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Jobs and Iran and ClimateGate, oh my!
A lot has been going on in the world lately and I've been wanting to write about it. A blank word processing document has been open on my desktop for days now, residing behind Safari pages, but only now do I feel compelled to write something. The topics of interest have been jobs, the stock market, and the economy; Iran, Afghanistan; Obama, Congress, and ClimateGate. This is a busy time of year so it's hard to keep up. To keep things simple, I'd just like to list the topics with a brief comment on each.
Jobs, Market, Economy
The new unemployment numbers came out today and they were much better than expected. Only 11,000 jobs were lost in November and the unemployment rate declined to 10%, down from 10.2% in October. Job losses for a couple of preceding months were revised downward. The trend is certainly encouraging but it'll be a while before we're out of the woods.
The stock market reacted by surging upward in early trading, only to settle down to a modest gain. Two things are going on here. Some investors may wish to sell stocks that are performing well to raise cash before the end of the year plus there could be some tax loss selling of underperforming stocks. The other thing that's going in is the fear that an improving employment picture could hasten the day when the Fed starts raising interest rates. Investors look 6 to 9 months down the road so if they see a chance that rates will rise within that time period, they'll start looking for the exit. That tendency also has something to do with the carry trade. Any fear of a US interest rate increase will send the market down. Until now, it was thought that the Fed wouldn't begin to raise rates until 2011 but now it looks like that could happen in Q3 or Q4 of 2010.
The economy is doing great and those little green shoots will flower in the spring. Mmm, hmm, yeah, right. Looking ahead, what's on the horizon? Higher taxes, higher cost of living, higher inflation rates, higher interest rates, and high unemployment rates through 2012. There will probably be a lower stock market in the second half of 2010. Yep, lots to look forward to. At least the Democrats made the death tax permanent at 45% for estates $3.5m or $7m for a couple. Tax you to death and then tax you even more afterwards.
Iran, Afghanistan
Iran is becoming an increasing danger by the day. Negotiations thus far have failed and there's no hope on the horizon that anything will work. Iran remains defiant and has vowed to accelerate efforts to produce enriched uranium. They are trying to make both uranium and plutonium bombs in a double-track effort and have succeeded in simulating a nuclear warhead detonation, a major milestone. There's no way to stop them with sanctions short of blockading the Strait of Hormuz and that'd be tantamount to war anyway.
One way or another, Iran cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Any short term consequences of an attack would be well worth the price considering the long term consequences.
Well, our president finally made the commitment to sending more tops to Afghanistan but they'll take most of a year to get there and then they're supposed to come home 6 months later, mission accomplished. Um, sure. He's the decider, alright. Iran has a big influence there and is supplying arms to the bad guys but let's pretend that isn't happening, okay?
Obama, Congress, and ClimateGate
The president is going to Copenhagen in a couple of weeks, later than planned, in an effort to get things going with an oppressive climate agreement. Oppressive? How is it oppressive, you might ask? It's oppressive in that it creates a tyrannical body that will impose taxes on rich nations so that poorer nations can have money to deal with pollution. Talk about redistribution of wealth. Obama is drooling over that possibility, especially considering that his only legislative effort was a global poverty tax that would have sent nearly a trillion taxpayer dollars to the UN over 10 years as a percentage of GNP (gross national product) in addition to the foreign aid we're already giving.
All of this has to do with the notion of anthropogenic global warming. Filthy human beings and nasty bad corporations are producing such a volume of greenhouse gases that we're causing the planet to heat up at a phenomenal rate. That heat will melt the ice caps and inundate low lying populated areas, forcing massive human migration. Only one little problem with that scenario: it's all based on a lie. There has been no warming trend for the past 150 years. Michael Mann's "hockey stick" chart that Al Gore used in "An Inconvenient Truth" is an outright deception. The formula used to generate it would generate the same hockey stick pattern if you substituted white noise in the equation. Fact is, we're in a cooling trend, a temperature decline. It was warmer in the early 1940s. The current cooling trend is probably due to the lack of sunspot activity for an extended period of time.
The decline in temperatures was hidden by a group of climate scientists and the truth came out when thousands of documents were released with a FOIA request and then made public. Even the IPCC thinks this is an important issue to investigate because it's apparent that a giant hoax has been uncovered. Obama and the Democratically controlled Congress are all set to diminish our sovereignty and our treasury in the name of global warming when the whole thing is based on a lie. It's outrageous, treasonous, and completely unnecessary. By all means, reduce pollution and increase energy efficiency but do it in a way that improves the economy, not in a way that destroys it.
There are numerous sources of information on ClimateGate but here are a few:
MAKE THIS VIRAL: NUTSHELL EXPLANATION OF CLIMATE HOAX SCANDAL « HillBuzz
Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation - Telegraph
Climategate – by Andrew Walden | FrontPage Magazine
The Strata-Sphere » Who Is HARRY_READ_ME?
EDITORIAL: Universities take action on Climategate - Washington Times
East Anglia CRU: welcome to the Piltdown Institute of Mann-made Global Warming – Telegraph Blogs
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Nicely done.
Random thoughts: While I welcome any decline in unemployment, however small, one swallow doth not a summer make. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is just the beginning but won't be setting off firecrackers just yet.
The markets: I arrived at the conclusion long ago that the markets, both stocks and commodities, are beyond the grasp of John Q. Between legal manipulation and illegal insider trading it seems the markets don't necessarily bear any relationship to reality. I stand in awe of those who do understand them.
I hadn't realized the estate tax was made permanent. Note to self--keep up, creep! I don't expect much hue and cry to be raised here because, after all, it won't hit anyone but the rich right now. How long, I wonder, will it be before that threshold starts creeping down?
As for Iran and Afghanistan, I don't think anything we can do will fix the latter and I expect Israel will take care of the former, as they did with Iraq's nuclear ambitions.
Global warming? From my perspective this is a misnomer. We do see climate change but that's been happening since time immemorial. Loss of the ozone layer and melting of the polar ice caps are well-documented. What's at issue is the cause. Common sense tells me almost seven billion people can't exist on our big blue marble without having some effect on it. But what that effect is remains clouded by conflicting analyses, not to mention conflicting interests.
Trying to make sense of all this is frustrating. The temptation is to throw up your hands and say, "I give up!" I hope people don't do that. Abdicating our responsibility to pay attention will get us exactly what we deserve.
GONE FISHING
Something interesting about that ozone hole thing: the hole is closing and that's making the ice cap melt faster. Ironic, no? Ban CFCs to save the ozone, the hole gets smaller over Antarctica, and the ice melts. That's causing winds to shift, affecting the climate. Maybe we need to put CFCs back into aerosol cans and refrigerant.
thanks. how the heck do you find this stuff?
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GONE FISHING