If you’re running for office and want to make a pragmatic choice which one should you pick? So if someone picks the one with least support it; that cannot be a cynical calculated move, right? With some simple analysis there are reasons for Republicans to pick the third one. As Republican budget plans currently include tax cuts for the richest Americans and cuts in social programs designed to help the poorest Americans. As rich people are outnumber by poor people, Republicans cannot directly run on this. Democrats realizing that they do not want to lose on this one issue particularly in red states, often choose the most popular of the three positions. Democratic voters usually don’t put this issue as a high priority. Republican politicians seem to take whatever position suits them, see Rick Perry realizing he needed more support from evangelicals. Or VA Governor Robert F. McDonnell either he is moderating his position or he allowed himself to misunderstood for 20 years for political benefit. Based on this there is only one conclusion I can draw: Republican politicians don’t really care about this issue either. For many of them, the Legality of Abortion just another wedge issue to cause people to vote against their economic interests. This issue works perfectly as a wedge for Republics, because the people who are against them would not vote for a Pro-Choice Republican anyway. And if you threw-up in your mouth reading this, then you understand this issue perfectly.
Source: gallup.com
As gas prices have been unusually high inventory of crude oil have also been rising.
Data on crude oil inventory is available here: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCESTUS1&f=W
This combination of price increases and inventory increases at the same time defies tradition market explanations of supply and demand. According to Barak Obama, this points to market manipulation. Mr. Obama wants to set an oversight board to correct this issue. However I think it makes more sense to close all the loopholes leftover from the Eron era that allow for rampant speculation. According to Forbes speculation may be adding $23.39 to the price of a barrel of oil.
By the way, Iran’s sanctions do not justify price increases as Saudi Arabia is covering the missing oil.
Source: foxbusiness.com
The party of fiscal responsibility is a title that the Republicans seceded during the Bush administration. Two recent issues put before the senate, both had popular support and both would have reduced the deficit in a small way (a petite 4 to 5 billion dollars a year each). First was eliminating $4 billion in oil subsidies. Yes, it is popular and was voted down mostly by Republicans. The second was the Buffet rule, it is popular, and it was voted down mostly by Republicans. Meanwhile Barack Obama continues to propose reducing the Federal budget and increasing taxes to balance the budget. And his almost certain opponent, Mitt Romney, has a secret plan to cut spending and cut taxes. So I guess Democrats are now the serious fiscal conservatives. Weird huh?
Source: apollsteronpolling.com
Are taxes high in the US? At least compared to other industrialized countries, no they are not. This is what happens when revenue is not tethered to expenditures. We get low tax rates, and high spending resulting a high deficits. This decoupling under the Bush Administration lead from budget surpluses to trillion dollar deficits. The US did not get into this with any one decision it took 2 wars, 3 tax cuts, rebate checks to tax payers, and creating or continuing tax breaks for several industries. Many people such as myself where hoping by this point, Barrak Obama would have led us to a near balanced budget, that has not happened yet. This imbalance is what led to the US credit downgrade, and only the possibility of raising revenue keeps it from getting worse. In light of all this data, how can we take a Paul Ryan budget seriously that wants further review cuts without specifically listing matching spending cuts?
Source: stats.oecd.org
From 1981 in a paper called “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” published in the journal Science. This very early paper on global warming was strongly predictive and projects delta+4C by 2100 ce (also in line with current projections). It also provides a very detailed explanation of how global temperature change was discovered and analyzed. Several gasses are examined not just CO2. As interesting from a math models perspective as from a climate science one. The who paper explains the part of the “global cooling” errors.
Source: news.slashdot.org
Oil subsidies are not popular and will be with us for at least 1 more year. I think the government should almost never subsidize an industry. When the government subsidizes it takes money from working people and spends it to pick winners and losers in the market. The exceptions for me are when short term market interests go against long term US interests, or when market results are socially unacceptable. And some of these subsidies individually make sense. Still for the most part I would like to see these hand outs phased out. The source article is from ethanol.org and is trying to make the argument that ethanol subsidies are small compared to oil subsidies. There is a list of 26 state oil subsidies, which I may write a future post on. If you want to end big oil subsidies too click here.
Source: ethanol.org
Wind Map of the Continental US. Wind is often listed along with solar as the cleanest energy sources. However, the wind doesn’t always blow and 50-60% of electrical energy is baseline (always needed). Also as you can see many of the strongest lines are far from population centers. So using them will involve upgrading the power grid. There is no perfect solution to the energy crisis, but wind is renewable and domestic.
Source: gu.com
A check list to increase your MPG TODAY. Most of these things involve buying nothing. Many people think they have little or no control over their fuel cost but there are several things people can do to save a little bit of money without changing where they drive or what they drive. Warning: may cause Nempimania.
Source: knol.google.com
