US Action News

Super Bowl Party Sticker Shock as Food Prices Soar

Mwhipple — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:02:11 +0000

As the Federal Reserve keeps printing dollars and forcing low rates to prop up the ailing economy food prices continue to rise. Most food up double digits from last year. Your Super Bowl party could cost you double this year. Also note the comment about a change of administration being good for the economy.

Jobs Illusions – Unemployment Rate Drops as Work Force Shrinks

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:28:27 +0000

The number of people working is at a low not seen since 1981. The recently released Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the economy showed that if the workers that have left the rolls were counted the unemployment rate would be 10%. The jubilation of the Obama campaign press over a miniscule drop in the rate is great for campaign speeches but the reality is much grimmer.

By Michael Whipple, Editor usACTIONnews.com

As more workers stop filing or run out of benefits they are no longer counted as “unemployed” for the unemployment rate. So as the economy worsens we are actually seeing the rate drop a few tenths of a point which is heralded with great delight in the Obama campaign.

Some are retiring early or signing up for disability benefits. Some just work for cash or struggle in home based enterprises to make ends meet.

Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute in her analysis of the BLS jobs report January 6th 2012:

“Two years ago, in December 2009, the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent, and it is now 8.5 percent. How much improvement does that drop actually represent? Given weak job prospects, many would-be workers dropped out of (or never entered) the labor force over this period, a trend that reduces the measured unemployment rate but does not represent real improvement in employment. If the workers who comprise the drop in the labor force participation rate (from 64.6 percent to 64.0 percent) over the last two years were counted as unemployed, the unemployment rate would be 9.5 percent now instead of 8.5 percent.” [emphasis added]

The number of people working is at a low not seen since 1981. The recently released Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the economy showed that if the workers that have left the rolls were counted the unemployment rate would be 10%. The jubilation of the Obama campaign press over a miniscule drop in the rate is great for campaign speeches but the reality is much grimmer as the report points out:

Participation in the Labor Force. The unemployment rate would be even higher than it is now had participation in the labor force not declined as much as it has over the past few years. The rate of participation in the labor force fell from 66 percent in 2007 to an average of 64 percent in the second half of 2011, an unusually large decline over so short a time.

Had that portion of the decline in the labor force participation rate since 2007 that is attributable to neither the aging of the baby boomers nor the downturn in the business cycle (on the basis of the experience in previous downturns) not occurred, the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1¼ percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7 percent. [emphasis added]

Thus the “real” unemployment rate is almost 10%. The report also shows that increased taxes in 2013 that are already law will have a further negative impact noted as a “dampening effect”:

By CBO’s estimates, the rate of labor force participation will fall to slightly above 63 percent by 2017. The dampening effects of the increase in tax rates in 2013 scheduled under current law and additional retirements by baby boomers are projected to more than offset the strengthening effects of growing demand for labor as the economy recovers further.

CNBC’s Rick Santelli came to basically the same conclusion:

No wonder fears of an economic collapse top a survey of what Americans worry about:

Maybe that is also why so many fear four more years of Obama:

U.S. News reports on Synovate eNation Internet poll conducted December 29-January 2 that shows 33% of Americans fear four more years of Obama. Only 16% are afraid of Obama losing in 2012.

“in results backed up by other polls, older Americans and those earning $75,000 or more are especially worried about the president getting a second term, according to the poll done by Synovate eNation.

Nearly half of Americans 65 and older said Obama’s reelection was their top fear, 39 percent of those making $75,000 or more agreed.”

Follow Michael Whipple on Twitter

Follow usACTIONnews on Twitter or on Facebook

EPA’s political “science” for political agenda

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:13:45 +0000

EPA’s real goal is to assert its authority over ever-increasing segments of our economy; reinterpret medical and scientific studies to fit its regulatory agenda; and replace as many coal-fired power plants as possible with costly, unreliable renewable energy systems.

By Willie Soon and Paul Driessen

In December 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency released new Clean Air Act “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants.” Once again, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson touted the supposedly huge benefits of controlling emissions of mercury (Hg) and other air toxics from U.S. coal- and oil-fired power plants (or electric generating units, EGUs).

The people of Idaho may welcome this new rule, since EPA’s miraculous modeling machine has promised to prevent “six premature deaths” and create “up to $54 million” in health benefits by 2016 – even though not one coal-fired EGU in Idaho fits the EPA’s final rules. Even the District of Columbia, which has only one oil-fired unit, will somehow, magically realize “up to $120 million” in health benefits, presumably from new restrictions on coal-fired units in Maryland or Virginia.

The average U.S. citizen, however, can be excused for no longer being willing to be penalized by EPA – the Extreme Punishment Authority – for such minimal, imaginary and manufactured benefits.

In fact, the final rule may be the most expensive one ever devised by EPA. And yet, even EPA admits, the alleged “hazards to public health” from mercury and non-mercury emissions from American EGUs are “anticipated to remain after imposition” of the new regulations.

As to benefits, EPA computer models claim Hg emission cuts will reduce average per person “avoided IQ loss” by an undetectable “0.00209 IQ points,” with estimated “total nationwide benefits” of $500,000 to $6.1 million by 2016. For the electric utility sector, says EPA, net job creation from the rules will be “not statistically different from zero” and could be between minus 15,000 and plus 30,000 jobs.

In fact, the new regulations will likely eliminate tens of thousands of jobs annually, especially in energy-intensive industries that rely on low-cost electricity to survive and face growing competition from foreign companies that pay far less for energy, labor and raw materials. Small businesses will also get hammered.

“EPA cannot certify that there will be no SISNOSE from this rule,” the agency admits. “SISNOSE” is EPA-speak for “significant impacts on a substantial number of small entities.” In other words, the rules are likely to inflict significant economic harm on small businesses, and thus on the health and welfare of numerous (former) small business owners, employees and families. The agency failed to explain why it has once again ignored the adverse impacts on human health and welfare caused by its rules.

EPA also confessed that U.S. power plants actually contribute a mere 3% of the total mercury deposited in computer-modeled American watersheds, and thus in fish tissue. Citizens will justifiably wonder where the other 97% comes from, and why we should spend so much money for so little benefit. (The “missing” mercury comes from foreign sources and from volcanoes, subsea vents and other natural sources.)

To see how extreme EPA’s scenarios are, consider five more egregious errors in the final regulations. First, EPA admitted it could “calculate risk” for only 3,100 (4%) of the continental USA’s 88,000 watersheds.

Second, for over 60% of the 3,100 watersheds it did model, EPA took only one or two fish mercury measurements – making it virtually impossible to adopt even valid 75th-percentile fish mercury values. There is a breaking point where extremely poor statistical sampling renders EPA’s pretentious number crunching, conclusions and rules invalid. That breaking point has clearly been reached.

Third, the agency’s estimates for mercury exposure risks are solely for “hypothetical female subsistence consumers” who daily eat almost a pound of fish that they themselves catch in U.S. streams, rivers, and lakes over a 70-year lifetime. That’s less than 1% of U.S. women. For the rest of American women (who eat mostly ocean fish, purchased at a grocery, on a far less regular basis), EPA’s rules are irrelevant.

Fourth, EPA admits that only 22 to 29% of its computer-modeled watersheds are “at risk” from EGU mercury, even when it erroneously assumed that at least 5% of total Hg deposition into the watersheds came from U.S. power plants. If the modeling criteria were tweaked only slightly – to reflect average freshwater fish consumption rates for American women, and require that at least 15% of total mercury deposition be attributable to EGUs – not one U.S. watershed would be at risk.

Finally, EPA ignores the presence of selenium in nearly all fish. Its strong attraction to mercury molecules protects fish and people against buildups of methylmercury (MeHg), mercury’s biologically active and more toxic form.

Combining any series of small probability scenarios results in a near-zero likelihood that the events will actually happen. If each of five scenarios has only a 20% chance of happening, the likelihood that all five will happen is 0.032 percent.

As the preceding analysis suggests, the probability that all the EPA’s improbable scenarios will actually happen is virtually zero; the likelihood that its new regulations will benefit human health is also zero.

However, EPA still stubbornly “disagrees that [mercury] exposure levels in the U.S. are lower than those in the Faroe Islands.” Exposure to MeHg in the U.S. is “the same” as in the Faroe Islands, EPA insists.

The agency is simply wrong.

Extensive medical and scientific studies demonstrate that average Americans are exposed to at least 5 to 10 times less MeHg than average Faroe Islanders. The islanders consume large quantities of pilot whale meat and blubber – which is high in methylmercury, high in PCBs and low in selenium. As a result, their blood mercury concentrations can be up to 350 times higher than the mean blood mercury levels measured by the Centers for Disease Control for average American women.

The Faroe Islands study is irrelevant to mercury exposure risk for average Americans. EPA’s use of that study is deceptive. American women and children are safe from any likely threats from mercury.

To top it off, EPA itself proclaims: “The emissions limits in today’s rule are technology-based … and do not need to be justified based on their ability to protect public health.”

In other words, if the technology exists to eliminate these pollutants, the agency will impose the new regulations – regardless of their cost, their effect on electricity prices and reliability, their impact on factory and other jobs, and whether the rules actually do little or nothing to improve human health.

It has become increasingly obvious that EPA’s real goal is to assert its authority over ever-increasing segments of our economy; reinterpret medical and scientific studies to fit its regulatory agenda; and replace as many coal-fired power plants as possible with costly, unreliable renewable energy systems.

American voters, elected officials and courts need to challenge these radical, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, demand an end to EPA’s distortion of science and reality – and reverse these flawed rules.

____________

Willie Soon is a natural scientist with strong interest in mercury and public health issues. Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality.

Chump state workers just keep feeding the pension thieves

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:06:48 +0000

Government workers should be fighting those who take money out of their pockets and blow it instead of going after the taxpayers who put money into their pockets. If our state leaders do not act this year to honestly admit hidden debt and begin reducing it, they indenture generations of taxpayers and public workers.

By Frank Keegan

Every year state politicians loot the pensions of more than 17 million public workers and retirees to “balance” budgets, yet those workers keep putting the looters back into office while fighting the few who try to head off this $4-trillion national economic catastrophe.

A look at the latest U.S. Census data shows that over four years the geniuses running state pensions lost almost 20 percent — $552 billion in total investment value — and blew more than $600 billion of income needed to pay benefits. They lost $4.33 for every dollar public workers “contributed.”

However, the geniuses did manage to pocket $36.6 billion in “Other Expenses” for themselves and their pals in the process.

That puts funds almost $1.3 trillion behind where they promised to be and increased the real long-term funding shortfall to well over $4 trillion despite taxpayers pumping $378 billion into the void through employee and government “contributions.”

Why do rank-and-file public workers continue to feed this devouring beast? Maybe it’s because they think oblivious taxpayers will endure decades of service cuts and tax increases to pay for it. They should think again.

One question not asked or answered by panels on Collective Bargaining, Public Pensions and Voters: The Policy and Politics of Public-Sector Employees in the 2012 Elections at the American Enterprise Institute last week is:

Why do state and municipal workers cling to those who betray them?

Here’s an answer: The few getting rich off this scam use accounting tricks to lie about how deep the public pension crisis really is.

This crisis goes beyond Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative. Delusion and denial are so entrenched many propagating the lies actually believe them. Others cynically coordinate a propaganda disinformation campaign in an attempt to hold off the day of reckoning as long as possible. That lets them take as much off the top as they can and flee before their house of lies crashes.

Crash it must, eventually. Census data for the top 100 state and local pension plans through the third quarter show 2011 will be another year of public pension catastrophe.

The latest full fiscal year survey from Census shows another disaster trend: Fewer “active” members paying for more “inactive” members and average benefits increasing more than 13 percent even as money to pay them dwindles.

Despite politicians’ claims of drastic personnel cuts, total membership increased 3.9 percent from 2007 to 2010. But that’s only 1.2 percent more “active” members paying in, with “inactive” rising 12.5 percent.

Fewer paying in more, and more taking out more is a formula for certain disaster. It means young public workers are doomed to lifetimes of harder work, lower pay, higher contributions, later retirements and slashed benefits.

Yet they continue to cling to their oppressors. Take Wisconsin, please.

A Pew Center on the States “Widening Gap” study last year cited Wisconsin as fully funded with full contributions to sustain the pension fund forever.

That pension plan was fully funded if you believed investment gurus would get 55 percent in 2011, the gain needed just to stay even. The investment gurus in fact failed. Now Wisconsin taxpayers have even more to make up.

From July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2010, total holdings actually crashed 12.5 percent, down more than $10 billion instead of up the $43 billion gain politicians promised. Earnings actually were a loss of $1.8 billion, for an average over the period of minus 0.61 percent. Some performance.

But get this: Public workers “contributed” almost $2.9 billion of taxpayer money during those years while the politicians shorted them by putting in only $2.5 billion. That shortage is money taken from pensions to “balance” budgets.

Worse, for every worker dollar invested, fund managers lost $4.27 in value and earnings while “Other Payments” to those who lost it totaled $1.8 billion. Such a deal.

This robbery of workers and taxpayers happened long before Scott Walker won the governor’s hot seat in the 2010 election. Now he faces recall for his fumbling attempts to pull Wisconsin out of a fiscal death spiral even he does not fully comprehend.

Who is leading the recall campaign? The very public workers who got screwed while their guy, Gov. Jim Doyle, held office and Democrats controlled the Legislature.

What a racket. These slaves actually pay their masters and fight to put them back in power.

The trend is ugly and inexorable. Despite any claims of austerity in Wisconsin, “Covered Payroll” over this time increased 14.5 percent, while “Active Membership” went up only 1.7 percent. In fact, “Total Beneficiaries” went up almost six times the increase in those carrying the load.

While the state lost more than $12 billion in value and earnings, it paid out $16.4 billion in benefits and expenses. That means the Wisconsin pension system never can recover from the past four years.

Yet taxpayers keep dumping good money after bad in “contributions” extorted through chump state workers and lying politicians.

And remember, Wisconsin claims to have one of the best fully funded pension plans in the country. That claim is patently false.

It does, however, prove the magnitude of our national municipal and state pension crisis. We are at the point of no return, a fiscal event horizon of perpetual debt.

Government workers should be fighting those who take money out of their pockets and blow it instead of going after the taxpayers who put money into their pockets.

If our state leaders do not act this year to honestly admit hidden debt and begin reducing it, they indenture generations of taxpayers and public workers.

Frank Keegan is editor of Statebudgetsolutions.org, a project of sunshinereview.org. The State Budget Solutions Project is nonpartisan, positive, pro-reform, proactive and anchored in fundamental-systemic solutions. The goal is to successfully engage political journalists/bloggers, state officials and opinion leaders in a new way of thinking about state government and budgets, fundamental reforms, transparency and accountability.

frankkeegan@statebudgetsolutions.org

Cross posted at Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity

GOP Governors Want Taxpayer Funded Wind Subsidies

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:21:54 +0000

[T]hey use VHS-style thinking that wastes taxpayer dollars and destroys economic value. The letter urges that “The wind energy sector is an American success story that is helping us build our manufacturing base, create jobs, lower energy costs and strengthen our energy security.”

By Nicolas Loris at Heritage Foundation

Remember VHS? Imagine this:

VHS has been a staple of the American way of watching television and movies. VHS has supported countless manufacturing jobs, and even though there are better products out there, let’s face it: We need a variety of ways to watch our programs. The states and local economies that have VHS production facilities have experienced and benefited from VHS production, but without a little help from the taxpayers, jobs will be lost and the industry will atrophy. VHS production has bipartisan support, will be good for American manufacturing jobs, and will diversify our program-watching ability. America needs VHS, and VHS needs the taxpayers’ help.

The above plea isn’t real, but this extremely flawed style of economic rationale is what’s driving the justification for wind energy production tax credits (PTC).

With enough taxpayer dollars, you can prop up just about any industry. But it doesn’t mean those jobs are adding value and growing the economy. Still, politicians use this nonsensical thinking to justify projects that benefit them at the expense of the rest of America. The latest is the push to extend wind energy’s subsidies through 2016.

Governors Sam Brownback of Kansas (R) and Terry Branstad of Iowa (R) sent a letter to the House and Senate committees negotiating the payroll tax extension asking to include an extension of the PTC for wind energy. Unsurprisingly, they use VHS-style thinking that wastes taxpayer dollars and destroys economic value. The letter urges that “The wind energy sector is an American success story that is helping us build our manufacturing base, create jobs, lower energy costs and strengthen our energy security.”

One might wonder how the wind industry can be considered a success story if it needs taxpayer handouts to survive.

Nonetheless, the governors write that “As a country we should support energy diversity and the development of all domestic resources, creating an ‘all of the above’ energy strategy. In order to prevent the nation from being too heavily reliant on a single energy source, our state and national energy plans have long relied on varying policies and incentives, such as the PTC, to deploy technologies that ensure a diverse, domestic energy fleet.”

There are major flaws here. First, an “all of the above” energy strategy does not justify subsidizing all of the above. Second, we have a diverse, competitive electricity sector that includes coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, solar, and oil (about 1 percent). And finally, that diverse energy mix is produced almost entirely domestically.

The only “all of the above” strategy America should embrace is the answer to this question: Which of these energy sources should we not subsidize? A.) Fossil Fuels B.) Nuclear C.) Renewables D.) All of the Above.

The main argument for extending the wind subsidy is that failure to do so will result in job losses. The letter goes on to say, “Unfortunately, the leading wind project developers and manufactures are canceling their plans for 2013 and wind development will grind to a halt due to the uncertainty of a PTC extension.” It goes on to point out that “A recent report completed by Navigant finds that an expiration of the PTC would lead to a nearly fifty percent decrease in the number of wind energy jobs.”

If Navigant’s numbers are accurate, it means two things: 1.) The subsidy has been artificially propping up jobs in the industry and shifted labor and capital away from other, more productive sectors of the economy; and 2.) Wind can compete without subsidies and the industry won’t entirely disappear.

Removing the subsidies could actually benefit the wind industry in the long term. Rather than having the subsidies promote technological stagnation in the industry, investments and resources would flow toward the most promising wind companies and technologies. This would allow for a strong wind industry that that can compete without subsidies. If the result is more wind energy without subsidies, all the better.

Policies like the production tax credit concentrate benefits on a few recipients and disperse the costs among the rest of us through higher taxes and energy costs. If wind energy is not economically viable without the crutch of taxpayer money, then we’re propping up a market loser. If wind energy is a market winner, then the subsidy is taking money out of the taxpayers’ wallets and simply padding the bottom line for the politically connected.

An extension of the wind energy tax credit makes as much sense as a VHS production tax credit.

Nicolas Loris is a Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. Loris studies energy, environment and regulation issues such as the economic impacts of climate change legislation, a free market approach to nuclear energy and the effects of environmental policy on energy prices and the economy.

The United Nations Wants To Crash The World Economy In Order To Save The Environment

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:02:55 +0000

The United Nations says that the earth is in great danger and that the way you and I are living is the problem. In a shocking new report entitled, “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing” the UN declares that the entire way that we currently approach economics needs to be changed. Instead of focusing on things like “economic growth”, the UN is encouraging nations all over the world to start basing measurements of economic success on the goal of achieving “sustainable development”. But there is a huge problem with that. The UN says that what we are doing right now is “unsustainable” by definition, and the major industrialized nations of the western world are the biggest culprits. According to the UN, since we are the ones that create the most carbon emissions and the most pollution, we are the ones that should make the biggest sacrifices. In addition, since we have the most money, we should also be willing to finance the transition of the developing world to a “sustainable development” economy as well. As you will see detailed in the rest of this article, the United Nations basically wants to crash the world economy in order to save the environment. Considering the fact that the U.S. and Europe are in the midst of a horrible economic crisis and are already drowning in debt, this is something that we simply cannot afford.

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/

Israel says Iran building missiles to reach US

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:07:09 +0000

Already suspected of putting medium range missiles in Venezuela that could hit the US, Iran is suspected of developing missiles with 6,200 mile range that could hit the US from Iran. – CNN

Kevin Flower at CNN reports:

“Speaking to Israel’s annual Herzliya national security conference, Moshe Ya’alon, who also serves as Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, suggested that an Iranian military compound that mysteriously blew up late last year was developing a long-range missile capable of hitting the United States.

Senior defense officials told CNN that the United States believed the Iranians were mixing volatile fuel for a rocket motor for a large ballistic missile on November 12 when the explosion occurred.”

Trump: Obama has “tremendous baggage”, “so pathetic”, “terrible”

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:45:13 +0000

With effusive praise for Romney Trump slams Obama on failed leadership and the destructive campaign of class warfare. Trump says Obama will have a hard time winning because of his “tremendous baggage” referring to the recent CBO report that shows very low growth and high unemployment in 2013.

Unions to disrupt Super Bowl over Indiana right to work law

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:37:29 +0000

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels responds to unions threatening to disrupt the Super Bowl. Daniels said the phone calls from businesses started as soon as the Righ-to-Work law was signed. He points out that nationally over 70% of Americans think workers should have the freedom to choose whether to pay union dues or not.

Krauthammer on Panetta disclosure of imminent attack on Iran

Mwhipple — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:32:29 +0000

Is the Obama administration warning Iran? Defense Secretary Panetta’s statement that Israel will attack Iran in April or May has many puzzled as to the administration’s motives. Have Obama’s policies led to an inevitable Middle East war?