Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MJ who wrote (47399)	11/28/2010 9:43:57 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 71588

Yes, MJ. It is solely about REDUCING FEDERAL RED TAPE AND UNNECESSARY DELAYS. Says nothing whatsoever about the commercial advisability of any investment....

To: MJ who wrote (47399)	12/3/2010 2:13:49 PM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

How to Shrink the Deficit President Obama's deficit commission lands with a predictable political thud.. DECEMBER 3, 2010. Debates over taxes and spending are at root about political philosophy: How big should government be? How much income should it redistribute, and to whom? We mention this to explain why today's report from President Obama's deficit commission is landing with such a predictable political thud. This doesn't mean that Co-Chairmen Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles haven't offered some useful ideas, much better ideas overall than we feared. As conceived by former White House budget director Peter Orszag, the commission was supposed to be a Trojan Horse for a value-added tax (VAT) to raise federal revenues to a new and much higher level than their 18.5% or so modern average. The idea was that the proposal would sit on a shelf until deficits led to a Greek-like crisis, the bond markets demanded action, and the political class reached in desperation for the Simpson-Bowles deus ex machina. Mr. Orszag and other liberals know they need a VAT, or some other kind of new tax, to finance ObamaCare and their other spending ambitions. What they want is a political device to lure Republicans into voting for it. Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady in New York and senior economics writer Steve Moore from Washington analyze the impact of bad unemployment numbers on the Washington tax debate. .Messrs. Simpson and Bowles rejected the VAT ruse, but their plan is still one of those Beltway specials that fudges the debate over what government should do. Instead, it tries to package things that everyone dislikes in the hope that everyone will swallow the castor oil at the same time. Such proposals never have a chance unless Presidents and Congressional leaders sign on, and in this case Democrats are already in open revolt, while Republicans are saying nicer things than Mr. Obama is about his own commission. The U.S. federal deficit problem isn't hard to understand. In the short term, revenues have collapsed to 14.9% of GDP thanks to the recession and feeble recovery. Meanwhile, Democrats have raised spending to as high as 25% of GDP, a level not seen since World War II. (See nearby chart.) Faster growth should return revenues over time to 18% or 19% (they have never reached 21%), while spending restraint and program eliminations can gradually reduce outlays toward 20%. The key variable here is economic growth, which is why a tax increase would be especially counterproductive. Longer-term, the problems are the liberal entitlements of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and, starting in 2014, ObamaCare, which will add about 20 million to the Medicaid rolls. Democrats want to keep these programs as they are and pay for them with much higher taxes—first by balancing the budget at 25% of GDP, and later by necessity at 30%, 40% or more. The alternative—which we support—is to reform the programs and reduce their scope. Yet, incredibly, the Simpson-Bowles report has almost nothing to say about the runaway health-care entitlements. This is a bow to the left and the White House, which cut Medicare by $500 billion to finance a corner of ObamaCare and wants its signature achievement untouched. But this is like doing a Pentagon budget review and excluding Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans ought to reject the report on those grounds alone. The deficit commission is more honest on Social Security, on which a bipartisan deal would be possible if Mr. Obama got behind it. Republicans are willing to cut the benefits of future retirees by changing the annual inflation increase formula, but Democrats will have to be willing to raise the retirement age and forgo a payroll tax increase. The other place for potential common ground is tax reform. The deficit commission suggests cutting tax rates in return for closing tax loopholes, which would help the economy and raise revenue by increasing the efficiency of the tax code. It would also improve tax equity. Many tax loopholes go to the affluent and powerful who have clout in Congress, such as the mortgage interest deduction for $1 million homes. Alas, Mr. Obama has shown no signs that his philosophy of "spreading the wealth" can abide lower tax rates. Given this reality, we think commission members Paul Ryan and Jeb Hensarling are right to oppose the final report. The House GOP campaign proposal to reduce spending to 2008 levels is already more stringent than what the commission recommends. Mr. Ryan points out that because the commission starts from Mr. Obama's spending baseline, its proposed cuts are also fewer than advertised—only $1 in cuts for every $2 in tax increases ($1.13 trillion in total tax hikes). The best strategy for Republicans is to take the commission's better ideas and make them part of their own budget proposals next year. GOP Senators and commission members Judd Gregg, Mike Crapo and Tom Coburn have endorsed the report on grounds that something has to be done, but this is the triumph of desperation over experience. Republicans won the recent election by opposing tax increases, and the fastest way to lose that majority would be to break that promise. They should embrace the cuts that make sense and write a budget reflecting the priorities that won majorities in the House and in state legislatures around the country. If Mr. Obama wants to improve his fiscal record, he'll cooperate and strike some deals. If he doesn't, the voters will have a choice in 2012. online.wsj.com

To: MJ who wrote (47399)	3/3/2012 10:23:37 PM
From: greatplains_guy	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Obama’s Anti-American Energy Policies Invite the Next Crisis. by Sarah Palin Friday, February 24, 2012 at 9:36am · President Obama doesn’t have an energy plan. He has an energy speech that he continues to give regardless of the facts or his obvious failures. He likes to take credit for actions initiated by the last administration (without telling you that he’s reversed or stymied many of those successes). We should not be surprised by his detached attitude about America’s pain at the pump. He’s not interested in lowering the price of gas because exorbitantly high gas prices are one of his campaign promises. In September 2008, candidate Obama’s Energy Secretary in-waiting said: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” That’s one campaign promise they’re working hard to fulfill! Obama notes that instability in the Middle East causes short-term spikes in the price of oil. But that is precisely why we should take every opportunity to drill here and drill now to lessen our dependence on these dangerous foreign regimes. President Obama’s lack of action simply invites the next oil crisis. It’s as if the White House is purposefully making us more dependent on foreign countries – from running up an unsustainable debt that must be financed by foreign debtors, to constantly apologizing and walking on eggshells around dictators who control oil supplies. When it comes to our energy security, the only thing holding us back is the lack of political will. We have the resources, the ingenuity, and the manpower. And we need the jobs! Any economic recovery will be hampered by these rising gas prices. And I guarantee the rising prices will only get worse and will halt job growth further. We must never forget that energy development, job creation, and national security are inextricably linked. Access to affordable and secure energy is the key to economic growth, which is the key to job growth. Securing a stable domestic supply of energy will lead to a more peaceful and prosperous America – an America that’s not subject to the whims of dictators who can cut off energy supplies or shut down the Strait of Hormuz to exports passing through. Mr. Obama repeatedly claims that there is no “silver bullet” to lower gas prices. But, in fact, we do have proof that the promise of future drilling does lead to immediate price relief as oil producers plan to expand their production. So what are Obama’s solutions? As luck would have it, they coincide with subsidizing his friends and campaign donors. What a fortuitous coincidence in an election year! While you’re paying $5-a-gallon for gas, President Obama has been picking “winners” and “losers” in the free market. He’s decided that conventional resource development that produces the fuel we use to drive our cars and power our economy are “losers.” His “winners” are the bankrupt green energy companies that his campaign donors invest in. Unfortunately his real “losers” are the American public who are once again hit with massive gas prices (at least those who can’t afford luxury electric cars like the Obama-subsidized Volt that gets 40 miles per battery charge, or like the Obama-subsidized Tesla that turns into a “brick” when the battery completely discharges and then costs $40,000 to repair.) What are the real solutions? Well, whether you support Newt in 2012 or not, he makes a lot of sense in this video, which is why President Obama targeted it for mockery yesterday. Newt is right that we need to “stop bowing and start drilling.” And not only can’t a gun rack fit in a Volt, but the government will take away our pick-up trucks when they pry the steering wheel “from our cold, dead hands.” Newt explains in this video some commonsense, pro-American solutions to the problems President Obama causes with his terrifyingly naïve assault on U.S. energy production. With just the stroke of a pen, President Obama could lead us in the direction of real energy security and reduce our oil imports threatened by Iran’s threats to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. Here are just a few commonsense measures we can do right now, and most of them don’t require any new legislation or regulations: Open Alaska to drilling. Billions and billions of barrels of U.S. crude (and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean natural gas) sit untapped up here in the far north, my friends. We have the TAPS pipeline and infrastructure; we invite the development! Open ANWR. Think of how much safer and secure we would be if we had done this decades ago. Build the Keystone Pipeline. President Obama doesn’t understand we live in a land woven with untold miles of pipe to carry safe energy supplies to protect and prosper America. Common sense dictates we need another one now to secure our energy future. It is key. It is the Keystone. If we’re worried about instability in the Middle East, it makes no sense to shun safe and reliable oil from Canada. Obviously, China understands this, and we should too. Drill for natural gas. Natural gas is the future. It’s clean, it’s green, and we’ve got lots of it. Whether we use it to power natural-gas cars or to run natural-gas power plants that charge electric cars – or ideally for both – natural gas can act as a clean “bridge fuel” to a future when more renewable sources are available. There are many more steps we need in order to establish a true energy plan to secure our future. But these three steps, plus increased resource development in the Lower 48 and reversing President Obama’s nonsensical, knee-jerk, anti-American energy shut down of off-shore developments would create hundreds of thousands of jobs as millions of barrels of oil every single day would flow under American control, and lessen our dependence on the Persian Gulf. It’s time our country had a real energy plan that includes a genuine all-of-the-above approach that doesn’t ignore conventional resource development. We need the jobs, we need the energy, and we need the security. - Sarah Palin facebook.com

To: MJ who wrote (47399)	3/21/2012 9:56:43 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

Obama Barnstorming the West with Oil Politics A Gasoline Nightmare By Victor Davis Hanson March 20, 2012 1:44 P.M. Obama is barnstorming the west — blasting oil companies, trying to convince voters that he supports an “all of the above” policy, and reminding them that drilling has increased since his tenure. But that won’t work for five reasons. 1) No one believes that Obama is sincere. In 2008, in the hope-and-change adulation days when he was running for president, he talked about skyrocketing energy prices as a necessary cost for his vision of a desired cap-and-trade law. Energy secretary–designate Chu talked about the desirability of high European-like gasoline prices. And soon-to-be interior secretary Senator Salazar infamously bragged that even $10-a-gallon gas would not change his mind about new offshore drilling. All that has been so widely reported that one can even hear it at the gas pump — where those filling up mumble that Obama wanted these high gas prices. In response to that political problem, the Obama team has not yet explained why they no longer believe the above. Secretary Chu merely concedes that he’s changed his mind, but that was an embarrassingly political concession. In other words, the public believes that Obama and his associates privately still think that high gas prices help the environment, cool the planet, make preferred subsidized green energy viable, and curb the gas-guzzling culture of the American middle class, but with a wink and a nod simply cannot say that any longer since they are now in a reelection cycle. And because Obama does not now either defend or refute his embarrassing remarks about the price of power needing to “skyrocket,” or similar views of his subordinates, voters believe that he will probably go back to his earlier positions if reelected or out of office. 2) The argument that under Obama oil production is up has the same ironic twist, and is more likely to hurt than help Obama: American oil production is up despite Obama rather than because of him, given that he has radically cut exploration on public lands and has been unable to affect fracking and horizontal drilling on private lands. He said not a word from 2009–12 about the revolution in oil drilling at a time when he was monotonously bragging about “millions of green jobs” and pouring hundreds of millions of federal dollars into failures like Solyndra. The public also knows that. Obama more or less expressed an antipathy for new oil production when he once talked about “tuning up” cars and inflating tires in lieu of new drilling, and then trumped that with recent talk of uniquely American algae potential, a fuel resource unknown to most of us. Had Sarah Palin said that, well . . . 3) Even less appealing is Obama’s insistence that drilling has only long-term benefits and is no short-term remedy. If so, why then brag that oil production is up since 2009, when none of the increase is due to Obama’s own approval of new federal leases, but is instead due to both Bush’s approvals and the vision of private enterprise? This argument really works against Obama because of its inherent selfishness: “I will take credit for my predecessor’s investment that paid off on my watch, but will not make any commensurate investment by opening up federal leases for my successor.” Or “I will subsidize green power and ignore private oil concerns, but in a political pinch will go silent about what I was for and what failed, while bragging about what I was indifferent to or against — which succeeded.” People are not stupid and know all this. 4) Obama argues that more American oil won’t greatly affect a global market. Aside from the fact that in a tight market psychology rules and even a modest increase from a major producer in times of crises can lower prices, Obama himself does not believe this. We know that because his administration is pressuring the Saudis to pump more and wants to tap the strategic reserve. In other words, a million barrels here and there from the Saudis and the reserve will calm markets and lower prices in a way that fresh American oil would not have? To be consistent and honest, Obama would have to either push the reserve, the Saudis, and new drilling here, or admit that all three won’t do much in a vast global market, given their relatively small percentages of the global daily production. 5) Obama borrowed more in three years and two months than did Bush in eight years. The massive aggregate debt and gargantuan deficits depress the value of the dollar, and help to spike oil prices; a president by the very nature of his budget does have influence on how much oil a dollar overseas will buy. I can understand why Obama is furious about the politics of oil, but frantically doing derrick photo-ops simply looks desperate and cynical. Far better would be to explain to the American people why his team once wanted higher fossil-fuel prices and why that was or is wise or is no longer true; and, why he has radically curbed new leasing on federal lands, and why that is wise or at least once was wise from 2009-12; and why tapping the reserve or getting other foreign nations to pump more is helpful in a way additional American production would not have been; and why he will insist on budget discipline and restore balance in the purchasing power of overseas dollars. If he can’t do that, then he should not wonder why most fault him for their spiraling gas bills. nationalreview.com