our grandchildren, we’ll have to start making the payments now.  

“All animals are equal.  Some animals are more equal than others.”

George Orwell, “Animal Farm”

During the same period that Congress doubled the national debt, state and local governments were not idle.  Spending by state and local governments grew five times faster than the population during this period.  I doubt that anyone can say that their state and local government delivers five times the services or functions five times better than it did eight years ago.  Nonetheless, the President says that unless the Federal government delivers $40,000,000,000 to state and local governments, teachers, firemen and police may have to be laid off and essential services may suffer.  Perhaps.  Or, perhaps we are neatly shifting the cost of bailing out California to Kansas or just buying votes for Democrats?  When did we vote to create a protected class of government employees that we must hold harmless from economic hardship while the taxpayers remain subject to loss of income, unemployment and foreclosure?  This seems to run counter to the idea that “…everyone will have to make sacrafices and have “skin in the game.”

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"

Henry Morganthau, Secretary of the Treasury

May 1939

John Maynard Keynes was a British economist who’s “General Theory of Employment, Money and Interest” delighted politicians around the world.  For the first time they were given license to spend money they didn’t have.  The Great Depression and Keynes theory gave “Progressives”, as they were known in the 1930’s and again today, the justification for grand social experiments and sweeping public works projects that they promised would provide jobs, end scarcity and create prosperity.  Nowhere, at no time has this theory been proved.  Indeed, actual experience has proved otherwise.  What we know from our own experience is that prosperity is followed by higher taxes and government interference in markets, followed by recession averaging 18 months, then recovery.  We know that tax cuts fueled the prosperity of the 1920’s, that tax cuts fueled the prosperity of the 1960’s and that the tax cuts after the 1982 recession (when unemployment reached more than 10 percent) resulted in 25 years of economic growth.  This bill will fail and its failure will be used, as all government failures are, to justify the next $1 trillion in spending and the $1 trillion after that.

The only thing about “The Raw Deal” that challenges the imagination is the amount of money it spends.  One marked feature of this plan is the poverty of the ideas it contains.  We will spend $1 trillion dollars but we will not get the grandeur of the Boulder Dam, the sweep of the TVA or the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Instead we get smoking cessation, contraceptives and “community stabilization” programs and ACORN will be collecting fees to insulate homes on the south side of Chicago.  It is as if, being unable to find enough rusty bridges and cracked pavement, the bill has been deliberately bulked up for the sole purpose of distracting attention from the permanent social change it will make.  For the first time taxpayers in the United States of America will be a 40% minority and the foundations for socialized medicine will be laid. 

The Recovery and Reinvestment Act is not an economic program or a jobs program, it is a Trojan horse.

It is a Trojan horse we don’t have to accept.  After the Senate approves it, the House and Senate must reconcile the bill and then both must pass it.  As its provisions are revealed, public support for this bill is dropping like a stone.  The President has tried to avoid investing his own political capital in this dreadful bill but Republican opposition has forced him to come out of hiding and campaign for the bill.  This may boost support temporarily.  This is why Americans are being exposed to fear tactics in a bum’s rush to pass the bill without real consideration.  Failing to pass this bill will not result in calamity.  Passage will.

Call your Representative, call your Senators.  Keep calling.  Urge them to vote NO!

February 5, 2009

Dow: 8,063.07

Unemployment Rate: 7.2%

You Can’t Outsmart the Grid

You saw the ad on the Super Bowl and the President has often mentioned it. GE is promoting it and it seems to support the Pickens Plan. If you listen to supporters, the “smart grid” will speed renewable energy effortlessly around the country and end our dependence on foreign oil. Wow! Power for the 21^st Century and beyond!

But, this pesky part of the right side of my brain wondered how something that sounds too good to be true could be. None of the hoopla explains what the smart grid actually is. I was interested in learning more about this "Smart Grid" thingy I keep hearing about and found my way to a USA Today article.

The article contained the following about "Smart Meters."
-------------------------------------------
"Smart meters. Today, most consumers pay the same price for electricity, day or night. Digital meters let utilities offer variable prices to reflect wholesale power costs, like cell phone plans. Rates are typically highest at midday, when electricity usage peaks, and lowest in the wee hours.

Smart meters already are in 5% of U.S. homes and businesses, up from 1% two years ago, though many don't offer variable pricing yet. The devices will be linked to 40% of homes in five years, a recent FERC report says.

Consumers that choose time-of-use pricing are prodded to cut air conditioning use on hot days when the grid is stressed and shift, say, their laundry to later in the evening. Utilities avoid building plants needed only at peak hours. Customers on variable pricing in southern Illinois save about 10% on their bills, says program coordinator CNT Energy.

Companies such as GE are developing appliances that run at low levels when prices are high or turn on only after prices drop. Trilliant's software will even let consumers program their home networks from their iPhones."
-----------------------------------------------

Brilliant! Use you air conditioner only on cold days to save electricity! Price electricity the same way that cell phone companies gouge consumers; by charging exorbitant rates when you use it and cheap rates when you don’t! That’s the ticket! Ummm… What if everyone started working nights?

Of course, smart meters are only one of the elements of the "Smart Electric Grid" according to what I've read. A big element of the plan is a new backbone of transmission lines and equipment to move electricity from as yet un-built windmill and solar farms in remote areas to places far, far, far, far, away where electricity is needed.

One of the questions I have about this is whether this will be as economical as building conventional generating plants closer to the places that need the power. I suspect it won't be. And I suspect the costs of building this new backbone will be vastly underestimated and will be paid by all of us, whether we will get power from these windmills and solar farms or not. Energy independence and saving the planet is a national priority after all.

I have no doubt that after decades of Federal obstruction we need an improved power grid, new electric generating plants as well as new oil refineries and oil and gas wells. I just have to wonder, if the Smart Grid is such a wiz-bang idea, why don’t the nation’s energy companies stop talking and build it? Why is there such a big effort to sell it to the American people and get the Federal Government to subsidize it and the taxpayers to pay for it?

     
But, my suspicions are really aroused by the Smart Meter. Right now I pay a flat rate for electricity. With the smart meter, I'll pay more for electricity used during the day when I need it and less during off-peak hours when I don't need it.

This may be smart for the grid but it ain't smart for the consumer. I think this is all about three things:

1. Finding excuses for not building coal and nuclear power plants.
2. Managing a planned shortage of energy.
3. Imposing more creative ways of taxing the use of electricity.

FDR got the TVA, Obama gets the Smart Grid, as always, you get the bill.

Where am I wrong?

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading, “The Forgotten Man” a new history of the Great Depression by Amity Shales. The title, appropriated by FDR, comes from an essay by William Graham Sumner some 60 years or so before the Great Depression. The opening line of Sumner’s essay is;

“The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man.”

 Interestingly enough, killing farm animals to increase prices is not a new idea. In 1933, while one in five Americans were out of work and people went hungry, the Federal government slaughtered 6,000,000 pigs for the expressed purpose of increasing the price of pork.

This is known as “demand side” economic theory. The idea is that by reducing supply, demand increases and increased demand supports prices. Of course, demand side theory doesn’t explain how people without jobs can afford to buy anything. Demand side theory also fails to recognize that nothing can be bought or consumed until something is produced. Capital fuels innovation and business formation. Businesses create jobs.   Government is overhead.

We are in the aftermath of a worldwide, government created, credit bubble. The only way economic growth will be restored is by deleveraging and re-capitalizing. Average Americans and businesses are doing that. They are reducing spending, paying off credit cards and saving. Government is determined, as in the 1930’s to prolong our agony by going on an historic spending binge using borrowed money. Borrowing on the scale that the government is considering must result in hyperinflation and at some time in the near future, sharply increased taxes to pay the debt.

The period known as “The Great Depression” in America was known simply as “The Depression” in Europe. The Europeans didn’t receive the benefits of the New Deal so their downturn didn’t last a decade as ours did. The Europeans didn’t declare a trade war either. Except for retaliation against America for the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, Europeans continued to trade. By the way, did I mention the “Buy American” provisions of the stimulus bill?

So, it would seem that under the watchful eye of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi (A) and David Obey (B) have decided that you (C) should pay more for milk to help dairy farmer (D).    You may soon be unable to afford a gallon of milk but at least now you know who you are; “The Forgotten Man”.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090115/NEWS02/301159967/0/FRONTPAGE

Stimulus may bolster dairy industry

FALLING MILK PRICES: Initial effort to pay farmers to retire cows fizzles

By MARC HELLER

TIMES WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2009

1/26/09

DOW: 8,077.56

December 2008 Unemployment Rate: 7.2%

From The Drudge Report

PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Sun Jan 25 2009 22:13:43 ET

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.

The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

But, wait! When Social Security was passed there were 13 workers for every retireee, the retirement age was 65 and the average life expectancy was 66 years. In about 20 years there will only be two workers for every retiree and life expectancy will be in the 80’s. Isn’t the Social Security System running out of workers to pay benefits for retirees?   Isn’t “birth control” economically counterproductive?

But wait! Last year the Federal Government gave $309 million dollars to Planned Parenthood. $309,000,000. Now Democrats want to include $300,000,000 in their “Stimulus”. Where is the “stimulus” from last years gift to Planned Parenthood? How many people in the United States make prophilactics, birth control pills and perform abortions? Will this $300,000,000 save their jobs? 

But wait! Do you realize that if something should happen to the President and the Vice-President also goes “toes up”, Nancy Pelosi will become President of the United States?

But wait! Don’t you agree with me that Democrats should add $300,000,000 to the Stimulus Bill for Viagra? That would assure that the stimulus would actually stimulate some result.  And it would help to assure that the $300,000,000 for birth control was put to good use.   Would that cause a tingle up Chris Mathews leg?

That’s because GM has 96,000 active workers and 1,000,000 retirees and widows all receiving lifetime incomes and health care benefits. Recently, GM announced it would idle some assembly lines. You may have missed the news that idled GM workers will continue to receive 95% of their wages during this shut down. If permanently laid off, UAW workers enter the “job bank” where they will continue to be paid full wages, without working, for four years.

Until recently, Americans had little reason to care about GM’s labor agreement with the UAW. That, of course, was before the Federal Government decided to give GM $17.4 billion, for starters, under the threat that if GM lost this money it would have to pay it back. It’s not clear how this math works but that’s the deal. So, now auto workers in Alabama making $45 an hour in wages and benefits are supporting auto workers in Michigan who make $75 an hour in wages and benefits. For that matter, cashiers at Wal-Mart who earn $7.50 an hour and every other taxpayer in the country regardless of how much or how little they earn is supporting UAW workers, retirees and the widows of UAW retirees. Most Americans have to settle for Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare, yet they are supporting generous pensions and health care benefits for UAW members. Americans used to work the first five months of the year for the government. That’s how long it used to take just to pay the annual tax bill. Now, after working for the government for five months, Americans will have to work for the UAW for a while before they begin to work for themselves and their families.     

GM has been roundly criticized for “mismanagement”. Curiously, the same mismanagement produces profits for GM’s overseas operations.

Maybe GM shouldn’t have agreed to unsustainable union contracts. But, in 1935 FDR signed the Wagner Act which forced employers to recognize unions as the sole bargaining agent for workers. Since the government assured that there was no other source of labor, GM could either come to agreement with the UAW or stop building cars.

Then there is the charge that GM failed to move quickly enough to build fuel efficient cars that the American public wants to buy. But, there is no evidence for this assertion. The fact is that in the present economic environment Americans aren’t buying any cars, fuel efficient or not. Toyota is forecasting its first operating loss in 70 years. Any casual observer can see that the highways are filled with GM pickup trucks, SUVs and full sized cars. It would seem that Americans aren’t interested in buying tiny fuel efficient cars. Yet, that is exactly the kind of car that the Federal Government demands that GM spend billions to engineer, develop and build. GM makes a profit of between $500 and $1,500 on their full sized cars, pickups and SUVs and loses between $500 and $1,500 for every car they are forced to build to satisfy CAFÉ standards imposed by the government.

CAFÉ standards are, in part, the government’s response to previously high oil imports. A situation caused by the government’s 30 year ban on offshore and domestic oil drilling, obstruction of development of shale oil deposits and obstruction of nuclear and coal fired power plants. This energy policy is governed by environmental groups who, in spite of ten years of cooling temperatures, promote the notion that man-made global warming through CO2 emissions will destroy the planet. Newsflash: Global Warming is what happens between ice ages. CO2 is plant food, not a pollutant and it is the Sun that warms the Earth.

However, it is possible that enough public pressure could force this measure to be brought to the House floor for a vote.  Email your congressman and Congressman Frank urging them to support the bill.

Use this link if you wish to email your congressman to express your support for this bill, H.R. 7275.

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Due to security measures, the above link is the preferred method of communicating with your congressman.

Your congressman may or may not read your email.  But, all communications are read and recorded by staffers and summarized for the congressman.  They may not read too well, but they know how to count!

Below is a link to Congressman Issa’s press release regarding the bill and a copy of that press release.  You can check on the status of the legislation here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h7275:

The “Housing Bubble”, “Subprime Crisis” and the “Financial Melt Down” were not acts of God or nature.  They happened because people in positions of power and authority took or failed to take actions.  Some of those people are in our government.  If they didn’t know what they were doing, they are incompetent.  If they did know, they betrayed us.  In either case, they should be held accountable.  An investigation is the first step toward that end.

________________________________________________________________
http://issa.house.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction =News.PressReleases& ContentRecord_id=b69 1a353-19b9-b4b1-12b3-32411a5bfc4c

Issa Introduces Legislation to Create a Bipartisan National Commission on the Financial Crisis

November 19, 2008

Washington, DC – Rep. Darrell Issa and eight original Republican cosponsors today introduced legislation, H.R. 7275, to create an independent panel to study and issue a report on the causes, handling, and way forward from the current financial crisis.

“Recent hearings held by House committees, while well intentioned, have largely been partisan, focusing on finding a fall guy rather than determining the root causes of the crisis,” wrote Issa in a recent letter to colleagues. There are many bad actors and causes of our financial crisis, from lax lending practices to insufficient regulatory scrutiny, but we in Congress simply do not have the expertise to gain a full understanding of the complexities surrounding the crisis. A Columbia University professor recently stated that any reform must begin with ‘a dispassionate and informed assessment of what went wrong.’”

The “Financial Oversight Commission Act of 2008” establishes a national commission on the financial crisis to determine the causes of the breakdown of our financial system and make recommendations to Congress and the President. Modeled after the 9/11 Commission, the Financial Oversight Commission will examine and report on the facts and causes relating to the financial crisis of 2008. The Commission will be bipartisan and will be made up of 10 members, appointed by the President, House and Senate. The Commission will have one year to conduct investigations, make findings and report their recommendations to Congress and the President. As economic conditions and the financial sector itself are not static, the panel will continue its review, and in addition, will evaluate the actions of Congress and the Executive Branch in response to its recommendations.

Rep. Issa has asked Democrats to support this proposal, but none have yet agreed to cosponsor. “It’s unfortunate that after 9/11 and setbacks in Iraq, a Republican Congress agreed to have examinations by objective and bipartisan commissions, but now that Democrats are in charge they’re cool to the idea of using bipartisan national commissions to find answers the public can trust. This legislation should be a bipartisan effort and I stand ready to work with my Democratic colleagues to make it a reality.”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

In the 1990's the Clinton Administration revised the Community Reinvestment Act to allow "community groups" to hold banks hostage to a CRA rating.  A single complaint would deny banks the ability to open new branches, merge or expand.  At the time, this was identified as a trillion dollar extortion scheme.  

Lenders resisted because they could not to keep these loans in their own portfolios and could not sell them on the secondary market because the underwriting standards did not meet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guidelines.

Community groups such as ACORN lobbied their Democrat allies in Congress who, in turn, convinced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, headed by former members of the Clinton administration, to purchase loans with virtually zero underwriting requirements.

Once the GSE’s dropped underwriting standards the entire mortgage industry was compromised and a flood of sub-prime loans were made and sold to the GSE’s and created "the housing bubble."

Historically, a mortgage was as “good as gold” or nearly as good as a Federal Note, Bond or high grade Corporate Bond.  Historically, underwriting standards were high and Americans paid their mortgages.  So, when Fannie and Freddie sold MBS's (Mortgage Backed Securities), the buyer was getting what could reasonably be thought to be a security backed by a mortgage written under the “gold-standard” from a source backed by the United States Government.

Buyers of the MBS's then sliced, diced and packaged Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO's) and sold them.  As additional comfort in the safety of the CDO's they were covered by Credit Default Swaps (essentially insurance against the CDOs going into default).

Unfortunately, hidden in the salad (a group of mortgages that made up the MBS) was a piece of toxic lettuce (a sub-prime loan or loans either in default of likely to default).  No one knew where the toxic lettuce was.  So, when foreclosures began to rise and yields began to drop the whole system began to fall apart because the underlying assets were suspect.   On top of this, Sarbanes-Oxley required assets to be "marked to market".  So, a single sale of an asset would trigger the stated asset value of all similar assets to be re-set at the amount of the last sale, even if the holder had no intention of selling the asset in the near future.

Since banks are required to maintain a 10 to 1 asset ratio, this meant that banks had to raise cash to make up for the paper loss in asset value which meant they had to curtail lending, creating the “credit crisis”.

As defaults and foreclosures accelerated an enormous amount of asset value was destroyed and the ripple effect spread throughout the world’s financial system.

What this all boils down to is that Democrats funneled cash to ACORN (for example) through grants for various purposes and for counseling low and middle income borrowers on obtaining mortgages.

ACORN used the grants to contribute to Democrat political campaigns, fund voter registration fraud campaigns (according to the Commonwealth of Virginia, 86% of voter registrations submitted by ACORN's Project Vote in Virginia were fraudulent) and also fund professional lobbyists who lobbied Democrats in Congress to get the GSEs to buy sub-prime mortgages.  The GSEs complied and the result is world-wide financial collapse.

All the complaints about unregulated CDOs and such ignores the fact that they would not exist in the first place if the mortgage underwriting standards had not been compromised.

The number of ways that this story has been spun to discredit “a Republican regime of de-regulation”, “myopic Reaganomics” and “outdated conservative ideology” can't be counted.  Not only that, it is, has and will be used to justify every imaginable left-wing, Democrat, socialist scheme.  And not a single voice is raised in opposition.

The “emergency” justified by the collapse of the financial system is the foundation of and will be the justification for everything the Democrat majority and Administration will propose. If no one is willing or able or interested in widely exposing this story, then Republicans and conservatives can look forward to a left wing Democrat majority for generations.   If an investigation will not expose this then something must.

There is a principle that everyone has faith and confidence in and that history shows is demonstrably true. That is that no one spends money more carefully than when they spend their own money. In this simple and self-evident principle lies economic recovery and lasting prosperity.

·         The first thing that the government could do to halt economic decline is to stop proposing solutions or taking positions. With each and every pronouncement, the most immediate measure of economic confidence, the DOW, sharply falls. Confidence in markets would soar with the knowledge that there is no necessity of trying to factor in the consequences of many and varied government fixes in order to evaluate risk.

·         To immediately reverse the decline of the most visible measure of future economic health, the government must eliminate the Capital Gains Tax. The market needs an infusion of capital and nothing would do more to encourage capital investment and lowering the threshold for acceptable risk than eliminating the tax on gains from investment. As it is, eliminating the Capital Gains Tax would be largely revenue neutral since there are no gains to tax.

·         Eliminate corporate and small business taxes. These taxes are eventually paid by consumers and immediately distort business decisions and impair cash flow. Eliminating the tax would give businesses greater ability to manage their obligations and reduce the need for financing their operations during a period of credit tightening. It would also benefit consumers who could expect greater value for their dollar.

·         Dramatically reduce unnecessary federal spending. Government gets money to spend from taxes, borrowing and printing. Taxes take money out of the economy at a time when it is desperately needed in the economy. Government borrowing competes with private borrowing at a time when credit is too constrained as it is. Printing money devalues the currency and amounts to a hidden tax. The only viable option, if the economy is to be revived, is reduction of government spending.   

The only thing that prevents tax reductions is the political lust for the power to manipulate behavior, reward political allies and punish political opponents through the tax code. Changing this is the change we need.

Now that the election of 2008 is over and Democrats are busy reorganizing committees and assigning committee chairmanships as a result of larger majorities in both the House and Senate, it is time for voters to demand an accounting.

The Great Meltdown of the financial system has resulted in the destruction of trillions of dollars of equity in homes and retirement accounts.  For millions of Americans in or near retirement the damage is probably irreparable.  It wasn't until 1958 that the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered to the level it peaked at just prior to the Crash of 1929.  If the performance of the DOW does no better than that, Americans with IRAs and 401Ks who are over the age of 35 will not likely break even before retirement.  Something caused this calamity.  It wasn't an act of God or Nature.  People in Congress made or avoided making decisions that enabled this disaster.  They must be held accountable.

If it is just that "Greedy Wall Street CEOs" lose their jobs for driving their companies into the ground (and it is), then it is equally just that the politicians who enabled and encouraged them also lose their jobs for driving the country into the ground.

Congress must appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the roles of Congress and of Senators and Congressmen in the Great Meltdown and those found culpable must be removed from their positions of power.  That's what accountability means.  You don't get to participate in the destruction of the financial system of the entire World without paying some price.  Removal from a Congressional committee seems like a slap on the wrist for this kind of malfeasance.

This is not an appeal to overturn the results of elections.  If the voters want incompetent and corrupt politicians to represent their interests, then so be it.  But, retaining those same people on Committees and in Committee Chairmanships is every Americans business.  These people make the rules that affect all Americans.