#1
Were they were early purchasers of carbon credits ? If so, then they ain't gonna say a word until the check clears after the sale. Frankly, these carbon credits are about as useful as Zimbabwe Dollars.
#2
Cap and Trade will begin a slow death as soon as it is instituted, tax under any name is still a tax. People are beginning to realize how false the entire CT process is, as it is based on false assumptions stemming from Global Warming/Gore-edicts. Worry not the end is near.
Posted by: Boss Flereter8012 ||
12/12/2009 6:40 Comments ||
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#3
I suspect natural gas extraction from shale will also be adversely affected by Cap & Trade, just in a different way from the North Slope situation. C&T is not just a tax, but a clamp on economic growth, which has always been related to energy use. The world economic crisis will IMHO put a clamp on the spread of C&T rather quickly, as businesses harmed by C&T lay off even more workers & shut down facilities they can't afford to keep open under C&T.
Our favorite quote of the week comes from Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who was asked about the hazy new deal on health care that was reached Tuesday night by Democratic negotiators and instantly applauded by President Barack Obama.
"Any big agreement is progress, even if we do not know any of the details," Casey said Wednesday, according to The New York Times.
Details? Who needs details? This is progress!
It's clear this is not about the health care. It's about getting 60 votes for any health care bill in the Senate.
We know a few details. We're all told that this deal does away with the controversial idea of a government-operated health insurance plan, the "public option." The government instead would contract with private insurers to provide health coverage.
The program would be modeled after the health plans available to federal workers. That might be acceptable: Those plans generally earn favorable marks for coverage and efficiency. The benefits are negotiated at market rates and there are incentives for customers to choose less costly alternatives.
But whoa, the public option wouldn't really be dead. If private firms didn't deliver suitable coverage, that failure would trigger creation of a government-run insurance program. It's not hard to imagine government officials writing rules that would discourage private companies from offering coverage through the government. Presto -- then the government would step in and start competing with private insurers. Your public option, alive and kicking.
There are other big questions about the new deal. It would allow people as young as 55 to buy into Medicare, the federal health program for seniors. Are the senators serious? Medicare pays less to doctors and hospitals than many private health insurers, yet the Medicare program for hospital care will be insolvent in 2017. Medicare's trustees estimated this year that the program faces $37.8 trillion in unfunded obligations over the next 75 years. Sure, let's expand that!
So what's this new deal going to cost? Nobody knows yet. Democrats are holding their breath right now until they get a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.
But heck, any deal is progress, even if we don't know what's in it. Right?
If you want to know how this new plan is going to fly, keep an eye on Sen. Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut.
A few weeks ago, Lieberman said he wouldn't vote for any health reform bill that had a public option. Period. He also wouldn't vote for any bill that triggered a public option down the road if health reform failed to cover enough people.
Lieberman gave a wonderfully frank interview to The Wall Street Journal, which was published last Saturday. He said a number of Democrats and interest groups have told him they see the public option as a back-door way to bring national health care to the U.S. That is, a government-monopoly, single-payer system. And that, justifiably, makes him extremely nervous.
"Never in the history of America . . . have we tried to keep one industry honest by having government go into that business to compete with the industry," Lieberman told the Journal.
Democrats can't ignore him because they will need 60 votes to thwart an expected Republican filibuster of health-care legislation. Lieberman could be the 60th vote.
Lieberman hasn't endorsed or rejected the new proposal, though he said Wednesday he was "encouraged by the progress."
He affirmed his strong opposition to a public option. Let's hope he stays firm.
#1
until they look at tort reform ("aaagggghh!@! screamed the trial attys!) and portability across state lines for competition, they aren't looking at reform that works and lowers the costs. It's all about power.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2009 2:17 Comments ||
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The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it's not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it's the fact that the country has become ungovernable.... Ah, yes! I remember that argument from the last year or two of the Carter administration: the problems are just too intractable, nobody can deal with them; the best that can be hoped for is pain management. Sure hope the Dhimmicrats lead with that in the next two elections. We're ungovernable. We can't fix our problems. Troubled cities? Let them rot. Troubled businesses? Bail them out. Failed education? Let the kids go on the dole. Health care too expensive? Sorry Granny, get on the ice floe.
Remember Ronald Reagan's response when Jimmy Carter said our problems were too big to be solved?
"Maybe for you but not for us. Step aside, Jimmy!"
We're suffering from an incoherent institutional set-up in the senate. You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority's governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking. Or you can have a system in which a defeated minority rejects the majority's governing agenda out of hand, seeks opening for attack, and hopes that failure on the part of the majority will bring them to power. But right now we have both simultaneously. It's a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure. It's insane, and it needs to be changed. This is nonsense in a Brooks Brothers suit with a red power tie. The second comment is as good a rebuttal as I could write:
This post is just utter nonsense. There have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to "become ungovernable." There just isn't enough political support to enact various new laws and policies that you favor. Tough.
If you hadn't become seduced by the delusion that Obama is a "progressive" and that last year's election represented some kind of historic realignment in favor of "progressive" policies you might have seen this coming.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/12/2009 09:12 ||
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#1
The elephant in the room ( no pun intended ) that no one wants to talk about is that the size of the federal government itself has been unmanagable for at least 20 years, some would argue 50 years.
No one person, nor one group of people can effectively manage the levithan the federal government has become, not should they even try, yet, there they are believing that with a combination of computer technology and a socialist stiffie they can manage the government and between 10 and 20 percent of the US domestic economy.
Yglesias wants us to believe that the Senate as it is now, stands in the way of "progress" and thankfully, he is absolutely correct.
What he is confused about is the idea that changing the rules in the senate would magically make everything better.
They won't. They'll make everything much, much worse.
If democrats want to rule for the next 20 years they should take a good strong look at reducing the role of the government and therefore its size.
But, because they are leftists we will have see-saw battles for control for the next 100 years, so, the government will grow is size and grow in sheer incompetence.
#2
He's just test-polling the excuse for failure that Bambi and the progressives will use when the health care bill and the cap and trade bill go down.
Carter talked about malaise, Bambi will talk about ungovernable ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/12/2009 10:13 Comments ||
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#3
Sorry Matt, but you're an ignorant boob. Preventing "the tyranny of the majority" is one of the reasons this nation's government is set up the way it is. Read Madison and the Federalist Paper #10 and learn.
The ultimate minority is the individual. And as long as we can keep this a Republic, that is where the rights and powers should remain. A just government gets any rights from the consent of the individuals, not the other way around.
We do not consent to this massive expansion of government power and intrusion into our lives that Pelosi and Reid want to force upon us. We are not sheep to be herded, nor slaves to be kept on the plantation in exchange for favors from the overseers in DC.
Regarding the abominable "healthcare" bill that triggered this, and the bogus AGW/Energy bill, and other collective nonsense the hard left is pushing: I cannot express it any better than this...
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. C.S. Lewis
#4
There is a huge federalist sentiment out there, and it is reaching beyond the 10th Amendment movement with the States. The realization is dawning that the US is being forced to hold another constitutional convention.
What used to be considered unthinkable may now become essential to save the republic. Importantly, it will not happen until there is no other choice. But a lot of thought is going into how to conduct a convention.
There are now lists of the constitutional changes that need to be made, large and small, along with the assumption that the convention will not only have to write the new constitution, but remain seated until the required changes have been carried out.
So the convention may last a year or two, with the federal government just trying to keep the status quo until the 3/4ths of the States have voted to approve the new constitution.
This likely means that candidates will need to run for office with or without a letter "C" next to their party affiliation, to show that they swear by oath to carry out the will of the constitutional convention once it is done.
#5
Tale of Two Cities -It depicts the plight of the French American peasantry under the demoralization of the French Democrat aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former Democrat aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and a number of unflattering social parallels with life in London San Francisco during the same time period (hence the work's title). It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events, most notably Charles Darnay, a French American Republican once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Sydney Carton, a dissipated British San Francisco barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette.
#6
Hint - there's a reason it's titled the UNITED STATES of America. Centralization of power, regulation, and taxing are unsustainable over the long haul for a country the size of the US. Just look at the geometric growth of the national government and its laws and regulations since WWII. There is no perfect. You divide responsibility and authority, and shove execution to the lowest level of government. There will be shortcomings and failures, but not on the grand scale the we are witnessing with the centralization. California is the model of attracting and then repelling that mitigates across 50 state boundaries. Pick and choose those things that work, avoid those things that don't. However, it doesn't take everyone down at once. The body has the ability to self adjust. It's a feature, not a bug of the federal system. The Socia!ist drive to centralize only makes sure the old democratic system will die. For them, that is a feature, not a bug.
#7
I would be scared out of my socks at the thought of a new constitutional convention. We wouldn't get Madison or Jefferson or Hamilton this time. We'd get the same set of boodlers and mafiosi who're running things now -- while contemptuously ignoring the existing constitution.
Nor am I in favor of third parties. We may have a conservative-libertarian majority, but it's not a 2/3rds majority. So when that majority splits that leaves the pickings to the Dems, who've actually changed very little since the days of the Tweed Gang. The place for the Tea Party is in the primaries, filtering out the crooks and the nut cases and the vanity campaigners.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/12/2009 11:57 Comments ||
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#9
You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority's governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking.
Which is essentially what you had up until the late 1960s (it was really and most sincerely dead by the mid 1980s). It was called 'bipartisanship' or 'civilized politics', a.k.a. "Liberalhawk's Good Old Days", and had the GOP as the permanent minority.
If you hadn't become seduced by the delusion that Obama is a "progressive" and that last year's election represented some kind of historic realignment in favor of "progressive" policies you might have seen this coming
It gets better - there's talk in progressive circles about pushing for 'proportional representation' a la the Germans, the Israelis and the Italians. Supposedly that would allow groups like the Greens a toe-hold, instead of having to weasel their way through the Democrats.
#10
I'm with Fred - it would be a disaster. The best way to fix things is to present better ideas, plans, and win elections. Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2009 1:22 Comments ||
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#11
We'd get the same set of boodlers and mafiosi who're running things now ...
Don't forget the academics and the apparatchiks ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/12/2009 13:25 Comments ||
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#12
Translation: Obama = Epic Fail, time for some feeble excuses.
#13
Just remember the last Constitutional Convention happened after the revolution. That has a tendency to remove the vipers from the nest before the gathering.
#14
Re #7,10 and 11: I fourth the motion to table a constitutional convention. We would not end up with a better constitution than the one we have now. It would be hundreds of pages long, and probably guarantee everything on the wish lists of all the grievance groups in the country.
If you think Obamacare is bad, imagine what it would be like if it were enshrined in the constitution.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/12/2009 4:54 Comments ||
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#15
Agreed on the convention. Progressives won't abide by the current constitution, why would we think a new one would restrain them? A convention would only give them a new opportunity to wreck America.
When someone starts to call for revolution make sure you verify who the "leaders" are. It can be a scary wake-up call. Our Constitution is fine if it were followed but it is up to the individual citizen to insure that it is.
#17
The Republicans need to go into the next election pushing for states rights. Forget the Civil War analogies but hammer home that there are very few things Salt Lake City and San Francisco will agree upon and it is not the Federal governments job (and the political party in power) to force one or the other to accept opinions and laws they find abhorrent.
They also should run on a pledge to eliminate every Czar position. We are not imperialist Russia and the whole concept of people outside the standard balance of power is stupid.
They should also push a balanced budget amendment in time for the 2010 election. Even if they don't get it through they'll get people talking and have a better chance to get it through for 2012.
#18
We're sorry, but only human beings are allowed to comment on Rantburg.
Prejudice, I tell you, prejudice!! You should consider rephrasing it to "biological sophonts."
Getting back to the subject at hand... it's occured to me that Mr. Yglesias is right, but for reasons other than he thinks, or the people here have offered as alternate reasons.
The plain fact of the matter is, in the preferred embodiment of the governmental system the tranzistocracy has been inflicting upon the rest of us, the emperor, or the elected officials, don't really have much power to _create_ freedom or to _do_ things; power is based mainly on the ability to limit things or to deny permission for something to happen.
The Chinese, with a variant of this system that claimed to select the smartest subset of the population to be in charge of running this system, couldn't get it to work well.
What do you think are the chances Obama or Matt Yglesias would be able to succeed where they failed?
...the point of Barack Obama is to dazzle. That's why he got all the magazine covers of him emerging topless from the Hawaiian surf as if his beautifully sculpted pectorals were long-vanished Pacific atolls restored to sunlight after he'd fulfilled his pledge to lower the oceans before the end of his first term. The squealing Obammyboppers of the media seem to have gotten more muted since those inaugural specials hit the newsstands back in late January. His numbers have fallen further faster than those of any other president -- because of where he fell from: As Evan Thomas of Newsweek drooled a mere six months ago, Obama was "standing above the country . . . above the world. He's sort of God." That's a long drop.
The Obama speechwriting team don't seem to realize that. They seem to be the last guys on the planet in love with the sound of his voice and their one interminable tinny tune with its catchpenny hooks. The usual trick is to position their man as the uniquely insightful leader pitching his tent between two extremes no sane person has ever believed: "There are those who say there is no evil in the world. There are others who argue that pink fluffy bunnies are the spawn of Satan and conspiring to overthrow civilization. Let me be clear: I believe people of goodwill on all sides can find common ground between the absurdly implausible caricatures I attribute to them on a daily basis. We must begin by finding the courage to acknowledge the hard truth that I am living testimony to the power of nuance to triumph over hard truth and come to the end of the sentence on a note of sonorous, polysyllabic, if somewhat hollow, uplift. Pause for applause."
It didn't come but once at Oslo last week, where Obama got a bad press for blowing off the King of Norway's luncheon. In Obama's honor. Can you believe this line made it into the speech?
"I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war."
Well, there's a surprise. When you consider all the White House eyeballs that approve a presidential speech, it's truly remarkable that there's no one to scribble on the first draft: "Scrub this, Fred. It makes POTUS sound like a self-aggrandizing buffoon." It's not even merely the content, but the stylistic tics: "I do not bring with me" -- as if I, God of Evan Thomas's Newsweek, am briefly descending to this obscure Scandinavian backwater bearing wisdom from beyond the stars.... Go read the whole thing.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/12/2009 08:51 ||
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#1
with his thin skin this fall from grace could get ugly. I'm stocking up on popcorn from BSkolaut.com
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/12/2009 9:34 Comments ||
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#2
Commodore Frank---Barbara has a HUGE stockpile of popcorn in the ME at a strategically placed forward location. However, with the completion of the new railroad siding at her house, we are no longer overextended on domestic supply. In other words, she can fight a two-front popcorn war without rationing.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/12/2009 2:03 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Obama speechwriting team don't seem to realize that. They seem to be the last guys on the planet in love with the sound of his voice and their one interminable tinny tune with its catchpenny hooks. The usual trick is to position their man as the uniquely insightful leader pitching his tent between two extremes no sane person has ever believed: "There are those who say there is no evil in the world. There are others who argue that pink fluffy bunnies are the spawn of Satan and conspiring to overthrow civilization. Let me be clear: I believe people of goodwill on all sides can find common ground between the absurdly implausible caricatures I attribute to them on a daily basis. We must begin by finding the courage to acknowledge the hard truth that I am living testimony to the power of nuance to triumph over hard truth and come to the end of the sentence on a note of sonorous, polysyllabic, if somewhat hollow, uplift. Pause for applause."
