ledeagenda.com

More proof of Obama’s NWO agenda.

From The Washington Times:

Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for “global governance” and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.

By Thursday, Mrs. Browner’s name and biography had been removed from Socialist International’s Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group’s congress in Greece was still available.

Socialist International, an umbrella group for many of the world’s social democratic political parties such as Britain’s Labor Party, says it supports socialism and is harshly critical of U.S. policies.

The group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, the organization’s action arm on climate change, says the developed world must reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Obama, who has said action on climate change would be a priority in his administration, tapped Mrs. Browner last month to fill a new position as White House coordinator of climate and energy policies. The appointment does not need Senate confirmation.

Mr. Obama’s transition team said Mrs. Browner’s membership in the organization is not a problem and that it brings experience in U.S. policymaking to her new role.

“The Commission for a Sustainable World Society includes world leaders from a variety of political parties, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair, in serving as vice president of the convening organization,” Obama transition spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

“Carol Browner was chosen to help the president-elect coordinate energy and climate policy because she understands that our efforts to create jobs, achieve energy security and combat climate change demand integration among different agencies; cooperation between federal, state and local governments; and partnership with the private sector,” Mr. Shapiro said in an e-mail.

Mrs. Browner ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton. Until she was tapped for the Obama administration, she was on the board of directors for the National Audubon Society, the League of Conservation Voters, the Center for American Progress and former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection.

Her name has been removed from the Gore organization’s Web site list of directors, and the Audubon Society issued a press release about her departure from that organization.

WaPo: We’re Borrowing Like Mad. Can the US Pay It Back?

Yes, default is unlikely. But it is no longer unthinkable. Thanks to the advent of credit derivatives — financial contracts that allow investors to speculate on or protect against default — we can now observe how likely global markets think it is that Uncle Sam will renege on America’s mounting debts. Last week, markets pegged the probability of a U.S. default at 6 percent over the next 10 years, compared with just 1 percent a year ago. For technical reasons, this is not a precise reading of investors’ views. Nonetheless, the trend is real, and it is grounded in some pretty fundamental concerns.

The most important is the coming surge in the federal debt. At the end of the last fiscal year, in September, the total public debt held by the American people (excluding debt issued to the Social Security Trust Fund or held by the Federal Reserve) stood at $5.8 trillion, or 41 percent of gross domestic product — about what the debt-to-GDP ratio has averaged since 1956. But the Congressional Budget Office projects deficits of $1.9 trillion over the next two years. Add almost $800 billion of stimulus spending, and U.S. debt soars to 60 percent of GDP by 2010 — the highest level since the early 1950s, when the nation was working off its World War II and Korean War debts.

The other major cause for concern is that the federal government has taken on massive “contingent liabilities” — loans and guarantees that don’t become actual costs until the borrower defaults and the federal guarantee has to be honored. For example, Washington has purchased $45 billion of preferred stock of Citigroup but has also agreed to backstop up to about $240 billion of its losses. Bianco Research, a Chicago financial research firm, puts the total of such contingent liabilities (as of Dec. 29) at more than $8 trillion. The U.S. government won’t shell out anything close to that, of course; it may not pay out any money and might even turn a profit. But the worse the economy gets, the more likely it is that some of those contingent liabilities will become actual liabilities.

But my favorite part of the whole article:

Now, one reason the United States should not have to default is that, in a pinch, it can print the money it needs to pay off its debt. In practice, it would not literally print dollar bills; rather, the Federal Reserve would purchase its bonds. Still, the effect is the same: The Fed, by “monetizing” government debt, would create vast new supplies of dollars to chase the same goods and services and thus also create inflation.

Wonderful. Looks like the MSM has finally picked up on what Ron Paul has been talking about for years. Only now we need to ask ourselves, is it too late?

From the Times Online:

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres. However, with more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern. A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines - about 2% of global CO2 emissions. “Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” said Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power.

They want to shutter the internet because it gives us back the control. That it why they want the Fairness Doctrine for blogs. That is why they want to disproportionately target tech companies for “green taxes”. The reality is that the internet is the last bastion of free speech, if they can force control over it they can accelerate their plans unchecked.

Infowars.com: More Evidence Of A Pentagon War On The Internet, Setting Up Government-Controlled “Internet 2″.

Reuters- Newspapers seek government aid

Seattle Times- Steel industry hopes and changes

Seattle Times- Commercial Real Estate developers cry

First Coast- Retailers want bailout pie served with tax holidays

Sigh.

I think it’s time to hit the reset button.

WaPo: Bush To Provide Emergency Loans To The Big Three

This, as Heritage notes, despite the fact that the law established the TARP funds does not authorize it:

More problematic, Treasury lacks the statutory authority to direct TARP dollars to the automakers. While the statute, passed by Congress in October, grants the secretary extremely broad discretion to decide how to employ the funds, it clearly limits the recipients to “financial institutions.” And the definition of that term is quite clear:

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION- The term ‘financial institution’ means any institution, including, but not limited to, any bank, savings association, credit union, security broker or dealer, or insurance company, established and regulated under the laws of the United States or any State, territory, or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, or the United States Virgin Islands, and having significant operations in the United States, but excluding any central bank of, or institution owned by, a foreign government.

This doesn’t leave much room for interpretation.

But I guess we don’t need to follow written laws due to the “extreme economic emergency” now do we?

Washington Times:

The government’s spending commitments exploded by 25 percent in 2008, putting taxpayers more than $1 trillion in the hole even before the astronomical costs of the economic bailout were taken into account, according to an annual report released Monday by the White House.
…
The report showed that U.S. debts and liabilities are close to passing the value of the U.S. population’s net worth, said Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting fiscal responsibility.

“The value of this report is that it shows the long-term cost of expensive commitments we are making today,” said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation.

“The government makes a lot of commitments that cost a little in the short run but a lot in the long run, and this document is one of the only government documents that show the long-term cost of the long-term commitments,” Mr. Riedl said. “What it shows is that future trends are completely unsustainable because the government has promised more benefits than the taxpayers can pay for.”

CNN: 6 in 10 Americans oppose the bailout of the Big 3 automakers

I guess us “smelly” voters are too stupid to be taken seriously.

I posted this on Sept 8th:

Even though the Big Three auto-makers:

1) Make cars with MPG that people do not want to drive

2) Charge more than people want to spend

3) Have less quality than their overseas competitors (this in my mind is their biggest hinderance)

4) Refuse to address labor union contracts as their biggest source of financial difficulty

5) Insistently package add-ons (such as OnStar or GPS devices) that people don’t really want or need in their autos (which in turn increases the price even more).

6) Refuse to listen to market demands for smaller autos and hybrid technology

No, apparently now Detroit is “too big to fail” (ala Fannie Mae).

As every conservative and constitutionalist warned: the massive rush of nationalizing our economy has begun thanks to government meddling in our formerly free economy.

The free market must work. One of the greatest heists in history is happening right before our eyes. The taxpayers and their children are the ones that will be burdened with the debt of nationalization when this is all said and done.

I am not anti-Detroit. I am pro-free market. The Big 3 are hobbled by their own decisions to tolerate the ridiculous labor contracts that were pushed on them. Chapter 11 bankruptcy would offer them the best chance to shed themselves of failed business models. Yes, it may mean that one or two of them don’t survive, but that is the price of freedom, of liberty.

Detroit failed on numerous fronts: bad labor contracts, bad products, failure to listen to market demands. They failed to produce profits and sales because they deliberately chose to undervalue market trends and plan for the future. When you are paying wages at nearly three times the rate as your competitor the market will catch up to you at some point. Detroit failed to position itself in the market via quality or exclusivity to be able to overcompensate for their labor deals.

Why should the taxpayers foot their bill for the North American Auto Workers Union? We shouldn’t. There is no constitutional basis for supporting failed business models. The constitution does allow for congress to write the rules of bankruptcy, which they have done. The constitution demands a market free of bailouts and government interference. It is time to follow the model of listed Federal authority and maneuver Detroit through bankruptcy.