Reasons Behind Palin’s Resignation

There are many reasons for Palin’s resignation, and this decision is much more complicated thanone simple explanation.

First, Palin was not going to run for re-election. Her prospects for the remainder of her governorship were not particularly promising either. There was a lame duck congress, and she wouldn’t be able to enact policies that she wanted. Her old position was essentially worthless, as she could have little remaining influence in Alaska.

Second, she wished to leave the media spotlight. It is well known that the media had been unfair to her. This is  perhaps an understatement. During her presidency, she was smeared as ignorant, uneducated, and radical. Saturday Night Live was most people’s first impression of her. This break from governorshiop will give her an opportunity to remake her image.

Third, many believe Palin wants a run in the 2012 Presidential Election. This, however, is not confirmed. There is a possibility that she will retire after this and return to a private life. Most don’t believe this though. Palin was a uniting factor for the Republican Party during the election last year. Some even consider her to be the face of the Republican Party.

Palin’s future is in question. The next few days will likely show Palin’s intentions, and possibly reveal any other motifs behind this sudden resignation.

Cap and Trade Bill Passes the House

Though it was only by 7 votes, the cap and trade scheme has finally been approved.

Let’s look at the facts. Cap and Trade has not significantly reduced Carbon emissions in any country that it has been enacted in. It has never created more jobs than it has lost, and it has never amounted to more than a tax on a harmless gas. All the taxes assessed by Cap and Trade will inevitably be passes onto the consumer. Gas prices will skyrocket again, and the cost of virtually everything will increase.

Despite this fact, Barack Obama believes that this bill will actually create jobs. Says Obama, “This is a jobs bill”. According to CNN, Obama believes that this bill will actually create “millions of new jobs” [1]. Perhaps Obama needs a quick economics lesson: When the cost of everything increases and wages remain the same, aggregate demand is less, because consumers cannot afford to buy as much as before.

What Obama thinks though is that this bill will cause some sort of quick change to a cleaner United States, because as the costs of “dirty” products increase, the public is more likely to buy less “dirty” products. However, it is not that simple.

Those “dirty” products include gasoline, oil, natural gas, and coal. These products are currently the main contributors to the power grid in the United States. There is no true “green” alternative source of energy. Biofuels and biodiesels are not profitable without massive amounts of subsidies. Solar energyand Wind energy combined constitute less than half of 1 percent of energy production and are impractical to expand to even 5 percent. Hydroelectricity can not expand much more either, as there can only be so many dams on a river while maintaining high energy efficiency.

So, ultimately, this Cap and Trade Program is a massive energy tax. As energy costs increase for all americans in the face of a recession, how is the little guy that Obama was going to protect going to make his next house payment?

This bill has not yet passed the Senate, so there is still hope for the American economy.

[1]  http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/26/house.energy/index.html

Understanding the Logic of Dismissing Facts Regarding a Potential Missile Threat

Why is the U.S. government “downplaying” the North Korean missile threat?

The Japanese believe that North Korea plans to fire a missile at Hawaii on July 4th. They probably did have plans to do this, but according to the U.S. Intelligence Committee, there is no threat of such missile attacks. This is probable for several reasons.

• The U.S. is aware of a possible attack
• N. Korea knows that the U.S. is aware, as this intelligence has been published to the internet [1]
• The U.S. is preparing to defend potential attacks [3]
• This is also available on the internet [1]

So, what would be the advantage of an attack? Should N. Korea try to clear the Pacific of Hawaii, they’d be badly embarassed by our missile defense systems. N. Korea knows this, so an attack is unlikely.

However, this is not the only extent of the Korean missile threat. The North Korean government announced that it would be testing more missiles near the Sea of Japan between June 24th and July 9th [1]. What is also interesting about this is that N. Korea announced today that it plans to eliminate the United States [2].

Another interesting fact about the situation in Korea is that the U.N. Security Counsel has asked to search North Korean ships and that North Korea responded by saying that it would consider such an inspection to be an act of war [2].

War seems eminant, but the United States is prepared to repel any potential attack. All that remains is for the public to remain calm, and it seems that the best way to do this is to downplay it.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/24/us.north.korea/index.html

[2] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,528880,00.html

[3] http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/19/us.nkorea/index.html

Iran’s Facade of Democracy

Iranian Democracy Is Like Fascism: The People Are Told What to Believe Happened

Iran’s government (ran by Ahmadinejad) declared Ahmadinejad the winner of the election with 85% of the vote count… Many of the members of the West have voiced skepticism. Says a Republican Representative from California,

There appears to be pretty good evidence that this is a cooked election

He is justified in saying this, as supporters of declared runner-up Mir Hossein Mousavi are now seen protesting and rioting in the streets of Iran. Mir Hossein Mousavi has declared himself the landslide victor and popular belief is that the election result has been tainted. 

I believe it is a fair conclusion to declare that Iranian Democracy is corrupt. It is, perhaps, also fair to say that something must be done. The United Nations has not taken any steps to rectify the situation, and as violence in Iran increases, the situation can only get worse.

Sources:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/13/official-obama-administration-skeptical-irans-election-results/

http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/06/13/iran-election-the-regime-cracks/

Government Intervenes With Over 9 Trillion in Spending: Will this help?

Or will it end all hopes of recovery?

According to CNN, the government has allocated over$ 9,542,000,000,000 with the intention of stimulating the economy. The large majority of this money is trying to stabilize banks and “make credit more accessible”. The logic behind this is that in times of economic growth, interest rates are low.

However, interest rates cannot sink below inflation rates without massive bank failure. This is because the rate at which the real value of loans decreases due to inflation and the rate at which the real value of loans increase due to interest balance when these rates are equal. So, banks can only make wealth when their interest rates are higher than the inflation rates.

We should now realize that the intervention in our banking industry will NOT help the banks, but rather cause permanent damage. While curing temporary illness, the government has injected a poison: inflation. With an approaching fivefold increase in total currency in circulation and with artificial competition in the banking industry, not only will inflation rates increase rapidly, but banks will not be able to raise interest rates to keep up.

The federal government has already applied regulations that will prevent the banking industry from increasing suddenly and steeply. The result of this will be bank failure, followed by hyper inflation and ridiculous interest rates, and then ultimately the fall of the global economy.

It is a sad thing to predict, but no other result can come from this print-and-spend government and its attempted control of the credit market.

We’ve Been Duped: Iranians Test Launch Longest Range Missile Yet

The Iranians now have missiles capable of traveling 1200 to 1500 miles.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates reports that the missile was successfully tested. He says that the missile fired was a relatively short range missile, when compared with other missiles that Israel is said to have.

Secretary of State Clinton claims that Iran’s nuclear capabilities are a serious threat. But more importantly, what does this mean? It means we’ve been duped. For several years, we bough the lies that Iran was developing nuclear warheads for nuclear energy. We’ve been tricked into believing that Iran is some harmless ally. And for some reason, we believed it.

Perhaps the press manipulated this story to keep the population calm. I haven’t seen the press claiming that they are a serious threat at all. This event wasn’t really headline news…

Iran continues to be lethal, and it seems that no amount of negotiation will get them to change their minds.

Democrat-Controlled Legislatures Affirm Bill to Allow Conceiled Carry in National Parks

The Senate voted 67-29 and the House voted 279-147 for this bill.

While this seems a wonderful headline, it was simply an add-in compromise to get a bill regulating the credit card industry passed. This gun rights for regulation trade seems fair to the NRA, but even these new gun rights seem to worry the National Rifle Association. Says a spokesman for the NRA, “anything can happen”. This spokesman anticipates some “ghost” in the bill that may restrict or prevent this new expansion of ownership rights.

The NRA may fear some trick in the bill, but there isn’t much else to fear from this newly passed legislation, which also “cracks down” on credit card fees. It entails regulations that keep companies from issuing 18 year-olds credit cards and that keeps credit card companies from “double-cycling” and increasing interest rates as they please.

While such regulations are seemingly harmless, more are said to come. The purpose of these regulations is to soften the legislature for a more burdensome “salvo”.

Seeing as more regulations are coming, when this next round comes, we must do our best to fight it.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/20/house.guns/index.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_credit_cards

Obama’s Approval Rating Rather Stagnant

Contrary to popular belief, Obama’s approval rating has not fallen much.

According to Real Clear Politics (1), Obama’s approval rating has only fallen from 63.3% on January 27th to 62.2% today.

Perhaps people have became apathetic. Sinse the election, most of the Obama supporters have not changed their minds. However, from the same dates used earlier, his disapproval rating has increase by over 50% (from 20% to 30.4%). Despite this, Obama’s approval rating has not changed. It was only below 60% for one day (March 4th).

We can make several inferences from this data. First, we can conclude that many of the people who had been open to Obama’s policies changed their mind. Second, we can conclude that most of Obama’s supporters are either apathetic towards government and politics or strong followers of his ideology. Finally, we can conclude that the press that most of this majority receives is still proudly endorsing Obama.

These statistics, if nothing else, show that people like to just close their eyes and pretend nothing is happening, even though they’ve been set up for hyperinflation and an evegrowing debt.

(1) http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html