Politics, Society etc.

[alvarezbassist17]

hey alvarez.

with "teireconomic", i mean "their economics"

and plz stop your biting reflex. im neither a socialist nor do i find it evil if some poeple are richer than others.

happy new year.

rich parents for everyone!

I apologize for coming off like I'm "biting" at you, I just get incredibly heated by people that have no concept of economics and latent government policy effects, a group of people becoming more vocal all of the time.  There is no "their economics."  There is economics that works, and economics that doesn't.  There's two main categories: the Austrian School of Economics (the one that works (believes in free markets and private regulation by private regulators)) and the Keynesian School (and it's variations, essentially, it's the one that doesn't (believes in government spending, intervention, regulation, etc.)).  The Austrians are the ones that have predicted booms and busts, talked about central banks and how they subjugate the people, proven that the smaller (in relation to the people) a government is, the more stable and prosperous the society is, etc. 

Please, PLEASE read through this and try to get an understanding of economics.  The beauty of the Austrian School is not only is it correct, it is based mostly in common sense and is very easy to learn, even if one doesn't have any economic background.  I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Economics in One Lesson
by Henry Hazlitt

http://jim.com/econ/contents.html

[Jerry_Curls]

AUDIT/END THE FED
AUDIT THE C.I.A.

[tarkil]

There is economics that works, and economics that doesn't.  There's two main categories: the Austrian School of Economics (the one that works (believes in free markets and private regulation by private regulators)) and the Keynesian School (and it's variations, essentially, it's the one that doesn't (believes in government spending, intervention, regulation, etc.)).  The Austrians are the ones that have predicted booms and busts, talked about central banks and how they subjugate the people, proven that the smaller (in relation to the people) a government is, the more stable and prosperous the society is, etc. 

First of all, I didn't read your link (yet, but might do later if I have some time).
Anyway, while I would wholeheartedly agreed with you in the past, and would still today, in a "perfect" world (I'll come back to that in a minute), I tend not to do so anymore these days.

Indeed, conceptually, regulation fucks things up because regulation is "ordered by" some persons, and these persons cannot have absolute knowledge and insight, hence will (may) take shitty decisions, that will probably create trouble, prevent people's liberty in the name of few issues to solve, etc.
Ideally, a self regulated society (or any kind of system while we're at it...) will work much better, as it will - by definition and by nature - tend to equilibrium, and find its balance.
I still agree with that, in principle.

Nonetheless (and that's a big one imho), that would only work when every actor will act towards efficiency (and actually even better, towards long term efficiency).
That's what I called earlier a "perfect" world. And I (definitely) don't think that's where we live in today.

It's easy to take economics example for me, and the crisis, because I work in an investment bank. What I (and pretty much everyone I'd say) saw with the past crisis is that banks do not work towards their long term survival and efficiency.
They were able to create products that would benefit them in the short term, without thinking further than few months, and wouldn't care about what would happen after. When I say banks, I'm actually talking about everyone there : FED, banks, hedge funds, insurances companies, retail subprime counselors etc.
They only looked at immediate profit, even if it was obvious that long term efficiency (and rentability) was way off with that.

Imho (again), that's only due to inadaptability of men to long term thinking (it's biological, you can read The Black Swan from Nicholas Nassim Taleb if you're interested with that, he talks about it).
That's basically the case with everyone, not only "bankers and related" :
- fishermen in Mediterranea complaining against quotas of red tuna fishing. Because it would reduce their living standard... Sure, but what about your children's one if there are no more tunas ?
- mankind in general regarding environment questions. Let's not debate about global warming and whatever there : obviously, Earth has limited resources, and there's a point where you will pay if in the long term if you take too much. Not that Earth will die or whatever (as Carlin stated it better than me, Earth doesn't care about humans, and will find a way to get better after us, even if it takes millions of years), but we will.
etc.

As long as men aren't able to live with a "long term efficiency" goal, self regulation won't - imo - be applicable. Even if that would be the best solution in an ideal world, I don't think it can be relevant as of today.
Solution is (that's unfortunate, I agree, but I don't see any other choice) therefore, and has to be, regulation. That means that few people will decide for the "good" of everyone else. It's definitely not working well these days, and solution might actually be even worse than the problem seeing how all governments around the world these days are scaringly bad for their people (I obviously know very little, but see how it is in France, US, China at least), and are all converging towards reduction of liberty for everyone, for the "good" and the "protection" of everyone.
That's still unfortunately the only viable option to me, and hopefully, one day, we'll see some responsible leaders (I thought that Obama might have been one before, but well, that didn't happen...) who'll be able to act for the long term efficiency of the people of the world, and after that people responsible, and ready to act indivudally towards long term efficiency.
We'll all (and children, grand children, etc.) be dead by that time I guess though, if it ever happens one day.


/end of long(er than I thought) rant

[alvarezbassist17]

Yeah, I'm with you on most of that, besides a couple points. 

I am a strong believer in the concept of moral hazard, in that greed is given incentives by the government in many (in my educated opinion all) cases.  Take for example the housing crisis, it all started from the top-down.  The fed lowered interest rates so far and assisted in the proliferation of adjustable rate mortgages and other bad loans of the sort while saying absolutely nothing but "oh, this isn't an asset bubble, blah blah blah" and essentially encouraging this sort of behavior, so that was step number one.  Number two was the government incentives given to banks to make uneconomically viable loans to people who should have been renting or owning a house within their means (side note: I don't see what's so evil about people renting houses/apartments as opposed to owning them, not saying you believe that, but that was just the pretense of their regulations).  So that was another government interference, along with the fact that the US government (and probably others around the world? not sure about that) had gotten in the habit of bailing out firms that it felt were "too big to fail," so essentially these banks knew they were going to be bailed out if shit went down, which it did, and they were right.  Moral hazard is HUGE, and is behind 99.9% of every problem in economies around the world that are attributed to greed and short term gains.  In a free market, businesses operate with the intent of operating inevitably, using only their own (legal) tools to do so, without handouts, bailouts, and preferential legislation.  You remove those, and you see greed come into check because of fear of bankruptcy, because it would actually happen to all of the greedy scheisters that need special treatment as opposed to good sense to stay in business.  And it's not like fear would be the only regulation, there would be plenty of private regulating institutions with the same fear of bankruptcy if their regulations were either to strong or too lax.

On the topic of sustainability, that was the topic I myself was the most sort of sketchy about when I first got into the Austrian school of thought, but after some reading I've found that it's not really something that would be too terribly hard, and would genuinely strengthen the global economy rather than destroying it like all of the treaties and legislation of the past, present and the (hopefully avoidable) future.  Here's a couple of links to articles that helped me out with that.

http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae7_1_1.pdf
video: http://mises.org/media/1919
http://mises.org/etexts/environfreedom.pdf

As for the possibility of any of these ideas coming to widespread acceptance, I'm with you there, and I'm well aware of what an uphill battle it's going to be, but I've gotten such personal satisfaction from finally finding a political mindset that I can completely (logically and morally) agree with that I find it less and less of a chore to educate people every day, mostly because people (right or left) are generally so receptive to it.  Aside from that, I think once the dollar collapses, the US (and probably the world) will be at a very, very crucial fork in the road, and I'm trying to do my part to make sure we go forward, to personal liberties, non-entangling alliances, sound money, and economic freedoms rather than some frankenstein of socialism, corporate socialism in the case of the US.  But there's folks a lot smarter than I working towards the cause of liberty as well, it's come leaps and bounds since the last election, which is extremely exciting for me.  So it's hard for me to stay optimistic, but that doesn't mean I'm going to abandon my principles or the cause... or vote republican or democrat haha.

[alvarezbassist17]

Since health care is the big debate around the states, I thought I'd post this nice article by a Libertarian Canadian.

The Evolution of Health Care Control
By Paul Murdock
Published 01/29/10

The Evolution of Health Care Control: America to Forgo Liberty by Following the Pattern of Canada

In Canada, one of Alberta's most prominent ex-Premiers boldly called for a two tier health care system. Here in American, politicians are secretly finding ways to force it upon us. Typically, we only hear about how universal and efficient public health systems are. However, if we examine the evolution of the Canadian Health Care system, we can see why we should be scared here in America.

First, it is important to note that provinces and territories are generally responsible for administering their own public health care plans. The federal government acts as a partial financial partner and enforcer of basic uniform, national standards. Sound familiar already? Progressively minded individuals wanted to provide care to the "poor" and the federal government naturally assumed there was a constitutional right to become involved. In Canada, the federal government has questionable constitutional authority over health care, except over specific populations including First Nations, Inuit, and military personnel. Yet, a clause providing authority in times of crisis allowed the government to justify itself. Anyone hear of a health care crisis lately?

The power of the citizen's vote was quickly diminished by the intruding federal government. Our ability to quickly remove politicians by popular vote and thereby influence events is key to our liberty. This is why the sovereignty of the state is essential. Our vote counts most at the local level such as municipalities, counties, and states. Thus, if you are liberty minded, it is important to keep laws and regulations as close to your vote as possible. Canadians lost this power as they ceded power to the federal government. The result was not pretty.

Prior to the 1940s, health care services were predominantly provided by private or charity hospitals and clinics. Canadians, generally, paid for their health care services out of pocket, through charity, or private health insurance. Doctors were in a similar position that we find here today, either in private practice or associated with a particular hospital or clinic.

In 1966, the federal government of Canada introduced the Medicare Act. Under this legislation, it committed to sharing costs with the provinces for all physician services, regardless of whether they were provided in a hospital. Moreover, the Act stipulated certain criteria which a province would have to meet in order to gain this federal funding. This was no accident, and the government was aware that no province could afford not to comply. The introduction of the national Medicare Act firmly established the federal government in the center of health care policy. Moreover, health care policy, like Medicare in America, quickly became the center of political power.

This is similar to what would occur in the United States. Obama promised that you can keep your current insurance and health care providers. Similarly, the federal government in Canada can also claim that it does not choose your health care services or the care you receive from your health care providers. However, the government's ability to indirectly influence policy through the conditions it attached to Federal funding insures compliance to federal mandates. Like in Canada, the power lies in money, which is controlled by federal law and regulation. Whom do you think will control this in the United States? Not you!

Naturally, the power of the federal government was quickly revealed. As a result, tensions grew between provinces and the federal government. Shockingly enough, this occurred after the Federal government informed the states that it COULD NOT AFFORD to live up to its end of the bargain. Provinces were left to foot the bill. Provinces were also furious about the health plan criteria the federal government now required.

In an attempt to make a reasonable living, physicians began charging fees and extra-billing to supplement the low reimbursement fees paid by the government. The federal response was to change the criterion in which funding was provided to provinces. In 1984 the government introduced the Canada Health Act. The legislation re-established conditions that the provinces would have to follow in order to receive federal health care funds. Central to the Act was the prohibition of user fees and extra-billing, and the establishment of other criteria deemed essential for the operation of provincial health care services.

Here is an obvious lesson in point. Once you give federal government the power, they are free to change the rules. Moreover, all socialist systems of health care including Canada and Europe have struggled to pay the increasing costs. This is no different than America. Yet, why increase government involvement to pay for health care, when every country who has tried, struggles?

In 2002, a federal commission on health care proposed even greater expansion of official power. The commission sought a relationship where each level of government was an equal partner in the public health care policy. Here we see the federal government seeking direct power from the Provinces. Additionally, the Commission recommended enacting a Health Covenant which would have set out a national vision and framework for public health care, and be binding on all governments. It also recommended that a Health Council of Canada be created, with the goal of fostering collaboration between levels of government. The end result is that the federal government now controls health care and the provinces are left with no sovereignty.

The laughable commission finally recommended the federal government increase its share of federal funding for health care to a minimum of 25 percent of provincial/territorial costs. Of note, this is half of the original proposal, made to entice the public, by the federal government decades earlier. Like the proposal in Canada, we have a government promising to fund health care by the billions. In the end the fate will be the same; too costly. The end result the same; less quality, restricted access, longer waits, and no way out. As we all know, federal projections fall significantly short, and the true cost will be in the trillions. The government will not be able to pay, the states will have to comply with federal rules, and your taxes will be increased. The true fate lies in the loss of your medical freedom and the erosion between state and federal powers.

The problems mentioned above are not restricted to Canada. Hundreds of thousands in Britain must wait for some type of medical care, with thousands waiting six months or more. France is in a similar situation. In Ontario, Canada, 1.5 million Ontarians (or 12 percent of that province's population) can't find family physicians. Health officials in one Nova Scotia community actually resorted to a lottery to determine who'd get a doctor's appointment.

As a result, the goals in Europe and Canada are the opposite of the United States: Increase privatization and access to care. The Provincial Court of Quebec ruled that Canada's restriction on private care violated an individual's right to care. Consequently, doctors are leading a bold charge against Federal regulations. In addition to businesses arranging care for Canadians in the United States, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli organized a private Quebec practice. This is rare, but many believe it will become the trend.

Sir William Wells, a senior British health official, recently said: "The big trouble with a state monopoly is that it builds in massive inefficiencies and inward-looking culture." In 2007, the private sector provided about 5 percent of Britain's nonemergency procedures; Labour aimed to triple that percentage by 2008. The Labour government also works to provide vouchers for certain surgeries, offering patients the choice of a private provider. And in a recent move, the government will contract out some primary care services, perhaps to American firms such as UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser Permanente.

Sweden's government, after the completion of the latest round of privatizations, will be contracting out some 80 percent of Stockholm's primary care and 40 percent of its total health services, including one of the city's largest hospitals. And modest market reforms have begun in Germany; increasing co-pays, enhancing insurance competition, and turning state enterprises over to the private sector (within a decade, only a minority of German hospitals will remain under state control).

Although American media outlets continue to praise health care in other countries, they neglect the important facts about American hospitals. In The Business of Health, Robert Ohsfeldt and John Schneider factor out intentional and unintentional injuries from life-expectancy statistics and find that Americans who don't die in car crashes or homicides outlive people in any other Western country. Other statistics also support American superiority. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England.

If we use the Canadian health care system as an example we can see progressive losses of freedom as health care has expanded. Not only do they lose personal freedoms, but they have become deluded about their own system. In a recent survey found on the Canadian governments own website, more than 80% of all Canadians approve. As an expatriate Canadian, I do not, neither should Americans.

[alvarezbassist17]

What Do Oranges, Furnaces, and Your IRA Have in Common?
By Tom Mullen


On Friday, an average American spent the entire day with the federal government without ever leaving his home. No, there was no knock on his door by some plain-clothes Gestapo. Neither was he treated to one of those infamous "no-knock raids" where a small army of thugs with various acronyms spelled out on their backs burst into the homes of the innocent and terrorize whomever happens to cross their paths. Nothing so dramatic happened that day. However, the long arm of the federal government made itself equally palpable nonetheless.

The first thing that he tried to do that day seemed innocuous enough. Being a native of Western New York and now living in Florida, he attempted to schedule a pick-up to ship some freshly-picked Florida oranges to a friend back home. He had purchased the oranges from a local orchard a day earlier, putting aside about two dozen for his friend in the wintry north. Anyone who has eaten oranges fresh from the tree here in Florida can tell you what a difference there is in freshness and taste from those purchased in grocery stores in the north when they are several days or weeks older. There is also a significant difference in price, especially this time of year. Oranges in Florida cost about $.40 per orange, while those same oranges cost about $1.50 each when purchased in Western New York.

For all of these reasons, our average American decided to do something nice and send a couple of dozen freshly picked oranges up north. That's when he had his first encounter with the federal government. It turns out that what he was attempting to do was extremely dangerous and therefore prohibited by USDA regulations. According to the USDA website,

Under current federal regulations, all shipments of fresh citrus are prohibited from leaving Florida unless they meet certain requirements, including:

    * Inspection of the grove within 30 days of harvest;
    * Treatment of the fresh fruit with a special decontaminant;
    * Issuance of a federal limited permit that must accompany the fruit. The limited permit confirms that the inspection and treatment have been carried out; and
    * Clear marking on the packages to indicate the fruit is prohibited from being delivered to other citrus-producing states.

The reason given for these regulations is that they are "designed to prevent the spread of citrus canker to other citrus-producing states while preserving Florida's fresh fruit citrus market." Surely the reader is familiar with citrus canker -- that pandemic scourge that rivals swine flu in its danger to all of humanity if not for the federal government and its regulations.

There are a few consequences of this legislation that the government would have us believe are purely coincidental. The first is that the federal government is now authorized to collect a tax, which is all the fee for the "limited license" really is. The second is that citrus growers are effectively insulated by law from any out-of-state competition. Ironically, the federal government supposedly derives its authority to impose such a regulation from the commerce clause of the Constitution — which was written to prevent protectionism by the states!

The effect of these regulations are that consumers everywhere — in citrus producing and non-citrus producing states — pay higher prices for oranges. For those states without citrus growers, the licensing costs and higher costs due to limited shipping options are passed on to consumers. This is what explains Western New Yorkers paying $1.50 per orange. Even in citrus producing states, consumers pay a higher price than they otherwise would if their in-state growers had to compete with out-of-state growers freely shipping their products into the market. Of course, the government and its "progressive" supporters would have us believe that these are merely necessary costs of public safety. It couldn't be that large, corporate citrus producers had anything to do with lobbying for and perhaps even writing these regulations, could it? Surely, the additional profits and insulation from competition are purely coincidental, aren't they?

Having resigned himself that he could not ship the oranges himself without the federal license, which was not cost-effective for two dozen oranges, our subject acquiesced to send the oranges directly from an orchard licensed to ship out of state (at a premium price) and moved on to his next order of business. He needed a furnace for one of his rental properties. Being a small businessman who owned or managed approximately 100 properties, it was his responsibility to repair or replace any home appliances that ceased functioning. As a furnace is a significant cost for a small business, he consulted a well-known internet resource to see if he could get a deal on purchase and installation. He found several vendors advertising low-cost installations for home furnaces.

The cost of the home furnace that he selected was about $800. The cost to have a licensed HVAC contractor install the appliance was approximately $1,700 (remember this is New York), for a grand total of $2,500. The vendor on the internet worked for one of the established HVAC contractors that sell and install these appliances. He was offering to sell the furnace at the advertised price of $800 and install it for $300. This represented a savings of $1,400 — significant for a small property management company. When the small businessman offered to accept the offer and pay by credit card, the internet vendor educated him on what was going on. The transaction would have to be executed in cash, because it would be in violation of federal regulations. Not wishing to run afoul of the law, the small businessman declined and acquiesced to pay the $2,500.

It should be remembered that the vendor was not offering to sell stolen goods. He was selling the actual furnace at the same price that the HVAC contractor was selling it at. The internet vendor was merely offering to do the installation labor at what amounted to a real market cost of about $300. Why can the HVAC contractor charge $1,700 to send the exact same technician to install the exact same furnace? Only because it belongs to a cartel that is created by federal regulation and licensing requirements. Again, the reason given is public safety. We can't have just anyone installing HVAC equipment or we would all be blown up within a week. It can't be that large, corporate manufacturers and HVAC contractors associations lobby the government to pass these competition-stifling regulations, could it?

What did our average American businessman do next to garner the attention of the federal government? Nothing. Frustrated and having spent an inordinate amount of time on two seemingly simple activities, he decided to call it a day. However, the fact that you are sitting in your home doing nothing does not necessarily mean that you are free from federal intrusion. While reading some personal e-mails, one popped into his inbox from his personal financial advisor. It concerned his IRA.

A few years earlier, he had decided to take a portion of his retirement savings out of his traditional 401K and put it into an IRA with a company that specialized in foreign stocks. His strategy was to protect his savings from the ongoing depreciation of the U.S. dollar and the structural weakness of the U.S. economy in general, which was and is based almost purely on consumption and borrowing. The firm with which he opened his account invested his retirement money in foreign companies with strong balance sheets that were paying dividends. Overall, the investment strategy was sound and relatively conservative. In any case, it was his money to do with as he saw fit. Or so he thought.

It seems that since "the crisis," the federal government had taken an interest in him in this respect as well — as always for his "protection." His broker informed him that a "Client Profile" that he had been required by federal law to fill out upon opening his account had to be filled out again. However, since the company that he opened the IRA with specialized in foreign stocks, he now had to mark "Speculation" on his risk profile. The company had to have this signed affidavit on file in order to legally continue to manage his account. This was all designed to protect him from unscrupulous fund managers who might buy foreign stocks with his retirement money without telling him how risky said foreign investments might be.

Absurdity abounds in this regulation. The stocks in our subject's portfolio all had strong balance sheets (modest debt-to-equity ratios) and were paying dividends. To invest in these, according to our government, is "speculation." However, to invest in U.S. Treasury bonds — the bonds of an enterprise that is currently losing $1.6 trillion per year, has over $12 trillion in debt, and over $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities — would qualify as "low risk." However, there is more to this story than pure government incompetence.

Consider the effects of a regulation such as this. There is some percentage of people who wisely got out of U.S. stocks and U.S. dollar-denominated assets in general over the past several years. However, after the misinformed propaganda campaign by our government against speculators as the cause of the recent financial and economic crises, there are a number of reasons that those people might not want to be labeled as "speculators" themselves. They might erroneously perceive speculation as unpatriotic or even evil, given what they have heard. The less gullible might fear more onerous federal actions against them once they are officially identified as speculators. In any case, this regulation is going to cause some people to close their accounts with companies that deal in foreign stocks or at least shift their assets back to U.S. stocks.

This is going to have the effect of raising the price of those U.S. stocks that these "speculators" decide to buy. That price increase does not represent real market forces at work, because without the regulation, the investors would have left their money in the foreign companies. Again, this is supposedly the unintended consequence of a regulation that is nevertheless necessary to protect the public. Who just happens to benefit? As usual, it is the large corporations whose stock prices will appreciate and who also just happen to fund the campaigns of the people who passed the regulation in the first place. Doesn't anyone see a pattern here?

None of these regulations actually benefit the public. The citrus and furnace consumers pay exorbitantly higher prices and are certainly no safer from danger because the corporate cartel member filled out a government form and paid a licensing fee. How many people have to die from FDA-approved drugs (or from the unavailability of unapproved drugs) before this is sufficiently clear to average Americans? In the case of the foreign stock investor, he is actually harmed by the regulation if as a result of it he takes his money out of safe, foreign investments in viable companies and puts it into shaky U.S. corporations or soon-to-be-downgraded U.S. Treasury debt.

Progressives supposedly support these regulations in order to protect average Americans from the large corporations that they vilify at every opportunity. As we have seen ever since their hero, FDR, instituted this fascist regulatory structure in the 1930's, they achieve exactly the opposite result. With each new set of regulations, large corporations grow richer, more influential, and more insulated from competition — all at the expense of the "little guy" that the regulations supposedly protect. To quote another progressive hero from the 1960's, "When will they ever learn?"

[alvarezbassist17]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7332803/A-perfect-storm-is-brewing-for-the-IPCC.html


A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC
The emerging errors of the IPCC's 2007 report are not incidental but fundamental, says Christopher Booker

The news from sunny Bali that there is to be an international investigation into the conduct of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri would have made front-page headlines a few weeks back. But while Scotland and North America are still swept by blizzards, in their worst winter for decades, there has been something of a lull in the global warming storm – after three months when the IPCC and Dr Pachauri were themselves battered by almost daily blizzards of new scandals and revelations. And one reason for this lull is that the real message of all the scandals has been lost.

The chief defence offered by the warmists to all those revelations centred on the IPCC's last 2007 report is that they were only a few marginal mistakes scattered through a vast, 3,000-page document. OK, they say, it might have been wrong to predict that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035; that global warming was about to destroy 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields by 50 per cent; that sea levels were rising dangerously; that hurricanes, droughts and other "extreme weather events" were getting worse. These were a handful of isolated errors in a massive report; behind them the mighty edifice of global warming orthodoxy remains unscathed. The "science is settled", the "consensus" is intact.

But this completely misses the point. Put the errors together and it can be seen that one after another they tick off all the central, iconic issues of the entire global warming saga. Apart from those non-vanishing polar bears, no fears of climate change have been played on more insistently than these: the destruction of Himalayan glaciers and Amazonian rainforest; famine in Africa; fast-rising sea levels; the threat of hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves all becoming more frequent.

All these alarms were given special prominence in the IPCC's 2007 report and each of them has now been shown to be based, not on hard evidence, but on scare stories, derived not from proper scientists but from environmental activists. Those glaciers are not vanishing; the damage to the rainforest is not from climate change but logging and agriculture; African crop yields are more likely to increase than diminish; the modest rise in sea levels is slowing not accelerating; hurricane activity is lower than it was 60 years ago; droughts were more frequent in the past; there has been no increase in floods or heatwaves.

Furthermore, it has also emerged in almost every case that the decision to include these scare stories rather than hard scientific evidence was deliberate. As several IPCC scientists have pointed out about the scare over Himalayan glaciers, for instance, those responsible for including it were well aware that proper science said something quite different. But it was inserted nevertheless – because that was the story wanted by those in charge.

In addition, we can now read in shocking detail the truth of the outrageous efforts made to ensure that the same 2007 report was able to keep on board IPCC's most shameless stunt of all – the notorious "hockey stick" graph purporting to show that in the late 20th century, temperatures had been hurtling up to unprecedented levels. This was deemed necessary because, after the graph was made the centrepiece of the IPCC's 2001 report, it had been exposed as no more than a statistical illusion. (For a full account see Andrew Montford's The Hockey Stick Illusion, and also my own book The Real Global Warming Disaster.)

In other words, in crucial respects the IPCC's 2007 report was no more than reckless propaganda, designed to panic the world's politicians into agreeing at Copenhagen in 2009 that we should all pay by far the largest single bill ever presented to the human race, amounting to tens of trillions of dollars. And as we know, faced with the prospect of this financial and economic abyss, December's Copenhagen conference ended in shambles, with virtually nothing agreed.

What is staggering is the speed and the scale of the unravelling – assisted of course, just before Copenhagen, by "Climategate", the emails and computer codes leaked from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. Their significance was the light they shone on the activities of a small group of British and US scientists at the heart of the IPCC, as they discussed ways of manipulating data to show the world warming faster than the evidence justified; fighting off legitimate requests for data from outside experts to hide their manipulations; and conspiring to silence their critics by excluding their work from scientific journals and the IPCC's 2007 report itself. (Again, a devastating analysis of this story has just been published by Stephen Mosher and Tom Fuller in Climategate: The CRUtape Letters).

Almost as revealing as the leaked documents themselves, however, was the recent interview given to the BBC by the CRU's suspended director, Dr Phil Jones, who has played a central role in the global warming scare for 20 years, not least as custodian of the most prestigious of the four global temperature records relied on by the IPCC. In his interview Jones seemed to be chucking overboard one key prop of warmest faith after another, as he admitted that the world might have been hotter during the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago than it is today, that before any rise in CO2 levels temperatures rose faster between 1860 and 1880 than they have done in the past 30 years, and that in the past decade their trend has been falling rather than rising.

The implications of all this for the warming scare, as it has been presented to us over the past two decades, can scarcely be overestimated. The reputation of the IPCC is in shreds. And this is to say nothing of the personal reputation of the man who was the mastermind of its 2007 report, its chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

It was in this newspaper that we first revealed how Pachauri has earned millions of pounds for his Delhi-based research institute Teri, and further details are still emerging of how he has parlayed his position into a worldwide business empire, including 17 lucrative contracts from the EU alone. But we should not expect the truth to break in too suddenly on this mass of vested interests. Too many people have too much at stake to allow the faith in man-made global warming, which has sustained them so long and which is today making so many of them rich, to be abandoned. The so-called investigations into Climategate and Dr Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann seem like no more than empty establishment whitewashes. There is little reason to expect that the inquiry into the record of the IPCC and Dr Pachauri that is now being set up by the UN Environment Programme and the world's politicians will be very different.

Since 1988, when the greatest scare the world has seen got under way, hundreds of billions of pounds have been poured into academic research projects designed not to test the CO2 warming thesis but to take it as a given fact, and to use computer models to make its impacts seem as scary as possible. The new global "carbon trading" market, already worth $126 billion a year, could soon be worth trillions. Governments, including our own, are calling for hundreds of billions more to be chucked into absurd "carbon-saving" energy schemes, with the cost to be met by all of us in soaring taxes and energy bills.

With all this mighty army of gullible politicians, dutiful officials, busy carbon traders, eager "renewables" developers and compliant, funding-hungry academics standing to benefit from the greatest perversion of the principles of true science the world has ever seen, who are we to protest that their emperor has no clothes? (How apt that that fairy tale should have been written in Copenhagen.) Let all that fluffy white "global warming" continue to fall from the skies, while people shiver in homes that, increasingly, they will find they can no longer afford to heat. We have called into being a true Frankenstein's monster. It will take a mighty long time to cut it down to size.

[E-Money]

If Obama rams Health Care down America's throat he will have officially committed political suicide.  Massachusetts is proof that the future for the far left is not looking good.  I don't quite understand how spending a trillion dollars on a health care bill will lower the deficit??? Who are the kidding? 

[E-Money]

http://www.generationzeromovie.com/?gclid=CLqvpfSSmKACFVth2godUkI6eA


This is also a great dvd to check out if u got some extra cash laying around.  Its quite alarming.  Future isn't looking too good.  Especially when we run out of everyones fucking money. 

[your sister gets me hard]

http://www.generationzeromovie.com/?gclid=CLqvpfSSmKACFVth2godUkI6eA


This is also a great dvd to check out if u got some extra cash laying around.  Its quite alarming.  Future isn't looking too good.  Especially when we run out of everyones fucking money. 

How can you have an opinion on how good a movie is if it hasn't even been released yet.  Idiot.

[E-Money]

http://www.generationzeromovie.com/?gclid=CLqvpfSSmKACFVth2godUkI6eA


This is also a great dvd to check out if u got some extra cash laying around.  Its quite alarming.  Future isn't looking too good.  Especially when we run out of everyones fucking money. 

How can you have an opinion on how good a movie is if it hasn't even been released yet.  Idiot.

They had an hour long premier on Sean Hannity the other night.....IDIOT

[bright lights, big city]

They had an hour long premier on Sean Hannity the other night.....IDIOT

ok good now i know i don't have to check it out.

[E-Money]

They had an hour long premier on Sean Hannity the other night.....IDIOT

ok good now i know i don't have to check it out.

haha i know, im not a fan either, but Its a crazy documentary.  I heard this was gonna be on his show, so I watched it.  When it comes out you should definitely watch it if your interested at all about how America got into this situation, and how Obama is going to continue to spend money we dont have.  Its not some right wing bullshit, its pretty moderate.  Also shows how fucking terrible Bush was (which we already know) but also explains how this administration is not helping at all....

[your sister gets me hard]

http://www.generationzeromovie.com/?gclid=CLqvpfSSmKACFVth2godUkI6eA


This is also a great dvd to check out if u got some extra cash laying around.  Its quite alarming.  Future isn't looking too good.  Especially when we run out of everyones fucking money. 

How can you have an opinion on how good a movie is if it hasn't even been released yet.  Idiot.

They had an hour long premier on Sean Hannity the other night.....IDIOT

You watched sean hannity...IDIOT

[E-Money]

http://www.generationzeromovie.com/?gclid=CLqvpfSSmKACFVth2godUkI6eA


This is also a great dvd to check out if u got some extra cash laying around.  Its quite alarming.  Future isn't looking too good.  Especially when we run out of everyones fucking money. 

How can you have an opinion on how good a movie is if it hasn't even been released yet.  Idiot.

They had an hour long premier on Sean Hannity the other night.....IDIOT

You watched sean hannity...IDIOT

na dude I watched the documentary that was aired on Hannitys show.  what is your purpose?  I checked your posts and there nothing but worthless shit?  do u come around just to annoy us?  if thats your purpose, thanks! 

[alvarezbassist17]

I hope that documentary isn't just some opposite-side-of-the-aisle of michael moore movie and is genuinely accurate.  But the trailer makes a point, history repeats itself, so very hard.  And everyone always thinks that they're living in some modern, special version of society, ground that's never been tread, when it's just some modern version of something that's already happened.  That's why I'm trying to refer all of the people that I can to this one historian from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Thomas Woods.  Here's a link to his podcast channel, every clip is so beyond valuable, and he's so fucking reasonable, pretty much the opposite of Sean Hannity's demeanor.  Definitely, DEFINITELY check him out.

http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=author&ID=424

[Nailec]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-3-2010/anchor-management

[Necrocetaceanbeastiality]

http://rawstory.com/2010/03/aclu-forced-sue-obtain-legal-basis-predator-drone-program/

[Jerry_Curls]

Awesome article!

The idea of some young American, controlling this weapon with a joystick, killing someone far from them creeps me out. It's like a videogame to them! They aren't physically killling them, the drone did!

[Necrocetaceanbeastiality]

What the fuck, Texas?

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/12/texas-education-board-cuts-thomas-jefferson-out-of-its-textbooks/