Absolutely Productive

When I saw the FOX “news” interview Don Blankenship of Massey Energy, the largest coal mining company in Kentucky, under title of “The War on Business” I was taken aback. I shouldn’t have been, it is FOX after all, but how low can this company go. The interview was framed as government “intervention” that is somehow keeping Massey from ensuring the coal miners safety. Well, Don, were you keeping coal miners safe when 26 miners died in West Virginia, thousands of others that die of black lung, or 1500 plus safety violations over the past 5 years due to your negligence in the name of increasing production? Oh yeah, you were to busy loving the deregulation left over from the Bush era and the stacking of the MSHA with business cronies. This is the exact same regulatory environment, which FOX wants to keep around, that lead to the Gulf oil spill and he wants to keep putting profits over people without any government “intervention”. Hey Don, when the government is working properly that is exactly what it is suppose to do, act in the interest of the people (for the people, by the people).

The interview continues with Blankenship telling a tall-tail about how Obama wants the cost of fossil fuels to go up so that renewable energy can become competitive. You know who make up conspiracies? People who do not have a true story to tell. The true story is the the breaking up of unions and intimidation of workers, the twisted logic that violations are an everyday occurrence therefore it is fine, and any effort to make a work place safe and equitable is not a “War on Business” it is a war on crooked, greedy corporate interests. What Massey does everyday to the people and environment of Western Kentucky is a crime. Blowing up a mountain, something that cannot be undone, has to be a universal sin.

A lie that has been perpetuated is that we need low cost energy. There are two equally sinister lies in that sentence. First is that there is such thing as low-cost energy in the form of cheap coal. Tell the person that cannot use their well water anymore, or the family who lost a member due to negligence, the negligence that allows for coal to be cheap, or the sicknesses that come with living near the mines that coal is cheap. It comes with a price, and the cost is shoveled on the people who live in Appalachia. The second part of the lie is that we need this fuel. There are other options that don’t require us to destroy our resource, poison our people, and dismember our environment on an every day basis.

If that’s what your selling, Don, then you should be penalized and we should have a war against you. Here’s where we can start. Support representatives the push for renewable energy. Demand your city have a climate action plan. Avoid fossil-fuel whenever you can (this includes using plastics, beauty products as well as the usual carpooling measures). Buy local, often, and as organic as it comes. Donate to the KFTC. And last, but probably the easiest and most important, buy renewable energy. If you live in the Louisville area you can do this with LG&E for just $5.

For more info watch the video and visit KFTC.

Yet another report proving that foreign money is being spent in our election, but what is most interesting is the money has a direct purpose other than simply electing a particular party. This money is meant to actively oppose climate change legislation here in the US. These companies want the ability to say the world should wait for the US while knowing full-well that their compatriots they helped elect are not going to act. CAN Europe has found many foreign businesses funding climate change deniers to help their fight against legislation. It’s pretty wild when some of the largest polluters in the EU can help elect obstructionists in the US, hurting our efforts in the hopes of getting what they want abroad.

an analysis of publicly available campaign finance records, definitively proving that polluting European companies are funding climate legislation blockers in US politics. Their overseas support is all the more galling because the same companies argue that additional emissions reductions in Europe cannot be pursued until the United States takes action.

Here is quote form minority leader McConnel saying that his job is to win elections by stopping the government form doing its job, an indication of which type of candidate foreign money might be looking for. Capital Gains and Games:

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
This is either one of the most off-message quotes in U.S. political history or one of the most important indications of what’s really ahead over the next two years. My guess is that it’s the latter. McConnell is saying that it’s not the economy, jobs, lowering the deficit, or any of the other issues on which the GOP has been campaigning: it’s winning at the next election. Admittedly I’m reading into this, but it seems as if McConnell is saying that if the GOP can prevent anything from being accomplished over the next two year, if he can keep economy in the doldrums, and if he can blame the White House for it all, he will have succeeded.

And he’s not the only one. Many other republicans are running on the “NObama” platform. This is Mike Pence a Republican candidate in Indiana.

Resent studies by groups involved in environmental research show a number of things. First, analysis of new green technology is lacking in data and depth. This is understandable, they are new technologies. It is hard to study human activities and they way products function when there currently is not large adoption of these materials and practices. But that does not mean that the research is not helpful. The more it is done, the more we can find the holes and stop them up. Second, that businesses, including foreign, are taking full advantage of the supreme court ruling allowing for unlimited funding of political candidates, especially the ones wanting to obstruct any form of environmental or economic progress.

Sustainability Metrics: Life Cycle Assessment and Green Design in Polymers finds that biopolymers are dirtier to produce than oil polymers. The thing I liked about the Environmental Leader’s article is it shows the complexity of issues facing green building decisions. This study finds that it takes more energy to make a biopolymer, but the research is lacking in a number of areas. It doesn’t take into account the costs associated with the environmental and human devastation that come from oil drilling and refining. Also, it does not take into account disposal and health risks of the polymers while in use. I would guess if you brought those factors into play the biopolymers, which have a long way to go in their development, would stand up better to a Life Cycle Analysis.

On a similar note, this article from the Environmental Leader discusses a recent report in Business Week that highlights a study which finds that biofules may cause more green house gases than petroleum. Once again, the researchers failed to include a number of factors. They assume current petroleum fueled agriculture practices as appose to sustainable agriculture in the analysis as well as other end uses of spent grain, as in their potential use as feedstock. But perhaps the biggest hole in this study though is its failure to look at cellulosic biofuels that essentially use waste to create fuel.

Then again, who believes research anymore?

Every challenge facing our country today can find at least part of its solution in education. Want to solve the issue of economic competitiveness? Educate our workers, the next generation, and the current workforce. Want to fix our political system? Teach civil engagement and history to our children. And yet we cannot seem to get it right. Actually, each time we try to fix this problem we somehow only make it worse.

In 2009 McKinsey & Co conducted a study, The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools, which illustrates that we dominated in K-12 education in the 50s and 60s, and we also dominated economically. In the 70s and 80s (when Reganism was coming around no less) we started to slow down, and as competition picked up around the world in the 90s we fell behind both in per capita graduates and their quality. The 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, “which measured the applied learning and problem-solving skills of 15-year-olds in 30 industrialized nations, we ranked 25th in math and 24th in science“, and the previously mentioned McKinsey study noted that currently “the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers… They are being prepared for $12-an-hour jobs – not $40 to $50 an hour.”

So what to do? This video has an amazing way to frame this issue and get us back on track – also it’s entertaining.

*Hot, Flat and Crowed by Thomas L Friedman 2009 pg37

The Environmental Leader had a story this week about a Yale study that shows 63% of Americans “believe” in climate change, but even of those, very few understood why it is happening. I am not surprised. Climate change has become as divisive as religion and politics in this country, mostly due to the way it is covered in the media and the misinformation oil-fueled companies spew to confuse the facts (see Americans for Prosperity, a group founded and largely financed by oil industry interests). Even the use of “believe” when referring to climate change is odd. You don’t “believe” in facts – you either accept them or live in denial. And yes, it is a fact, 97% of scientists agree and if you just use some common sense you might some to the same conclusion. If you piss in your lunch box long enough your lunch is going to start tasting funny.

Some of the key findings in the study, Americans’ Knowledge of Climate Change are:

–57 percent know that the greenhouse effect refers to gases in the atmosphere that trap heat
–50 percent of Americans understand that global warming is caused mostly by human activities
–45 percent understand that carbon dioxide traps heat from the Earth’s surface
–25 percent have ever heard of coral bleaching or ocean acidification

What is heartening to me is even with all of the money going into the misinformation machine, the study shows that “Americans trust scientists and scientific organizations far more than any other source of information about global warming.”

Personally I think that climate change denial is a reason to encourage someone to do more research, but also a reason not to vote someone into office. Locally one of mayoral candidates, Hal Hiener, is a climate change denier, which is very similar to his other republican counter parts. 22 of the 37 republican gubernatorial candidates are deniers and with one exception, none of the republicans running for the Senate “believe” that climate change is real. The Tea Party is no different. As the New York Times John Broder notes “skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement”.

Think about this when you vote. Can you trust someone’s judgment to run our country when they ignore scientific fact and common sense, and instead trust oil companies to tell them what impact burning oil without restraint has on our environment and economy? It’s time we stop electing “C” students into office.

This is what I call true American political action. Please watch this video from a student leader and Marine Corps veteran who has challenged Koch Industries’ billionaire CEO Charles Koch to defend his support of Prop 23 which attacks California’s climate and clean energy progress.

Well done, Joel Francis, well done.

DeSmogBlog’s got the story:

Bankrolled with at least $1 million of Kochtopus funding, along with even larger amounts from Texas oil companies Valero Energy and Tesoro Corp. and Ohio-based Marathon Energy, Proposition 23 is on the ballot in California this November, and would set back California’s ambitious efforts to fight climate change and create clean energy jobs.

We all know there are hypocrites in Washington but what about electing more of them? Republicans are running on the economy, saying they will create jobs and cure our governments financial woes. Their talking points and manifestos are lacking in detail but they point to two main paths to do this: repeal ObamaCare and extending the Bush tax cuts. Let’s explore this a little further.

The health care bill lovingly referred to as ObamaCare is huge in its size and scope. Some on the left say it did not go far enough and most on the right say it went to far, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) talks only in terms of tax payer dollars. The CBO, Washington’s toughest scorekeeper, says the overhaul will cut the deficit by more than a trillion dollars over 20 years. So, by repealing the heath care bill the Republicans will effectively add another trillion to our national debt nearly doubling where we are now. That doesn’t sound like reducing our debts does it? Well, maybe they are talking about the tax cuts.

By definition cutting taxes increases the deficit. Be clear, Obama is not letting all of them expire. He’s keeping the tax cuts for 95% of Americans and small businesses, but the GOP wants the tax cuts for the richest few to be made permanent, which will add another $366 Billion to the deficit this year. Right now you’re saying that it’s okay, reducing taxes makes investments cheaper so business will grow and more than replace the loss of tax revenue. I wish it were that simple. Taxes are a very nuanced subject and have to be approached as such. The problem is high national debt equals higher interest rates and economist have shown that the Bush tax cuts have raised the cost of making new investments, in the end hurting business. I talk more about taxes in my last post More Taxes Does Not Destroy Jobs – Maybe The Opposite.

Then I guess all we have left to stand on is history. Have the Republicans in the past increased national prosperity or have they just shifted the burden of society on to the general public, keeping the money in big pockets and socializing costs? According to the Chrstian Science Monitor’s Ron Scherer:

When Congress passed the tax relief act in 2001, the US Treasury had a surplus, which economists predicted would grow to $5.6 trillion 10 years down the road. Instead, the United States has an estimated deficit this year of $1.34 trillion. If the federal government extends all those tax cuts this fall and takes no other actions, America could be looking at $9 trillion or $10 trillion in accumulated red ink over the next decade.

So the last Democratic presidency balanced the budget and a Republican came in and screwed it all up. Now Obama has reduced the deficit by $125 billion while dealing with the worse economic mess since 1930 (left to him by a Republican) and these supposedly re-born-again-Republicans are telling you they will fix the budget better than the next guy by adding another $11 trillion to it over a decade?

That is the thing about lies, mis-statements, and non-truths; saying it just doesn’t make it so, but it sure does confuse a lot of people.

This election cycle we are hearing the age-old tale of the job that was not created or was destroyed because the burden of taxes was too much for the employer to handle. But that is a big red herring anyway. No one is talking about raising taxes on business, as far as I know. There is some talk of creating the Carbon Tax or a Cap and Trade system for carbon, but the exact same thing was done for sulfur dioxide in the 1970s and 90s and our economy never did better. What politicians are talking about is raising the taxes on the richest few and here’s how that argument plays out. You start increasing peoples’ taxes and they will stop working so hard. Stan Collender of Capital Gains and Games gives us a brief history lesson.

It has been a staple of GOP political rhetoric ever since, during his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan very effectively used the completely unproven story about his deciding not to do any more movies in years when his income got to certain levels because it would have put him into a higher tax bracket to convince people that taxes should be cut.

It’s not at all clear to me that not having another movie featuring Ronald Reagan was bad for the country, the economy, or U.S. culture. It’s also not clear to me that the movie Reagan say he didn’t want to do because of the tax rates wasn’t made anyway with some other — and possibly much better — actor. In other words, the country as a whole, movie theaters and distributors, and movie watchers in particular were not necessarily worse off in any way because Reagan may have decided not to make another movie.

Oh Regan, the more I learn about you the more it seems you set the ball-a-rollin’ that led to the mess we are in. Who cares if the richest few will not take a job? If anything, it points out the fact that they have everything they need to survive nicely and as an added bonus it would leave more jobs open for the middle class. So, in a sense it would create jobs.

Another argument is that the richest few would otherwise spend the money on investments and create jobs. First of all, they save more money than any other tax group. If you want the money to be spent, give it to the poorest people. Also, the lowest tax rate during the last 90 years was 24% in 1929, the year the Great Depression began. Did not seem to help out much. In 1932 it was brought up to 63%, a far cry higher than our current 35%, and that was when we started coming out of the depression. Seemed to work then, why not now?

The conversation we should be having is how the government is spending the taxes. Do we really need to spend $684 Billion, nearly half of the world’s total, on “defense”? Calling it “defense” spending, first of all, is a lie that is meant to give us a knee-jerk reaction to any effort to curtail it. As Secretary Gates puts it:

“Does the number of warships we have and are building really put America at risk when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to allies and partners? Is it a dire threat that by 2020 the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?”

Another $4 Billion for corn subsidies goes straight to keeping corn cheap so our food system can be pumped full of cheap candy and other edible substances that parade as food (sodas, sugar-filled cereals, etc). And yet we can’t even fund health care right. I say fund it with corn subsidies. The emptying of our store shelves of cheap-diabetes-type-two-causing-frankenfoods would lower the costs of our health system and their subsidies would keep it well funded.

“I don’t believe we lose anything,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, I could not find one positive thing to say about being involved in the U.S. Chamber.”
-Jerry Mayotte, executive vice president of the Greater Hudson Chamber of Commerce

Kudos to the Hudson Chamber of Commerce, and other local chambers, for breaking from the national arm of the organization due to its political activities, which could prove to be illegal. The long and short of it is the US Chamber of Commerce has been accepting funds from foreign corporations, including ones controlled by foreign government and then using the money to run an unprecedented $75 Million political campaign in the the 2010 election year. You can probably guess which party is reaping the benefits from this spending, but it really does not matter. What does matter is foreign funding of political campaigns is illegal and dangerous for our democracy. Would you want any country to be able to effect our elections?

The illegality portion of this could prove to be a lot of hot air – that is if the US Chamber would disclose who its donors are, but since they are currently refusing I am remaining skeptical. But even if they do, the fact they are spending that much money to try to convince you to vote the way they want you to is disturbing to me. It is disturbing to me that corporations can spend an unlimited amount to sway your vote. If money is the only voice in elections then what part of government won’t businesses run? If you think the Mineral Mining and Safety debacle which essentially allowed the Gulf Oil Spill was bad just wait till companies can buy any part of the government. Corporate interests have not been the savior of this country, they have been the bane. Remember the financial crisis we are in?

Due to the amount of money being spent on campaigns, if you are running for office and do not have the big bucks no one is going to know who you are, and if you are not willing to represent the companies who are willing to spend cash on your campaign who is going to give you money? So far the parent company of FOX “News” has spent $1.25 million on this election cycle. How much have you donated? Now, who do you think will have their ear when legislation is being passed?

Democrats recently tried to pass a bill which called for more transparency in campaign finance but Senate Republicans blocked the bill. Nothing new there, but what does that say about who works for the people that are unable to drop $1 million on their favorite candidate’s campaign.

When speech costs money it is not free.

I have always believed that if you are going to complain then you have to provide options. First, overturn the Supreme Courts ruling that allows for unlimited corporate spending. People should have more rights and representation than corporations. Then, instead of getting into the quagmire of campaign finance we should simply limit house and senate members to two terms. Our government was meant to be run “by the people and for the people” not by career politicians. I don’t think this would solve everything and I definitely do not have the answers, but this would be a great place to start.