![Environmentalism: A Cult with a Ponzi Scheme]()
by Steven Waechter | Jul 11, 2011
A long time ago, somebody figured out that people were afraid of nature. With this realization, our subject set out to carve a statue of a woman with a horned head dress, and declared the idol to be Ninhursag, the goddess of the earth. Our carver then set about convincing people that if they brought their best wheat, their best grapes, and their best lambs and calves to sacrifice to the goddess then they will be blessed with plenty and the grace of the divine goddess will rain down upon them, but if they refused they would be cursed with pestilence.
And thus the people, rending their garments and lamenting of their fear of the weather and their invented devil gods, brought their best produce to their idols, making themselves poorer and their lives more difficult all out of superstition and fear of their world.
It grew into dogma – everybody knew that sacrifices to the idols was a necessary step to ensure survival of the community and the individual alike.
Of course, modern humanity has advanced light-years beyond these petty superstitions. We don’t fear natural phenomena; we fear a chemical element – carbon.
Enter the global climate change movement, who has informed us that driving cars, using electricity and having children (or as Prince Philip called them, Carbon Bombs,) are all causing massive expulsions of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, and that if it continued, the seas would rise, hurricanes and other storms would run rampant, crops would wilt and famine would choke all the lands everywhere.
It has turned into a dogma – everybody knows that carbon dioxide from human activity will destroy all the world with global warming and floods, droughts, heat, cold, etc…
Therefore we the peasants must be constrained in our “carbon footprints,†with higher taxes on gasoline, electricity, natural gas, food, clothing, babies and every other trapping of ordinary life.
So, instead of sacrificing your standard of living to a god, you can sacrifice your standard of living to government.
Of course, if you feel uniquely guilty about your existence, you can sacrifice a larger portion of your income through the purchase of carbon offsets; plenary indulgences guaranteeing your place in green heaven regardless of what you do in your everyday life, and the carvers of the environmentalist gods are standing ready to accept your offering.
They also have no more power over the climate as the carved idols of primitive cultures, but they will take your hard-earned wealth if they can convince you that your sacrifices are for the greater good by means of gratifying the new climate goddess.
The environmentalist cult has even threatened “climate change deniers,†going so far as calling for systematic punishment of those who publicly disagree with the climate change agenda. One Australian commentator even called for forcible tattooing of climate change skeptics. Our self-appointed betters aren’t above sending heretics to the dungeons as it turns out.
Under the climate change regime, progress is renamed destruction, poverty assumes the name “sustainable development,†and naturally there are huge profits to be made by the prophets of the new nature worship; and a horde of people line up to sacrifice wealth and liberty out of fear and without receiving anything in return.
So, go surrender your freedom, your mobility, your red meat and your air conditioning to the new Ninhursag if you wish. I’ll burn a pile of tires in honor of Kali the Destroyer, and we’ll see what happens.
by Art Smith | Jul 4, 2011
This morning I am considering “what ifs”.
My father often jokes that had I been born 5 hours earlier, he would have named me Ulysses instead of Arthur. Â That is, I could have been a 4th of July baby with the initials “U.S.”. Â I have been forever thankful that my mom stuck it out long enough to prevent that impediment on my life.
Sometimes I daydream about what would have happened in my life if I had been named Ulysses instead of Arthur. Â I believe I would have developed a very similar personality, but I suspect (mixing my current personality with the name) that I would have found myself running for public office at some level and leveraging my “U.S.” initials as a brand of patriotism.
But today I want to consider some “what ifs” that actually matter. Â Such as what if Washington’s Continental Army completely disintegrated during the march across New England? Â Or was decimated at New York? Â Or never made it across the Delaware? Â As much as we may honor today the patriots who spent their time articulating a fantastic message of freedom from the tyranny of the British King, our standing as a nation would have been seen as a quaint colonial uprising if it had not been for the hard work and sacrifices of the soldiers who fought for our freedoms.
It is entirely likely that the British Realm would have dominated the world in greater glory in the past 235 years. Â The great world wars of the 20th century may never have happened. Â Freedom for slaves may have occurred on a larger scale in the earlier part of the 19th century (recall that the British Kingdom led the world in abolishing slavery, not the United States).
It is hard to deduce the path of technology over the same time period… American inovation has been a factor in developing better processes and our freedoms have been a factor in developing better education and allowing dreamers to work out their dreams. Â And the urgent needs of war (though not a goal of a nation) have certainly led to some valuable inventions. Â I tend to believe that we would, if still a British colony, have a world without iPods or even computers, or televisions, or many of the modern conveniences that we enjoy today. Â We would probably still be populated heavily along the coasts, lacking efficient transportation, and Native Americans could still be holding much of the land in the midwest.
Spain and France could still be holders of large parts of the American continents.
Of course, the Founding Fathers could not have comprehended all that they initiated by standing up for the basic rights of man. Â They were dreamers, and some were fortunate enough to see parts of their dream come to fruition, but despite everything we may think about our current state of affairs, those men who sacrificed everything would doubtless be proud to see what their work has wrought.
Generation upon generation have looked upon the Revolution and subsequent creation of a republic as the cornerstones of our incredibly open society. Â The Constitution is a bulwark that has carried us through our darkest days, and provided over 200 years of bloodless changes in power. Â We should be proud of our ability to work things through as a nation in peace.
We may have concerns today about how the Constitution has been misunderstood by some, abused by others, and ignored at times when it should be the guide for how we make decisions. Â The frustrations grow when it becomes more apparent that our government, which was built to serve the people, appears to be served by the people. Â We must guard against this at every turn.
But the Founders would be proud to see that so many do remember their words, seek faithfully to carry on a free society, and flourish in our freedom. Â What we have today in the United States is more than I think they could have hoped for. Â No matter what one may think about the current state of political affairs, the dream of America continues to burn brightly. Â To the Founders we should be appreciative that they stuck through to the end, and that they sought the hand of Providence in what they did. Â While the structure of our government may be secular, our goals are tied to the will of our Creator who is the provider of the very rights we seek to defend.
by Steven Waechter | Jul 1, 2011
Much attention has been focused on the size of the national debt as a whole; roughly $14.4 trillion. That number is astonishing, but the sheer size of the debt actually hides the true horror which is in store for the economy and future generations.
The debt has many component categories, the largest of which is called Marketable Debt. That means the portion of the debt that was issued in treasury securities that can be sold in the secondary bond market, and it is around $9.2 trillion. The rest is Non-marketable, and held mainly by the Social Security Administration through bonds that cannot be sold.
The Marketable Debt also has its own sub-components, based on the type of security that was sold to incur the debt in the first place. Treasury Bills mature in 1 year or less and accrue interest; Treasury Notes mature in 2, 3, 5, 7 or 10 years, and Bonds mature in 30 years – and the Notes and Bonds pay coupon interest every six months. Each bond is sold at the prevailing interest rate at the time of the sale.
Here is the part that is frightening: Starting under President Clinton, expanding under Bush, and exploding under Obama, the federal government has shifted its borrowing from traditional 30-year Bonds to the shorter term securities.
According to the US Department of the Treasury’s Monthly Statement of Public Debt dated May 31, 2011, of the $9.2 trillion dollars of Marketable Debt, only about $965 billion are 30-year Bonds. More than $6 trillion are on Notes, with maturities ranging from 2 to 10 years, and a whopping $1.5 trillion are on 1-year Bills.
We are running record deficits, so we aren’t paying any of these off when they mature – we just roll them over onto new securities. We’re also adding another $1.6 trillion on to the pile.
Right now the Federal Reserve is fixing interest rates at levels so low that they cannot be maintained forever. When the Fed raised interest rates to more than 20% back in the 1979-82 recession, the Treasury actually sold some bonds at interest rates of 20% or higher. Imagine if interest rates went up to just 10% today, and stayed there for a couple of years. All of those Bills and Notes that mature and are rolled over will roll over to higher interest rates.
The interest payments alone will easily top $700 billion dollars a year, and since the debt is likely to grow further as interest rates go up, the country is likely to pay well over $1 trillion per year in coupon interest alone -which will be financed by the issuance of new Treasury Notes.
Imagine a world where the Army is disbanded, Medicare covers only critical care needs, the Social Security age is retroactively raised to 75, and the all retired government officials lose their pensions because the United States needs to dedicate so much of its budget to paying the interest on the debt. These are politically impossible measures.
The only other way to avoid direct default is to print money – destroying the nation’s economy with hyperinflation but technically making the interest payments, albeit with dollars devalued to near worthlessness. That’s how the Federal Reserve managed to keep interest rates so low up to this point – by buying Treasuries at artificially low interest rates with printed money. That is why Bill Gross of PIMCO dumped every piece of US Treasury paper his hedge fund owned – the returns on these bonds would have been eaten up by inflation.
There it is – either we ruin the dollar or we default. Default is by far the better option; we can restructure our debts to something more manageable. This will ruin our credit rating forever, so future politicians will not be able to run deficits for vote-buying projects and illegal “Kinetic Military Actions,†whatever those are. There are silver linings everywhere.
by John Bloom | Jun 29, 2011
The Des Moines Register’s Editorial on Monday, June 27, 2011 was titled “Steep budget cuts now could harm economyâ€.
Summary – The Register’s Editorial group pointed us once again to the “nonpartisan fiscal agencyâ€, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).  They quoted the CBO’s “dire warning about unsustainable federal deficitsâ€, but cautioned that the report also “warned that steep cuts right now could make the nation’s fiscal condition even worse by kicking the legs out from under the economyâ€.  Also on June 27th, The Wall Street Journal’s front page led off with an article titled “Debt Hamstrings Recoveryâ€[1].  The WSJ’s Tom Lauricella notes “Around the globe, the inability of governments and households to reduce their debt continues to cast a shadow over Western economiesâ€â€¦â€Unlike the aftermath of typical recessions, simply lowering interest rates hasn’t been enough to get growth back on track…Quite the opposite has been the case… The lowered cost of borrowing has enabled individuals and government to delay taking measures to change the way they spend and save.â€
Comment on the DSM Register’s Selective Reporting – I have noticed a pattern of inconsistency in the DSM Register’s and WSJ’s reporting.  Many featured articles in the WSJ, arguably a far more competent source of economic analysis than Gannett’s network, are minimized or never presented in the DSM Register. In addition to the “Debt Hamstring†analysis, another recent example would be the study released by management consultant McKinsey. They surveyed 1,300 companies and found that one third (1/3) of them will “definitely†or “probably†stop offering health insurance after 2014.  Since candidate Obama guaranteed us that we would be able to keep our current insurance, this seems like a worthwhile piece of news. If the DSM Register featured it, I must have overlooked it. I wonder if the nonpartisan CBO is aware of it?
Analysis of the “Spend Now, Save Later Strategyâ€Â - If we were in the position of China, over $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves[2], I would not have a big issue with spending some of those reserves to shore up a short term slump in the economy.  However Government debt as a % of GDP has increased from 30% in the early 2000’s to 35% by the end of the Bush presidency (increasing under both Republican and Democrat congresses). During the Pelosi-Reid-Obama era, that % is now approaching 60%.  Meanwhile consumer debt and mortgage debt has more than doubled since 2000 (from $10 to about $20 trillion combined). Given the state of our debt, any increase in interest rates (almost a certainty the way the Fed has increased the money supply) will quickly multiply the consequences of our excessive debt.   For my entire adult life I have heard politicians claim that we will “save later, when the economy is strongerâ€. That day never comes. The Clinton-Gingrich era budgets were a nice anomaly but were not based on sustainable structural changes. The Register is wrong. We must cut government spending substantially and quickly.
[1] WSJ 27 June 2011, Debt Hamstrings Recovery
[2] WSJ, 26 June 2011, “China Pledges Continued Support for European Debtâ€
![Environmentalism: A Cult with a Ponzi Scheme]()
by Brian Nygaard | Jun 29, 2011
It is now official. The semester is over, and the grades have been posted. Not only has the Obama Administration flunked ECON 101; they have now also summarily flunked FUD 101.
The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial entitled ‘Bumps in the Road,†quoted the chief White House economist Austin Goolsbee as saying “there are always bumps on the road to recovery, but the overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the last two years.†The WSJ goes on to conclude that “The real ‘bumps on the road’ to recovery are these policies and the larger climate of hostility towards job creators that still prevails in Washington.†They compare the massively positive trajectory of the post-recession Reagan administration recovery with the current economic situation. The differences could not be more starkly contradictory.
To listen to the liberal pundits is to conclude that the Obama administration is the victim of past failures and that it is now doing everything it can to save the sinking ship. No one argues that the economy he inherited was other than a mess. The issue is rather that he has done everything in his power to take a very bad situation…and make it infinitely worse. Much of life is “infinitely projectable but for time.†It was infinitely projectable that we would be headed into a downward economic trajectory, contrary to Mr. Goolsbee’s disputations. The only question was how long it would take for the system to crumble under the stress. President Reagan did everything he could to sponsor job creation. President Obama has been absolutely masterful in destroying any hope of a reinvigorated jobs machine.
After the mid-term elections, it was generally thought that a collective sanity was about to return to our political and economic lives. The thinking was that the Democrats had done all the damage they could possibly do, and that they would turn their forward focus towards getting re-elected. The survival instinct would seemingly have indicated that they needed to take their foot off the throat of the economy. But, lo, many of us underestimated their focus on their ideology. Apparently, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
The reckless pursuit of egalitarian ends represents not only a violation of economic growth principles; it also represents a violation of basic human principles. What is now being experienced in the economy, and the pathetic (or completely non-existent) recovery, does not require any understanding of global macro economics. But it does require a base level understanding of the curriculum of FUD 101. Business people understand FUD. The Obama administration, it has now been made clear, simply do not.
FUD (the acronym used to describe any environment of FEAR, UNCERTAINTY and DOUBT), is the mortal enemy of all progress. When these characteristics exist in any human system, people do “what people do†when confronted with FUD…they do absolutely nothing. They keep their heads down. They keep their powder dry. They hold their cards close. They do not “invest in their futures.†The clichés go on indefinitely. The bane of any human existence, personal or institutionally collective, is the presence of unpredictable outcomes. And the Obama administration has created an environment where no one can predict anything with any level of certainty. The capitalist system in this country is under attack, and no one can predict where the next bombing raid might take place. FUD reigns supreme.
Had anyone in the Obama administration ever managed anything outside of the political arena, they would better see the magnitude of the damage they are creating. They would also not be surprised by what is now happening in the private sector. The President himself would not be attempting to use the bully pulpit to “shame†business leaders into hiring additional staff…as their patriotic duty. They would also not be continuing to blame the “situation they inherited†for the current situation. The path to economic recovery was well-documented thirty years ago by the Reagan/Laffer economic team. This same path has been thoroughly documented around the globe in the last several hundred years.  It is really too bad President Obama decided instead to make up his own “experimentally progressive†economic agenda.
All he really needed to do was take just one semester of FUD 101.
