NASA’s Goddard Institute and three other major agencies that track the Earth’s temperature reported that the Earth cooled 0.7 degrees Celsius in 2007, taking the temperatures to where they were in 1930. This drop was the fastest since modern equipment has been used to measure the Earth’s temperature. Also, NASA’s Ulysses project reported the intensity of the solar wind was at its lowest level since the beginning of the space age. In addition, sunspots are at an extremely low level. For the first time since June 1913, we had a whole month this past August (2008) in which no visible sunspots were generated. Increased solar wind and sunspot activity increases the temperature on Earth, and decreases in these activities result in Earth’s temperature decreasing.
The sun’s intensity changes in fairly regular patterns, causing corresponding cooling and warming periods on Earth. Changes in the sun’s magnetic field appear to cause changes in sunspots in 11-year cycles. Longer cycles, called a Maunder Minimum, can lead to extended periods of extreme cold such as occurred in the Little Ice Age (ca. 1550-1850). For more information on this Global cooling detected by America’s top scientific agencies go to “The Day The Earth Cooled,” at www.ibdeditorials.com and search September 26, 2008.
It is just amazing, but the same IBD article said that as NASA was announcing that Earth is cooling at a rapid rate, ten Northeastern states lead by left-wing liberals entered into a coalition to impose a carbon cap-and-tax system that will wreak havoc with their economies. After the Lieberman-Warner economy-killing cap-and-tax bill died in Congress, these states should not be permitted to try to kill interstate commerce from the Potomac to the Maine-Canadian border. This interstate pact sounds like a violation of the Federal Commerce Clause. Clearly, more scientific information should be gathered and analyzed before making hasty decisions that devastate the economies of the entire Northeast.
[For deep background on long-term climate changes in North America, an interesting recent article you could peruse is “How Dogs Came to Run The World” on page 18 in July-August 2008 Natural History, published by The American Museum of Natural History. For background on long-term climate change in Europe the October 2008 National Geographic, stating on page 34, has an excellent article on how increasing cold weather from an advancing ice age was probably the primary cause of the end of the Neanderthals, due in part because their large bodies required about twice as many calories as modern man.]
Monday, September 29, 2008
Energy Freedom Day
Some people are calling October 1st, Energy Freedom Day, because that is the day the Congressional bans on offshore drilling and the development of oil shale will end. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had every intention of extending the ban. However, with $4 dollar gasoline, about $700 billion being sent overseas each year to foreign exporters of oil, many of whom are hostile to us and large amounts of it going into the hands of terrorists, public opinion changed rapidly. Some opinion polls showed that 67% of Americans are in favor of offshore drilling. The American people expressed outrage that the bans were unnecessarily limiting domestic supply and raising the price of gasoline and heating oil.
At the start of summer driving season, Nancy Pelosi shut down the House of Representatives for a five week vacation, rather than taking up the energy issue. When Republican representatives continued to discuss the issue, Nancy Pelosi turned off the lights. With this type of conduct in the background, grassroots citizen activist groups, such as Americans for Prosperity and many others, went out to the people to raise awareness and put pressure on members of Congress. Inside Congress the effort toward energy freedom was spearheaded by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas. To find out more about issues involved and the activities these grassroots citizen activist groups do outside of Congress and their battles with Congress to release more of our own domestic energy go to www.americansforprosperity.org and their related blog site. Congress did not add the two ban extensions to a major spending bill recently, but we must be ever vigilant, because they may try to sneak the extensions into another Bill.
Our plentiful domestic energy sources include water, wind, solar, bio-fuels, sugar ethanol, oil, gas, oil shale, gas shale, coal, coal to liquids and gas to liquids. Are you in favor of developing these domestic sources to make our economy strong, provide jobs, improve our balance of payments, and strengthen the dollar, among many other benefits?
At the start of summer driving season, Nancy Pelosi shut down the House of Representatives for a five week vacation, rather than taking up the energy issue. When Republican representatives continued to discuss the issue, Nancy Pelosi turned off the lights. With this type of conduct in the background, grassroots citizen activist groups, such as Americans for Prosperity and many others, went out to the people to raise awareness and put pressure on members of Congress. Inside Congress the effort toward energy freedom was spearheaded by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas. To find out more about issues involved and the activities these grassroots citizen activist groups do outside of Congress and their battles with Congress to release more of our own domestic energy go to www.americansforprosperity.org and their related blog site. Congress did not add the two ban extensions to a major spending bill recently, but we must be ever vigilant, because they may try to sneak the extensions into another Bill.
Our plentiful domestic energy sources include water, wind, solar, bio-fuels, sugar ethanol, oil, gas, oil shale, gas shale, coal, coal to liquids and gas to liquids. Are you in favor of developing these domestic sources to make our economy strong, provide jobs, improve our balance of payments, and strengthen the dollar, among many other benefits?
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Mortgages Generate Cash Every Month
Everybody is forgetting that mortgages generate cash every month. About 95% of mortgages nationwide are performing. That means large quantities of cash are being received by mortgage holders every month. The fact that there is no market for mortgages does not mean mortgages do not have value. Any private financial firm or government entity that does not have to mark-to-market every quarter or meet debt-to-equity requirements, and has deep pockets, can collect that cash flow every month. When and if the market improves, those mortgages can be sold at a profit. There is more value here than just buying low and hoping the market improves to sell high. You are paid as you wait. Some smart people have figured this out, like Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.
The method of calculating the present value of a future stream of payments is called a Discounted Cash Flow model and is taught in every business school in the nation. With conservative assumptions on default rates and recovery values, a reasonable present value of a group of mortgages can be estimated. As long as the Federal Government does not pay more than a reasonable value, with a margin for error, the Government should recover its investment in the mortgages it buys under the proposed program. Lawrence Kudlow agrees that between the cash generated each month and the Government's selling after the market improves, the Taxpayers could come out ahead. See, http://www.ibdeditorials.com/, "How The Plan Turns A Profit For Taxpayers," posted 9/29/30, and appearing in the 9/30/08 edition of IBD.
This program should not cost taxpayers anything. That is as long as politicians do not add to the bill any of their pet projects, pork or give-backs to their favorite lobbying groups. For example, the word is out that some Democrats want to set up a fund that would generate money for left wing organizations like Acorn. To read about this ploy, go to http://www.ibdeditorials.com/ and search on September 26, 2008 for "Rescuing ACORN". This discredited group continues to register phony voters, as documented by John Fund of the Wall Street Journal in his recent book "Stealing Elections". There was also a story about Acorn’s voter fraud activities on Fox News today.
What do you think about these issues?
The method of calculating the present value of a future stream of payments is called a Discounted Cash Flow model and is taught in every business school in the nation. With conservative assumptions on default rates and recovery values, a reasonable present value of a group of mortgages can be estimated. As long as the Federal Government does not pay more than a reasonable value, with a margin for error, the Government should recover its investment in the mortgages it buys under the proposed program. Lawrence Kudlow agrees that between the cash generated each month and the Government's selling after the market improves, the Taxpayers could come out ahead. See, http://www.ibdeditorials.com/, "How The Plan Turns A Profit For Taxpayers," posted 9/29/30, and appearing in the 9/30/08 edition of IBD.
This program should not cost taxpayers anything. That is as long as politicians do not add to the bill any of their pet projects, pork or give-backs to their favorite lobbying groups. For example, the word is out that some Democrats want to set up a fund that would generate money for left wing organizations like Acorn. To read about this ploy, go to http://www.ibdeditorials.com/ and search on September 26, 2008 for "Rescuing ACORN". This discredited group continues to register phony voters, as documented by John Fund of the Wall Street Journal in his recent book "Stealing Elections". There was also a story about Acorn’s voter fraud activities on Fox News today.
What do you think about these issues?
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