Tag Archives: Waste

News

Another way that the secular left kills millions of people

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UPDATE: Welcome readers from the the Western Experience! Thanks for the link, Jason!

On this blog, we’ve talked about how the secular left killed 100 million people in the wars of atheistic communism, and we analyzed why atheism leads naturally to these atrocities by elevating the pursuit of selfish happiness over the human rights of others, (because human rights and rational morality are not rationally grounded on atheism).

We’ve also talked about the 50 million unborn children killed by abortionists in the United States alone, since abortion was made legal. That’s millions of unborn children killed so that adults can be irresponsible about their sexual choices, and not have to deal with the consequences.

But there is another way that leftists kill millions of innocent people…

Here is an article about it from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Green Hell)

Excerpt:

In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world’s poor will suffer as a result.

The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim “is to achieve a 30% cut in the application of DDT worldwide by 2014 and its total phase-out by the early 2020s, if not sooner,” said WHO and the U.N. Environment Program in a statement on May 6…

“Sadly, WHO’s about-face has nothing to do with science or health and everything to do with bending to the will of well-placed environmentalists,” says Roger Bate of Africa Fighting Malaria. “Bed net manufacturers and sellers of less-effective insecticides also don’t benefit when DDT is employed and therefore oppose it, often behind the scenes.”

UPDATE: You can find more quotations from environmentalists about their real goals in this post.

The biggest mystery in the world is how the secular left managed to paint themselves as rational and non-violent. Maybe we should be reminding them about what it takes to be moral, and why their secular-left worldview doesn’t ground morality. Ideas have consequences. When people on the left try to find meaning and purpose in unscientific delusions like eco-fascism, there will be consequences.

Cap and Trade

And don’t think that we in the West will avoid the consequences of eco-fascism. Once the Democrats’ cap-and-trade bill is passed, we can look forward to our own disasters.

The Heritage Foundation lists 10 things we can expect from the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill:

KILLS MORE JOBS AND KILLS THE ECONOMY

Cap and Tax Top Ten List

  1. Cap and Trade Is a Massive Energy Tax
  2. It Will Not Make a Substantive Impact on the Environment
  3. It Will Kill Jobs
  4. It Will Cause Electricity Bills and Gas Prices to Sharply Increase
  5. It Will Outsource Manufacturing Jobs and Hurt Free Trade
  6. It Will Make You Choose Between Energy, Groceries, Clothing, and Haircuts
  7. It Will Be Highly Susceptible to Fraud and Corruption
  8. It Will Hurt Senior Citizens, the Poor, and the Unemployed the Worst
  9. It Will Cost American Families Over $3,000 a Year
  10. President Obama Admitted “Electricity Rates Would Necessarily Skyrocket” Under a Cap-and-Trade Program (January 2008) –follow link for video

More details are at the linked article.

Further study

Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute argues that this bill will be the biggest tax increase in the history of the world. (H/T Heritage Foundation)

Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post notes that the bill creates huge opportunities for fraud, waste and corruption. (H/T Chilling Effect, Heritage Foundation)

News

Who has the better economy? Canada or the USA?

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Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute reports:

1.2 million Americans have lost their jobs since the $800 billion stimulus package was signed into law.

The stimulus package has directly destroyed tens of thousands of jobs. A provision in the stimulus package that blocked 97 Mexican truckers from U.S. roads “caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade,” destroying 40,000 American jobs.

It also ignited a trade war with Canada. In response to vague “buy American” provisions in the stimulus package, “A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.”

Yet, Obama had the audacity to claim that only passing the stimulus package would save us from “irreversible decline” and economic ““disaster”.

Obama’s policies echo those of Herbert Hoover, who helped spawn the Great Depression through his protectionism and tax increases.

Remember how Democrats used to complain about Bush and his “tax cuts for the rich”? Yeah, it’s strange how only people who pay taxes (59% of the public) can actually get tax cuts, isn’t it. But Obama has an even better idea: “tax hikes for the poor”.

The Washington Post reports on Obama’s new car tax: (H/T Heritage Foundation, Michelle Malkin, Stop the ACLU, Gateway Pundit)

A senior administration official said the new standards would raise the cost of an average car by $1,300, $600 of which could be attributed to the rules being announced today.

This is not to mention the electricity tax (cap and trade), the cigarette tax, taxing employee health care plans, and the rising cost of living caused by protectionism.

On the other hand, let’s take a look at Canada in relation to the United States, courtesy of the Cato Institute. (H/T Heritage Foundation)

The Cato Institute writes:

Spending: Spending by all levels of the Canadian government peaked at 53 percent of the country’s GDP in the early 1990s, then plunged to 40 percent in 2008. U.S. government spending has risen, reaching 39 percent of GDP in 2008. And with the stimulus package, that number is likely to jump even higher.

Government spending as % of GDP
Government spending as % of GDP

Debt: The Canadian government cut its debt from 71 percent of GDP in 1995 to 32 percent in 2008. Under President Obama’s budget plan, U.S. federal public debt will jump from 41 percent of GDP in 2008 to more than 60 percent next year.

Federal debt as % of GDP
Federal debt as % of GDP

Deficits: Canada has balanced its budget every year since 1998 — not by raising taxes, but by cutting spending. The United States balanced its budget for four years in the late 1990s, but now deficits are so large that it’s difficult to imagine that ever happening again.

Surplus / Deficit as % of GDP
Surplus / Deficit as % of GDP

Corporate Taxes: Canada has cut the corporate tax rate from 28 percent to just 15 percent, and most provinces have trimmed corporate taxes as well. The U.S. federalstate rate stands at about 40 percent, and the Obama administration is planning to increase corporate taxes.

Corporate tax rates
Corporate tax rates

It’s important to note that the Liberal party in Canada is socially progressive, but moderate on fiscal issues. Of course, now that the Conservatives have been running things, it’s gotten even better. It would be great if they could win a majority. The biggest problem in Canada right now is the fascist Human Rights Commissions, but there are candidates from the Conservative Party who intend to abolish the HRCs in BC and Ontario.

News

Unemployment rate tracking above Obama’s projection

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I have an idea. Let’s put a Democrat ACORN lawyer in charge of the economy during a recession caused by Democrats and ACORN. What could go wrong?

This: (From Hot Air, H/T Ace of Spades)

Barack Obama pushed for almost $800 billion in stimulus spending by claiming that it would save or create millions of jobs this year.  Critics pointed out that most of the spending started in 2010 and more than half of it came in 2011 or later, calling the stimulus useless at best for salvaging jobs, let alone creating them.  The White House has quietly agreed with its critics, according to the New York Times, and now says it expects to see no hiring rebound in 2009.

I can’t believe what I’m reading. Are you telling me that the Marxist-in-Chief blew trillions of taxpayer dollars on big government wastefulness, and he created NO JOBS?

Hot Air continues:

We just got done hearing Obama take credit for saving 150,000 jobs — which his administration never documented.  Now we’re hearing that the stimulus package demanded by Obama and passed over near-unanimous Republican objections won’t actually make any difference at all.  The cure, Obama and his team now admit, is private-sector growth.

Take a look at the numbers below. We are getting worse unemployment numbers for Mr. Teleprompter than if he had never spent a dime of taxpayer money at all.

Chart by Geoff from Innocent Bystanders
Chart by Geoff from Innocent Bystanders

Hot Air explains:

Actually, only the red indicators come from Geoff.  The chart itself comes from page 5 of an analysis prepared by Romer and Obama’s council of economic advisers in support of the $787 billion Porkulus plan.

We’re already past 8.8%, well on the way to 9.5%, above her predictions in either case.  They predicted that the upper curve would occur without spending $800 billion on government make-work, and that passage would prevent the severe spike in unemployment.  Now Romer admits that the upper curve will happen anyway.

Remember under George W. Bush, when unemployment averaged about 5% over the course of his two terms? Yeah, I miss him too.