Repeat

My main point is the special interests and knee jerk me too ideas are costing us all money. Money that would be in our pockets. This is the unintended consequence of politicians jumping on a popular bandwagon or being in the pockets of special interest groups like the farm lobby or environmental lobby. With every action in the universe there is a reaction and far too often no one bothers to think things all the way through and see how "A" has an effect on "B" which has an effect on "C, D, E" which in turn has an effect on "G,H, I, J" et al.

It is not a solution mnhiker. I wish it were. I really do. It sounds like one until you dig into it. It costs way too much, even from sugar beets and switch grass. We can not grow enough organic material if we covered the entire earth surface with it to even cut or dependence on foreign oil or the gasoline we import.

The entire debacle is nothing less than another tax on us. Who do you think is paying all these subsidies? I for one get so darn frustrated that people vote for and support so many of these half thought out ideas. The "The government will/should pay for that" attitude is ignorant. Who the hell do people think the government is? Where do they think the money comes from?

Do they really think our government, with all of its layers of bureaucrats and workers that can not be fired even if they do nothing all day at work and they know it so they do little is an efficient way to get things done? If we really want things like this we would all be better off if we just paid the cost directly and kept the government out of it. The money is coming out of our pockets anyway, it just comes out of your paycheck rather than your bank account. April 23rd? I have to work until April 23rd this year just to pay my taxes? Am I the only one in the country that can do the math and see it's 1/3 of my wages? (Hmmm, I think I see a new topic in this)

As an side point here, Mexico, Canada and Venezuela are the number 1,2 & 3 countries we import from. All the middle east countries combined amount to less than 10% of our imported oil.

Lastly I am more than happy to have a discussion/debate about energy and solutions, but lets not hi-jack this thread with it. Start one and post a link here, I will follow.

((((Judy))))
Wiley

Not spin, its a fact. Unlike the agenda driven nonsense on green energy news you site.

Also, it matters not how much water vapor (by the way, a greenhouse gas the comprises 97% of all greenhouse gas, CO2 is only 2%) the corn field puts into the atmosphere, you still have to use that much water to grow the corn and distill it into ethanol.

My reference is to the amount of water used in the process, not how much of it is reclaimed, which also has a cost. Crop run off creates far more environmental damage than fossil fuels. It poisons ground water, kills fish and other wildlife (Salton Sea as an example of this).

My main point is the special interests and knee jerk me too ideas are costing us all money. Money that would be in our pockets. This is the unintended consequence of politicians jumping on a popular bandwagon or being in the pockets of special interest groups like the farm lobby or environmental lobby. With every action in the universe there is a reaction and far too often no one bothers to think things all the way through and see how "A" has an effect on "B" which has an effect on "C, D, E" which in turn has an effect on "G,H, I, J" et al.

I want solutions as much as the next man or woman. But I want real solutions with long term viability that does not line the pockets of special interest or some politician. I want solutions that in the end do not do more harm than good. Is it too much to ask for our government and our people to THINK rather than react to emotions? We are not on a race track going 220 mph with a need to make millisecond decisions about our course of action. If you have ever watched a race, often those snap decisions result in a wreck, which is what ethanol is.

One last point about this issue. The cost of grain has skyrocketed which has an effect on the poorest people everywhere. Should we starve them to death because we want ethanol for our 2.5 cars per household?

F A B U L O U S ! ! Babe

Wiley

Bad

(((((Princess)))))

Do any of the prospective nominees of either party deserve respect from the American people? The answer partially depends on your knowledge, values and respect for the U.S Constitution.

When either Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain take office, they are going to place their hand on the Bible and take the oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

It will be a phony affirmation, but what's worse is that the chief justice of the United States, who administers the oath, and the average American will believe the new president.

You say, "Hey, that's a pretty tall charge! Explain yourself." There's a measure introduced in every Congress since 1995, by Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., called The Enumerated Powers Act that would require that all bills introduced in the U.S. Congress include a statement setting forth the specific constitutional authority under which the law is being enacted.

The Enumerated Powers Act currently has 44 co-sponsors in the House. In the Senate, it has never had a single co-sponsor, and that's a Senate that includes our three presidential aspirants. The question one might ask is why would Sens. Obama, Clinton and McCain have a distaste for, and fail to support, a measure binding them to what the Constitution actually permits?

There's a two-part answer to that question. First, few congressmen, including our presidential aspirants, have the integrity, decency and courage to be bound by the Constitution, but more important is that congressmen and presidents simply reflect the constitutional ignorance or contempt held by the American people.

Most of what Congress is constitutionally authorized to spend for is listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and includes: coining money, establish Post Offices, to support Armies and a few other activities. Today's federal budget is over $3 trillion dollars. I challenge anyone to find specific constitutional authority for at least $2 trillion of it. That includes Social Security, Medicare, farm and business handouts, education, prescription drugs and a host of other federal expenditures. Americans who have become accustomed to living at the expense of another American would not want Congress to obey the Constitution, especially if it left out their favorite handout.

A harebrained politician or lawyer might tell us that the Constitution's general welfare clause authorizes those expenditures. Here's what James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, said: "With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

Later, Madison added, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions."

Thomas Jefferson explained, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

At one time there were presidents who respected the Constitution. Grover Cleveland vetoed hundreds of spending measures during his two-term presidency, often saying, "I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution." Then there was Franklin Pierce who said, after vetoing an appropriation to assist the mentally ill, "I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity," adding, "To approve such spending would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded."

We should consider ending the charade and get rid of our 200-year-plus presidential oath of office and replace it with: I accept the office of president.

Thanks hon

March 2, 79 members of the House of Representatives introduced a bill instituting criminal and civil penalties on any corporation or individual found guilty of gasoline "price gouging." But the real gouger driving up gasoline prices is not the private sector, it is our government.

To "gouge" means to extort, to take by force--something that oil companies and gas stations have no power to do. Unlike a government, which can forcibly take away its citizens' money and dictate their behavior, an oil company can only make us an offer to buy its products, which we are free to reject.

Because sellers must gain the voluntary consent of buyers, and because the market allows freedom of competition, oil and gasoline prices are set, not by the whim of companies, but by economic factors such as supply and demand. If oil companies could set prices at will, surely they would have charged higher prices in the 1990s, when gasoline was under one dollar a gallon!

Because oil companies and gas stations cannot set their prices arbitrarily, they must make their profits by earning them--by efficiently producing something that we value and are eager to buy. In so doing, they assume great risks and expend enormous effort. Over the decades, oil companies have created a huge infrastructure to produce and distribute gasoline by investing hundreds of billions of dollars in prospecting, drilling, transporting, stocking and refining oil.

In the absence of political factors like the 1973 OPEC oil embargo or the Gulf Wars, the net effect of oil companies' pursuit of profit has been to drive the price of oil and gasoline, not up, but down. The price of a gallon of gasoline (in 2006 dollars) fell from $3 in the early 1920's to $2.50 in the 1940's to $2 in the 1960's to under $1.50 in the 1990's. This downward trend is all the more impressive because it required the discovery and exploration of previously inaccessible sources of oil and because it persisted despite massive taxation and increased government regulation of the oil industry.

When we see the price of gasoline today, we should not accuse oil companies of gouging, but rather thank them that prices are not much higher.

The true culprit that we should condemn for driving up prices is the government, which has engaged--with popular support--in the gouging of both the producers and consumers of gasoline.

Federal and state governments have long viewed gasoline taxes as a cash cow. In 2003, for instance, when the average retail price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.56, federal and state taxes averaged about $0.40 a gallon--which amounts to a far higher tax rate, 34 percent, than we pay for almost any other product. (Contrary to popular belief, gasoline taxes do not just pay for the roads we drive on; less than 60% of the gas-tax-funded "Highway Trust Fund" goes toward highways.)

Along with high taxes, environmental regulations--justified in the name of protecting nature from human activity--have dramatically increased the production costs, and thus the price, of oil and gasoline.

The government, for example, has closed huge areas to oil drilling, including the uninhabited wilderness of ANWR and the out-of-sight waters over the Atlantic and Pacific continental shelves. This of course significantly reduces the domestic supply of oil.

The government has also passed onerous environmental regulations that make it uneconomical for many old refineries to keep producing (50 out of 194 refineries were shut down from 1990 to 2004) and discourage new refineries from being built (no major refinery has been built in the last 30 years).

Regulations such as these push the surviving refineries to operate at almost full capacity, creating a situation where any significant reduction in the production of some refineries (e.g., from a hurricane) cannot be compensated by increased production in others. Exorbitant spikes in prices, which many attribute to oil companies' "gouging," are actually caused by government constraints.

If we want to stop the irrational forces that have been driving up the price of gasoline and our cost of living, we must demand that our elected officials eliminate the regulations and excessive taxes that restrict the producers of oil and gas. It's past time to stop gouging oil companies--and ourselves.

Global Warming Activist Pressures BBC to Significantly Alter Article
By Noel Sheppard | April 7, 2008 - 09:59 ET

NewsBusters has just learned that a British "climate activist" was responsible for getting the BBC to radically alter its "Global Temperatures 'To Decrease'" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7329799.stm) article last Friday.
As reported Sunday,(http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/04/06/bbc-changes-temperatures-decrease-article-incite-climate-hysteria) the third paragraph of what previously had been a very balanced piece about how global temperatures have been declining since 1998 was totally reworded in order to make the report just another hysterical climate change pronouncement.

On Monday, Jennifer Marohasy, the director of the Environment Unit at Australia's Institute of Public Affairs, received and published (See Below) an e-mail exchange between the article's author, Roger Harrabin, and a climate activist affiliated with the British Campaign Against Climate Change:



April 07, 2008
The BBC Changes News to Accommodate Activist
Posted by jennifer, at 08:35 PM

I have been emailed the following correspondence, purportedly between an activist, Jo Abbess, and BBC Environment reporter Roger Harrabin. It would appear that the result of the email exchange between the activist and the reporter was that the BBC changed its story. In particular instead of reporting the story as received from the World Meteorological Organisation, the BBC modified the story as demanded by the activist who was concerned that in its original form it supported 'the skeptics' correct observation that there has been no warming since 1998.

From Jo, April 4, 2008

Climate Changers,

Remember to challenge any piece of media that seems like it's been subject to spin or scepticism.

Here's my go for today. The BBC actually changed an article I requested a correction for, but I'm not really sure if the result is that much better.

Judge for yourselves...

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:12 AM
subject Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Dear Roger,

Please can you correct your piece published today entitled "Global
temperatures 'to decrease'" :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7329799.stm

1. "A minority of scientists question whether this means global
warming has peaked"
This is incorrect. Several networks exist that question whether global
warming has peaked, but they contain very few actual scientists, and
the scientists that they do contain are not climate scientists so have
no expertise in this area.

2. "Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007"
You should not mislead people into thinking that the sum total of the
Earth system is going to be cooler in 2008 than 2007. For example, the
ocean systems of temperature do not change in yearly timescales, and
are massive heat sinks that have shown gradual and continual warming.
It is only near-surface air temperatures that will be affected by La
Nina, plus a bit of the lower atmosphere.

Thank you for applying your attention to all the facts and figures available,

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:23 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Dear Jo

No correction is needed

If the secy-gen of the WMO tells me that global temperatures will
decrease, that's what we will report

There are scientists who question whether warming will continue as
projected by IPCC

Best wishes
RH

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:37 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Hi Roger,

I will forward your comments (unless you object) to some people who
may wish to add to your knowledge.

Would you be willing to publish information that expands on your
original position, and which would give a better, clearer picture of
what is going on ?

Personally, I think it is highly irresponsible to play into the hands
of the sceptics/skeptics who continually promote the idea that "global
warming finished in 1998", when that is so patently not true.

I have to spend a lot of my time countering their various myths and
non-arguments, saying, no, go look at the Hadley Centre data. Global
Warming is not over. There have been what look like troughs and
plateaus/x before. It didn't stop then. It's not stopping now.

It is true that people are debating Climate Sensitivity, how much
exactly the Earth will respond to radiative forcing, but nobody is
seriously refuting that increasing Greenhouse Gases cause increased
global temperatures.

I think it's counterproductive to even hint that the Earth is cooling
down again, when the sum total of the data tells you the opposite.
Glaringly.

As time goes by, the infant science of climatology improves. The Earth
has never experienced the kind of chemical adjustment in the
atmosphere we see now, so it is hard to tell exactly what will happen
based on historical science.

However, the broad sweep is : added GHG means added warming.

Please do not do a disservice to your readership by leaving the door
open to doubt about that.

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:57 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

The article makes all these points quite clear

We can't ignore the fact that sceptics have jumped on the lack of
increase since 1998. It is appearing reguarly now in general media

Best to tackle this - and explain it, which is what we have done

Or people feel like debate is being censored which makes them v
suspicious

Roger

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Jo Abbess
to Roger Harrabin ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:12 AM
subject Re: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Hi Roger,

When you are on the Tube in London, I expect that occasionally you
glance a headline as sometime turns the page, and you thinkg "Really
?" or "Wow !"

You don't read the whole article, you just get the headline.

A lot of people will read the first few paragraphs of what you say,
and not read the rest, and (a) Dismiss your writing as it seems you
have been manipulated by the sceptics or (b) Jump on it with glee and
e-mail their mates and say "See ! Global Warming has stopped !"

They only got the headline, which is why it is so utterly essentialy
to give the full picture, or as full as you can in the first few
paragraphs.

The near-Earth surface temperatures may be cooler in 2008 that they
were in 2007, but there is no way that Global Warming has stopped, or
has even gone into reverse. The oceans have been warming consistently,
for example, and we're not seeing temperatures go into reverse, in
general, anywhere.

Your word "debate". This is not an issue of "debate". This is an issue
of emerging truth. I don't think you should worry about whether people
feel they are countering some kind of conspiracy, or suspicious that
the full extent of the truth is being withheld from them.

Every day more information is added to the stack showing the desperate
plight of the planet.

It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is
heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing
the emergence of the truth.

I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth.

Otherwise, I would have to conclude that you are insufficiently
educated to be able to know when you have been psychologically
manipulated. And that would make you an unreliable reporter.

I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution,
unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your
comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to
happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be
said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics.

Respectfully,

jo.

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

from Roger Harrabin
to Jo Abbess ,
date Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:28 AM
subject RE: Correction Demanded : "Global temperatures 'to decrease'"

Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier

We have changed headline and more

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

ORIGINAL
================

Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK
Global temperatures 'to decrease'
By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 due to the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years.

Rises 'stalled'

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.

El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.

It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

Watching trends

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 1998 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he said. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina."

Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: "What's happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended."

=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=

UPDATED VERSION (note : the page date and time has not changed)
==============================================

Page last updated at 00:42 GMT, Friday, 4 April 2008 01:42 UK

Global temperatures 'to decrease'
By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.

The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C.

While Nasa, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK's Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998.

Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.

Rises 'stalled'

La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.

El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.

It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.

Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.

This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

Watching trends

A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and argue the Earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.

Animation of El Nino and La Nina effects

But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 2008 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.

"When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year," he said. "You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.

"La Nina is part of what we call 'variability'. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up; the climate on average is warming even if there is a temporary cooling because of La Nina."

China suffered from heavy snow in January

Adam Scaife, lead scientist for Modelling Climate Variability at the Hadley Centre in Exeter, UK, said their best estimate for 2008 was about 0.4C above the 1961-1990 average, and higher than this if you compared it with further back in the 20th Century.

Mr Scaife told the BBC: "What's happened now is that La Nina has come along and depressed temperatures slightly but these changes are very small compared to the long-term climate change signal, and in a few years time we are confident that the current record temperature of 1998 will be beaten when the La Nina has ended."

End of email reporting on Jo's activities.

People on the left often use other countries as examples of things that we should do. If other countries have a government-run medical system, then we should have one too, they say. If other countries control prices, then we should control prices -- or so the reasoning goes. Almost never is there any suggestion that we should first find out whether the actual results of the policies we are supposed to imitate are better or worse than what we already have.

There is in fact a lot that we can learn from other countries if we look at the actual consequences of some of the things we are being urged to do, instead of just assuming that we should automatically imitate what others are doing. Studies have already shown that the waiting time before being able to get surgery is several times as long in a number of countries with government-run medical systems as in the United States. Modern medical technology like MRIs and CAT scans are also rarer in such countries.

Venezuela is currently giving us a lesson on the consequences of price controls. The government of leftist President Hugo Chavez has imposed price controls -- and seems to be surprised that lower prices have lead to reduced supplies, even though price controls have led to reduced supplies in countries around the world and for thousands of years. There were price controls back in the days of the Roman Empire, under the Pharaohs in Egypt, and in ancient Babylon. There is plenty of history to look at, if we bother.

Price controls under the Roman Emperor Diocletian led to a decline in the supply of goods. The same thing happened under President Richard Nixon's price controls in the 1970s. It has happened in Zimbabwe within the past year. Rent control laws led to housing shortages in Cairo -- and in Berkeley, Hanoi, Paris, and other cities around the world. When price controls in Venezuela led to food shortages, Hugo Chavez accused companies of "hoarding" food. The emperor Diocletian was similarly accusatory when his price controls reduced supplies, many centuries ago.

Political leaders always find someone else to blame for the bad consequences of their own policies. Hugo Chavez has blamed foreign owned companies for Venezuela's food shortages and threatened to "nationalize" them. This too is an old political game that seldom does the people of the country any good. What is remarkable is how little interest there is among the media and among the public in how often and how consistently this has happened in the wake of price controls.

When politicians today say that they are going to "bring down the cost of medical care" or make housing "affordable," what are they talking about other than price controls? Do we want a shortage of medical care? Do you want to have to wait for months for surgery -- and suffer needlessly in the meantime, as people do in Canada and Britain? Behind these wonderful-sounding political "solutions" to our problems is the notion that businesses are just ripping us off with arbitrarily set prices, and that the government can make them stop. It makes a nice story and it can get votes for politicians who play the role of saviors. But it makes little economic sense. Why do so many businesses have losses, and even go bankrupt, if they can set their prices wherever they want to?

It is not uncommon for companies on the Fortune 500 list to operate in the red. Back during the days of the Great Depression of the 1930s, corporations as a whole operated in the red two years in a row. They were trying to keep from going under while Franklin D. Roosevelt was denouncing them as "economic royalists." FDR knew how to win elections, even if he didn't know how to get the country out of the Great Depression. That political lesson has been learned all too well, as much of the strident, anti-business political rhetoric of this election year demonstrates.

Now if only the media and the public had some interest in learning the economic lesson!

Amid all the hand-wringing and finger-pointing as housing markets collapse, mortgage foreclosures skyrocket, and financial markets panic, there is very little attention being paid to the fundamental economic and political decisions that led to this mess. The growth in risky "sub-prime" mortgage loans by people buying homes they could not really afford has been a key factor in the collapse of housing markets, when the risks caught up with both borrowers and lenders.

But why were home buyers suddenly taking out so many risky loans and lenders suddenly arranging so much "creative" financing for these borrowers?

One clue is the concentration of such risky behavior in particular places and times. Interest-only mortgages, where nothing is being paid on the principal for the first few years, enable many people to get started on buying a home with lower mortgage payments at the outset. But of course it is only a matter of time before the mortgage payments go up and, unless their income has gone up enough in the meantime for them to be able to afford the new and higher payments, such borrowers can end up losing their homes. Such risky mortgage loans were rare just a few years ago. As of 2002, fewer than 10 percent of the new mortgages in the United States were of this type. But, by 2006, 31 percent of all new mortgages were of this "creative" or risky type.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, 66 percent of the new mortgages were of this type. Why this difference in times and places? Because housing prices were skyrocketing in some places and times, so that people of modest incomes had to go out on a limb to buy a house, if they expected to buy a house at all.

But why were housing prices going up so fast, in the first place? A number of studies of communities across the United States and in countries overseas turned up the same conclusion: Government restrictions on building. While many other factors can be involved -- rising incomes, population growth, construction costs -- a scrutiny of the times and places where housing prices doubled, tripled, or quadrupled within a decade shows that restrictions on building have been the key. Attractive and heady phrases like "open space," "smart growth" and the like have accompanied land use restrictions that made the cost of land rise in many places to the point where it greatly exceeded the cost of the homes built on the land. In places that resisted this political rhetoric, home prices remained reasonable, despite rising incomes and population growth.

Construction costs were seldom a major factor, for there was relatively little construction in places with severe building restrictions and skyrocketing home prices. In short, government has been the principal factor preventing the "affordable housing" that politicians talk about so much. Politicians have also been a key factor behind pushing lenders to lend to borrowers with lower prospects of being able to repay their loans.

The Community Reinvestment Act lets politicians pressure lenders to lend to people they might not lend to otherwise -- and the same politicians are quick to cry "exploitation" when the interest charged to high-risk borrowers reflects that risk. The huge losses of sub-prime lenders, some of whom have gone bankrupt, demonstrate again the consequences of letting politicians try to micro-manage the economy. Yet with all the finger-pointing in the media and in government, seldom is a finger pointed at the politicians at local, state and national levels who have played a key role in setting up the conditions that led to financial disasters for individual home buyers and for those who lent to them.

While financial markets are painfully adjusting and both lenders and borrowers are becoming less likely to take on so much risky "creative" financing in the future, politicians show no sign of changing. Why should they, when they have largely escaped blame for the disasters that their policies fostered?

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.

Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

Ethanol is 20 to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That's enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel -- oil and natural gas -- to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers -- all of which are fuel-using activities. And, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 or 12 percent.

Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there's a double tax -- one in the form of ethanol subsidies and another in the form of handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.

There's something else wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar cane and is far more energy efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce.

Ethanol production has driven up the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. As a result of higher demand for corn, other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat, have risen dramatically. The fact that the U.S. is the world's largest grain producer and exporter means that the ethanol-induced higher grain prices will have a worldwide impact on food prices.

It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country's largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing that it would be political suicide if they didn't support subsidized ethanol production. That's the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.

The ethanol hoax is a good example of a problem economists refer to as narrow, well-defined benefits versus widely dispersed costs. It pays the ethanol lobby to organize and collect money to grease the palms of politicians willing to do their bidding because there's a large benefit for them -- higher wages and profits. The millions of gasoline consumers, who fund the benefits through higher fuel and food prices, as well as taxes, are relatively uninformed and have little clout. After all, who do you think a politician will invite into his congressional or White House office to have a heart-to-heart -- you or an Archer Daniels Midlands executive?

The truth about gas prices is the so called "Greenies" AKA Eviromentalist lobby. No new refineries since 1976. (How many more cars do you think there are on the road now?) Stops every attempt at drilling for our own oil.

Hundreds of different "Boutique Formulations" mandated by the governement for different regions (why not take the cleanest one and make it nation wide so we dont have constant shortages in various areas?) and the FACT that the governement is collecting 50 cents+ per gallon in taxes (Which by the way is 280% more than the oil company makes per gallon)

Forcing the oil companies to add ethonol (EXPENSIVE) to the gasoline has caused an increase and now the percentage has been raised adding even more cost. (see following post)

Who drank all the coffee?

Queensryche - Anybody Listening?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9UlEIQUWKTQ

You and I long to live like wind upon the water
If we close our eyes well maybe realize
Theres more to life than what we have known
And I cant believe Ive spent so long
Living lies I knew were wrong inside
Ive just begun to see the light

Long ago there was a dream, had to make a choice or two
Leaving all I loved behind for what nobody knew
Stepped out on the stage
A life under lights and judging eyes
Now the applause has died and I can dream again...

Is there anybody listening?
Is there anyone that sees whats going on?
Read between the lines, criticize the words theyre selling
Think for yourself and feel the walls
Become sand beneath your feet

Feel the breeze?
Times so near you can almost taste the freedom
Theres a warm wind from the south
Hoist the sail and well be gone
By morning, this will all seem like a dream
And if I dont return to sing the song, maybe just as well
Ive seen the news and theres not much I can do...alone

Is there anybody listening?
Is there anyone who smiles without a mask?
Whats behind the words-images
They know will please us?
Ill take whats real
Bring up the lights

Is therew anybody listeing?
Is there anyone that sees whats going one?
Read between the lines
Criticize the words theyre selling
Think for yourself and feel the walls
Become sand beneath your feet.

Too close to it for my taste thank you very much. They will both cause so much damage to this country it would take the rest of my life to correct it, if it can be done at all.

Symbelmyne we know you wont be happy until America is an ash heap. (Note to self: Make sure I.C.E. has her on the watch list so she can never re-enter the country.)

Frustrated!!!!!!!!!!!!!