There is certainly nothing wrong with taking care of the environment.  But what the United Nations wants is a fundamental restructuring of the global economy based on flawed science.

In this new UN report, we find the following statement….

Achieving sustainability requires us to transform the global economy. Tinkering on the margins will not do the job.

This is absolutely crucial to understand.

The folks over at the UN don’t just want to change things a little.

Their goal is a radical transformation of the entire world.

According to the United Nations, if we don’t implement their recommendations the consequences will be absolutely disastrous….

But what, then, is to be done if we are to make a real difference for the world’s people and the planet? We must grasp the dimensions of the challenge. We must recognize that the drivers of that challenge include unsustainable lifestyles, production and consumption patterns and the impact of population growth. As the global population grows from 7 billion to almost 9 billion by 2040, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially. By 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water — all at a time when environmental boundaries are throwing up new limits to supply. This is true not least for climate change, which affects all aspects of human and planetary health.

So what changes are needed in order for us to achieve a “sustainable” global economy?

Well, the following are some of the disturbing recommendations that we find in the new UN report….

Raise Prices

According to the United Nations, we need to start significantly raising the prices of things that are made in an “unsustainable” way so that they reflect the “true cost” of their production….

Most goods and services sold today fail to bear the full environmental and social cost of production and consumption. Based on the science, we need to reach consensus, over time, on methodologies to price them properly. Costing environmental externalities could open new opportunities for green growth and green jobs

That means that you and I would start paying a lot more for the basic things that we need every day – food, gasoline, etc.

Carbon Taxes

The UN report also discusses the need to use regulations and taxation as tools to penalize economic activities that are not “sustainable”….

Establish natural resource and externality pricing instruments, including carbon pricing, through mechanisms such as taxation, regulation or emissions trading systems, by 2020

This is one of the favorite things that social engineers like to do.  They love to use taxation and regulations as weapons to get people to do the things they want.

Base Lending Decisions On Sustainable Development Criteria

The United Nations is actually suggesting that lending decisions be based on whether or not the money will be used for something “sustainable”….

Reform national fiscal and credit systems to provide long-term incentives for sustainable practices, as well as disincentives for unsustainable behaviour

Considering the fact that the entire global economy is based on credit, this is a very dangerous recommendation.

Green Jobs

The UN report also says that governments all over the world should seek to create as many “green jobs” as possible….

Governments should adopt and advance “green jobs” and decent work policies as a priority in their budgets and sustainable development strategies while creating conditions for new jobs in the private sector.

This is something that we have seen Barack Obama try to do, but obviously he has not had much success at it.

A New Economic Paradigm

According to the UN, the very way that we define “economic success” needs to be changed.  Instead of looking at statistics such as GDP and inflation, we should be measuring what we do by how much it gets us closer to a “sustainable world”….

Expanding how we measure progress in sustainable development by creating a sustainable development index or set of indicators

So an economic collapse could actually be “good” if we make “progress” toward the goal of sustainable development.

Wealthy Countries Funding The Sustainable Development Goals Of Poor Countries

The UN report makes it clear that you and I will be paying for sustainable development all over the world in addition to paying for our own transition to a sustainable economy….

Financing sustainable development requires vast new sources of capital from both private and public sources. It requires both mobilizing more public funds and using global and national capital to leverage global private capital through the development of incentives. Official development assistance will also remain critical for the sustainable development needs of low-income countries

But considering the fact that the United States is already flat broke, where are we going to come up with all of this money?

Teach Sustainable Development To Our Children

The United Nations also believes that this philosophy of “sustainable development” should be taught to children in public schools all over the globe….

Government and non-governmental entities should promote the concept of sustainable development and sustainable consumption, and these should be integrated into curricula of primary and secondary education.

Sadly, this agenda is already being pushed on our children in schools all over the United States.  When these children grow up, the concepts behind “sustainable development” will be second nature for them.

Population Control

Those that believe in sustainable development want to reduce carbon emissions by as much as possible.

When you sit down and really think about that, it becomes quite frightening.

Nearly every form of economic activity produces carbon emissions.

In fact, if you just sit in your home and breathe, you are producing carbon emissions.

So to them, you and I are the problem.

For those that are worried about man-made global warming, the math is simple.

The more people on earth, the higher the level of carbon emissions will be.

The less people on earth, the lower the level of carbon emissions will be.

So those that believe in sustainable development love to promote things that will reduce the human population of the earth.

In fact, we see this agenda reflected in one of the recommendations of the new UN report….

Ensuring universal access to quality and affordable family-planning and other sexual and reproductive rights and health services.

If more women have access to abortion facilities, then less babies will be born.  For those that believe in sustainable development, that is a good thing.

But the UN has been pushing this kind of agenda for a long time.

For example, the United Nations Population Fund released a report back in 2009 entitled “Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate” that included the following very chilling statement….

“Each birth results not only in the emissions attributable to that person in his or her lifetime, but also the emissions of all his or her descendants. Hence, the emissions savings from intended or planned births multiply with time.”

This population control agenda is also being heavily promoted by many of the wealthiest people in the world.  Many big “philanthropists” such as Bill Gates are using their money to fund research into population control measures.  For example, Gates is currently funding research on “cutting edge” forms of birth control that could potentially be used all over the world.  The following comes from a recent Natural News article….

Mass vaccination is apparently not the only depopulation strategy being employed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as new research funded by the organization has developed a way to deliberately destroy sperm using ultrasound technology. BBC News reports that the Gates Foundation awarded a grant to researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) to develop this new method of contraception.

For their study, the UNC team tested ultrasound on lab rats and found that two 15-minute doses “significantly reduced” both sperm counts and sperm integrity. When administered two days apart through warm salt water, ultrasound caused the rats’ sperm counts to drop below ten million sperm per milliliter, which is five million less than the “sub-fertile” range, and stay that way for up to six months.

This population control agenda is one of the most frightening elements of sustainable development.  Many advocates of sustainable development would actually cheer if something suddenly caused the population of the earth to drop dramatically.

Much Stronger Global Governance

The new UN report also advocates stronger “international governance” by bodies such as the United Nations….

International institutions have a critical role. International governance for sustainable development must be strengthened by using existing institutions more dynamically and by considering the creation of a global sustainable development council and the adoption of sustainable development goals

But this has been the ultimate goal of these control freaks for a long time.  The idea is that a “global government” and a “global economy” will bring a great era of peace and prosperity to all of humanity.

Of course that is a complete and total lie, but there are a lot of people out there that actually believe this stuff.

In fact, the economic crisis that we are going through right now has renewed calls for a “global currency” which would be used by the whole world.

For example, you can watch banker Evelyn de Rothschild discuss the “need” for an “international currency” on Bloomberg Television in the following video….

The new UN report reflects this globalist agenda.  The report states that “the peoples of the world” are not going to put up with all of this “inequality” any longer and that they will be demanding that their national governments adopt a “sustainable development” agenda….

“The peoples of the world will simply not tolerate continued environmental devastation or the persistent inequality which offends deeply held universal principles of social justice. Citizens will no longer accept governments and corporations breaching their compact with them as custodians of a sustainable future for all. More generally, international, national and local governance across the world must fully embrace the requirements of a sustainable development future, as must civil society and the private sector.”

If you want to get a really good idea of what a “sustainable development” society would look like, just check out the video posted below….

If you do not want to end up living in a “Planned-opolis” where virtually everything you do is watched, tracked and controlled by bureaucratic control freaks, then you better say something now.

If the United Nations actually succeeded in implementing this agenda worldwide, it would crash the global economy and it would be the end of national sovereignty.

Unfortunately, many of those that are promoting this agenda are absolute fanatics about it because they are convinced that they are saving the planet.  They are so obsessed with “rescuing the earth” that they would do almost anything to all the rest of us in order to accomplish that goal.

Yes, we need to be concerned about the future of the planet, but the truth is that the “sustainable development” agenda is based on flawed science and it would make our economic problems far worse.

But the control freaks that are obsessed with “sustainable development” are going to continue to try to cram this agenda down our throats, so this is a battle that is likely to go on for many years.

Michael T. Snyder has an undergraduate degree in Commerce from the University of Virginia and I have a law degree from the University of Florida law school.  He also has an LLM from the University of Florida law school. He worked for some of the largest law firms in Washington D.C., but now mostly focuses  on trying to make a difference in the world. He blogs at http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

By Bruce Kasting

The Congregational Budget Office (CBO) is out with its annual report. It’s a blockbuster. This 165 page monster is filled with dozens of charts, graphs and detailed projections. It will be talked about for weeks. The report provides a dismal outlook for the economy. There is one data point I’d like to focus on.

Here is the CBO forecast for real GDP for 2012 and 2013:

The 1.1% Real GDP number for 2013 surprised me. The CBO’s expectations are way under those of both the “Blue Chip” economists and the Federal Reserve:

What does it mean if the economy is going to slow, as CBO now thinks? Some consequences:

The CBO now forecasts Social Security to run into trouble in just a few years. This is a very substantial change in the outlook for SS. Changed fortunes make it a certain that America’s favorite entitlement program will be on the table for a significant re-vamp.

The CBO has answered two critical question:

1) In what year does SS first goes into deficit (including interest)?

2) What is the size of the SS Trust Fund when #1 has been achieved?

Key data is here:

Using this information, we can estimate the Trust Funds (TF) balances over time, and compare them to what SS forecast in its report to Congress ten-months ago:

SSTF’s “Intermediate” (Base) case:

The bottom line is that the SSTF is going to top out three years ahead of “schedule” and be $800B shy of what it was “supposed” to be.

I think the CBO report has created a big headache for a good number of folks in D.C. Most of them are running for office this year. They certainly won’t be able to wave the CBO report as a measure of how well they are doing.

Bruce Krasting:  I worked on Wall Street for twenty five years. This blog is my take on the financial issues of the day. I was an FX trader during the early days of the ‘snake’ and the EMS. Derivatives on currencies were new then. I was part of that. That was with Citi. Later I worked for Drexel and got to understand a bit about balance sheet structure and corporate bonds from Mike Milken. I was involved with a Macro hedge fund later. That worked out all right, but it is not an easy road. There was one tough week and I thought, “Maybe I should do something else for a year or two.” That was fifteen years ago. I love the markets. How they weave together. For twenty five years I woke up thinking, “What am I going to do today to make some money in the market”. I don’t do that any longer. But I miss it. View my complete profile

Editor’s note:

Mercatus scholars and economists Veronique de Rugy and Jason Fichtner weigh in on the CBO report suggesting the likely reality is far worse than the report suggests.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY:

“The CBO baseline only takes into consideration current law, so it counts the savings from the expiration of provisions like the Bush tax cuts, doc fix, and AMT patch,” said Veronique de Rugy. The alternative baseline is what we should be looking at, because it’s a more realistic vision based on past experiences. The savings are not likely to materialize because we’ve been extending these types of provisions for years, and are likely to do so again.”

“Unfortunately the alternative baseline is much worse. We’re only a few years away from the biggest explosion of spending since the second world war, and Americans are in denial if they think that the situation can be fixed without radical changes,” said de Rugy. “The U.S. is headed toward bankruptcy. All we have to do is look to Europe to see what happens when countries refuse to face reality.”

JASON FICHTNER:

“For those concerned about our fiscal future, the CBO report is usually a reality check on the cost of servicing our debt” said Fichtner. “The best case scenario is that it would stay constant or lower slightly due to a pickup in economic growth and low inflation and borrowing costs. The more likely scenario is red ink for as far as the eye can see. This means the cost of servicing our debt will begin to take over our ability to pay for what we rely on like defense, education, Social Security, and more.”

“This is the first major report of the year that shows where spending is headed,” said Fichtner. “It’s what the Congress will use as a comparison to the OMB baseline when the president releases his budget on February 13th.”

From Monty Pelerin’s World

Some people believe that banging your head against a wall is therapeutic because it feels so good when you stop. Even if one believes that, how long should one engage in such behavior? Is there an optimal time for best results?

An analogy to this head-banging in the business world is putting up with oppressive governmental rules and regulations. There is certainly pain associated with them, but no way to control when or if the pain stops. A different form of pain is picking up and leaving the jurisdiction where the pain is being inflicted. The costs and dislocation effects of doing so involve additional pain, but it is a way to stop banging your head against the wall. That is exactly the thought process that is under consideration (if not already underway) in thousands of businesses in the US.

Different industries in different locations suffer different levels of pain from regulations. Their relocation costs also differ. Heavily capitalized industries with highly skilled workers face greater relocation costs than other industries. As the regulatory burden increases, even the most expensive relocation moves eventually become “profitable.” At some point companies and individuals decide their pain threshold has been exceeded and do something about it. They flee from the oppression and costs of unreasonable government to locations where they are treated better. They stop banging their heads against the wall.

This process is known as “capital flight.” It includes human, monetary and physical capital. And it is underway in the US and has been for several years. It takes place both within the US, by moving operations from high regulation states to those with less regulation. It also takes place by moving operations outside the country.

Within the country the move is from high-tax, high regulatory states to lower ones. It is businesses voting with their feet. Let’s call it the California effect or the New York effect. These states are not business friendly and losing jobs and businesses. Companies leave these states and move to the Sunbelt or overseas. Neither move is made for climate or health purposes as evidence shows the few low tax/regulation states in northern climate are gaining as well.

Businesses don’t have to be pushed to losses to make relocation decisions. They have an obligation to their shareholders to move well before that point. As reported by Mish in an article from the Orange County Register:

“The decision by Waste Connections to relocate, despite the 17 percent revenue increase and the $18 million cost to move to Texas, illustrates that businesses will endure short-term costs to ensure long-term prosperity,” wrote state Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, in response to Steinberg’s message. Walters quotes business-relocation expert Joe Vranich of Irvine, who notes that businesses typically save 40 percent in costs by leaving California because of lower taxes and more manageable regulations found elsewhere.

Mish discusses conditions in California and Illinois with regard to their experience with business flight.

The same “voting with one’s feet” occurs with people who choose to leave the United States. Many renounce citizenship as a way to get away from the long arm of the Internal Revenue Service who believes all income, regardless of where earned, is subject to US taxation.

“Voting with one’s pocketbook” is also becoming popular. More citizens are placing money abroad. This is portfolio diversification rather than tax avoidance. Currency devaluation or possible confiscation are issues today whereas they were not in the past. As the practice becomes more prevalent, desperate government will likely impose strict capital controls to prevent citizens from protecting themselves.

By Michael Barone at National Review Online

EXCERPTS:

‘A 2008 election widely regarded as heralding a shift toward the more government-friendly public sentiment of the New Deal and Great Society eras seems to have yielded just the reverse.”

these findings suggest that Obama’s much-praised speech at Osawatomie, Kan., decrying inequality, “may well reduce his chances of prevailing in a close race.” Class-warfare politics, as I have noted, hasn’t produced a Democratic presidential victory in a long, long time.

Roosevelt’s 1934 and 1936 victories were won in periods of growth. After the economy shifted into recession in 1937, New Deal Democrats fared much worse, and Roosevelt won his third and fourth terms as a seasoned wartime leader, not an economic redistributor.

FULL ARTICLE