The Left Is About To Pay For Their Energy Insanity thumbnail

The Left Is About To Pay For Their Energy Insanity

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By Neil Patel

Most politicians and activists have strong views on every political issue. Those views grow from their fundamental political philosophies and beliefs. The best politicians know how to balance their political ideals with a keen watch on how they affect the lives of everyday Americans — those who voted them into office. Go too far with your ideological preferences in the face of evidence that it’s hurting the American people, and you will not go far in politics. The Democratic Party seems poised to take a beating for forgetting this fundamental maxim when it comes to energy and climate change. They feel so strongly about the issue that many have lost touch with reality. They have entered a sort of make-believe world. The coming election is going to bring them back to reality.

Republicans are not immune to ideological overstepping. Republicans in general believe in the private sector. They believe that free markets offer more benefits for society than government spending and mandates. The theory has proven correct far more than it hasn’t, but not always. When a so-called private sector line of business becomes so corrupt, so dominated by Washington political favoritism, and so mismanaged that it’s offering worse products and worse prices than government options, then even limited-government free market activists need to take notice. Those who don’t will pay a political price. The private student loan industry is a prime example. Created and supported by Republicans, it became so corrupt and so mismanaged that eventually, it was impossible to defend. The few who tried paid a political price.

On climate change, the Democrats face a similar dilemma, except with politically apocalyptic consequences. Student loans are important; they affect a lot of people. Energy is different; it affects everyone. Skyrocketing energy prices cause widespread economic disruption. In the extreme, they lead to starvation, heat stroke, freezing and death. It’s not a policy area you can get wrong. Yet American and global policymakers have deliberately done just that. The left’s energy policies make zero sense.

WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 20: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks at a press conference urging the inclusion of the Civilian Climate Corps., a climate jobs program, in the budget reconciliation bill, outside of the U.S. Capitol on July 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Clean energy is a worthy goal overshadowed by lofty expectations that outpace the pragmatism of working people. For large segments of the left, the climate change issue has become more like a religion than a policy debate. Pesky facts like technological limitations and costs are thrown aside in favor of magic. “Ban fossil fuels and utopia will follow” is essentially the mindset. (RELATED: Democrats Look To Sustainable Investing Craze As Means For Pushing Climate Agenda).

In the real world, you have to take into account technological limitations, costs, and other trade-offs. Transitioning energy production too fast can cause real present-day harm. The rich can afford to ignore high prices, slower economic growth, and a reduction in national security. 

President Joe Biden campaigned on “getting rid of” fossil fuels. If there were economically efficient alternatives that would allow this to happen without slamming American families and harming America’s national security, that would be a less radical thing to say. Those things do not exist at scale today.

America became energy independent during the Trump years. This energy independence brought huge advantages. First, America’s fracking boom and the massive expansion of natural gas production that came with it lowered carbon emissions more than any regulation. Second, American energy independence changed the national security dynamic with respect to huge energy-exporting countries in the Middle East and Russia. Finally, the lower energy prices that followed led to massive economic and manufacturing growth. Many dormant small towns in America literally came alive as a result.

Throwing all this away without an adequate and, importantly, cheaper alternative in place is almost unimaginable from a policy perspective, but that’s exactly what happened. By promoting so-called Environmental, Social and Governance, or ESG, investment standards to choke off fossil fuel investments, by canceling pipelines, and by limiting federal oil and gas leasing, the left has reduced American energy production and left America vulnerable to the rest of the world. All this has come with very little emissions benefit to boot. It has just enabled Russia, Saudi Arabia, and others to displace American fossil fuel production with their own foreign fossil fuel production. The result? From Biden’s inauguration to the onset of the war in Ukraine — before the much-discussed “Putin price hike,” in other words — American gas prices went up nearly 50%. Those prices are up another 15% on top of that since the war began.

There have been huge technological strides in solar, wind and other renewable power sources, but primarily due to their intermittent nature and a still-huge gap in energy storage (battery) technology, those forms of energy are not yet ready to make up for lost fossil fuel production without massive extra cost. (RELATED: ANALYSIS: White House Keeps Misleading Public On Oil, Gas Leasing. Here Are The Facts)

Giving away a huge economic and national security advantage is political malpractice. Slowing American energy production while begging the Saudis to increase their own fossil fuel production, as Biden is doing this week, is a botch so foreseeable it should be disqualifying for future leadership. Energy policy under the Biden administration has been insane. With prices booming, everyone now knows it. Those who got us in this mess should prepare to pay a massive political price.

*****

This article was published in Daily Caller was republished with permission.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

Starbucks CEO Blames Woke Elected Officials For 16 Store Closures In Dangerous Cities thumbnail

Starbucks CEO Blames Woke Elected Officials For 16 Store Closures In Dangerous Cities

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By The Geller Report

Crocodile tears. Woke businesses supported these Woke policies and initiatives. Poetic justice at work.

Starbucks CEO Blames Woke Elected Officials For 16 Store Closures In Dangerous Cities

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz blamed woke elected officials in Democrat-run cities for the abrupt closure of 16 stores.

By: Tristan Justice

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz placed blame on woke elected officials in Democrat-run cities for the abrupt closure of 16 stores located primarily on the West Coast.

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that six locations each will shut down in Seattle and Los Angeles, in addition to two in Portland, Ore., one in Philadelphia, and one in Washington, D.C., by August. The company cited repeated safety incidents behind its decision.

Leaked footage of Schultz at an internal meeting, published by The Post Millennial’s Ari Hoffman on Thursday, revealed the coffee-chain executive blaming elected officials for an environment in which it’s too hostile to operate.

“In my view at the local, state, and federal level, these governments across the country and leaders, mayors, and governors and city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental illness,” said Schultz, who returned to the company as chief executive in April. “We are going to have to refine and transform and modernize many of the things we do to meet the needs of our customers in a very changing operating environment in which customer behavior is changing.”

In a letter to employees on Monday, Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson, both Starbucks senior vice presidents, outlined reforms to address inner-city safety issues plaguing corporate stores.

“We read every incident report you file — it’s a lot,” they wrote. “We want you to know that creating a safe, welcoming, and kind third place is our top priority. Because simply put, we cannot serve as partners if we don’t first feel safe at work.”

In March, employees began to unionize after being confronted with a spike in homeless and violent people entering cafes after the company changed its bathroom policy. Following a woke controversy, Starbucks opened its restrooms to all members of the public, even people who weren’t buying anything. Schultz said in that June the four-year-old bathroom policy is now on the chopping block.

Keep reading……

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Woke Lose

How Corporate America Got Woke: A Review of ‘The Dictatorship of Woke Capital’

Woke investors threaten the West’s security

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Testimony to House Ways and Means: Government Policies are Responsible for the American Housing Crisis thumbnail

Testimony to House Ways and Means: Government Policies are Responsible for the American Housing Crisis

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By Edward Pinto

On July 13th I testified to the House Ways and Means Committee on the Building Back Better Act. I explained how the bill’s funding proposals will double down on past failed policies, fuel inflation, and once again place low-income and minority households in harm’s way.

You can find the executive summary in this email and on the Housing Center website here and read the full testimony here. 

Government Policies are Responsible for the American Housing Crisis that is Crowding Lower Income Households Out of the Housing Market

House Committee on Ways and Means

Chairman Neal and Ranking Member Brady, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

Executive Summary:

The housing market is changing and the real culprit is a massive house price boom fueled by federal housing and monetary policies, which is increasingly crowding out lower-income Americans out of the housing market.

The current single-family housing boom, which began in 2012, was entirely foreseeable and was first noted by the AEI Housing Center in 2013. Since then, the housing market has been marked by too much demand chasing too little supply. Yet the policy response has been to boost demand even more: Federal housing agencies have loosened underwriting and the Fed has pursued zero interest rates and multiple rounds of quantitative easing, continuing even when the housing market began to appreciate at 16% in July 2021. In May 2022, home price gains were 17% and are only now expected to slow down as the Fed reverses these policies.

As a result, homeownership has gotten further out of reach for many lower-income and minority Americans. Consider that since 2012 wages have grown by 38%, but entry-level home prices have increased about 160%.[1]

This out-of-control price spiral means increased competition for fewer and fewer affordable homes. Potential entry-level buyers are increasingly pushed to the sidelines as they cannot afford to compete with more deep pocketed individuals, who experience the same competition, but higher up the price spectrum.

This is creating knock-off effects for people downstream. Left unable to buy a home, they remain in the rental pool, helping to drive up rents, which are now increasing at 16% nationwide. Many who cannot afford these rent hikes will be pushed into homelessness.

If that were not enough, inflation is now running between 8% and 9% and a Gallup survey from Jun. 1-20, 2022 finds that the Gallup Economic Confidence Index is now at its lowest level since 2009[2]

Inflation is a regressive tax and getting by – not to mention building savings to buy a home – is becoming increasingly difficult. Thus, misguided policies have severely hamstrung lower-income Americans, in particular minorities, who severely lag White Americans in homeownership and intergenerational wealth. If they can no longer reach the first rung of the housing ladder, how will they ever catch up?

The solutions are straightforward.

First, do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Congress has undertaken 70 years of efforts involving many trillions of dollars in program expenditures, tax benefits, and government guaranteed financing. Yet neither the goal of making owner-occupied and rental homes affordable for low-income households, nor the goal of achieving generational wealth for low-income homeowners have been met.

The Build Back Better Act (BBBA) provides $184 billion in new housing related program expenditures, confirming that we have not learned from these failures.

As a cautionary tale, let’s examine the Housing and Community Development Act of 1968 and its aftermath.  By 1975 its devastating inflationary impact and ineffectiveness were clear as these two books so forcefully document.

The first, “Cities Destroyed for Cash: The FHA Scandal at HUD”, was written by a reporter at the Detroit Free Press in 1973. As the title indicates, in the aftermath of the 1968 act, neighborhood after neighborhood was ruined as they were “FHA’d”. Many of these neighborhoods have yet to recover.

The second, “Housing Markets and Congressional Goals” (1975), was written by Ernest Fisher, one of the nation’s leading housing economists for 50 years. Fisher noted that the 1968 act and its goals “were unrealistic as a quota of production, and…were inappropriate and would probably prove as disappointing as had many of the programs presented to and adopted by Congress over the past two and a half decades.”

He observed:

[f]rom 1967 to 1971…the Boeckh index of cost of residential construction rose by nearly 33%, and the average sales price of new houses purchased with the assistance of FHA mortgage insurance rose by 28%, from $18,611 in 1967 to $23,835 in 1971.

[Expanding leverage] so as to make home purchase “possible for lower income prospective purchasers” may bring greater profits and wages to builders, building suppliers, and building labor rather than assisting lower-income households compete in the market.

There you have it: the 1968 act led to neighborhood ruination, scandal, housing inflation, and government profit seeking.

In my view, BBBA would have the same unrealistic and disappointing results.

Next, with regard to zoning, the federal government has again had a sordid past. The federal government back in 1921 led a national effort to implement exclusionary zoning and land use policies designed to make newly built homes too expensive for racial and ethnic groups to afford and we are still living with the consequences.

There is no denying that we need more market rate supply. But subsidies and easy credit are not the solutions. There is a growing consensus that to make housing more affordable we must increase supply, not ease credit or increase government subsidies or suppress interest rates. In order to stop the price spiral that is pricing lower-income Americans out of the housing market and driving up rents we need more market-rate supply. Let me add, zoning and land use policies are fundamentally a state and local issue and should be addressed at those levels. We are already seeing promise across the country, even in California, where the legislature has recently passed laws, which could meaningfully encourage new construction activity.

Next, federal policies to boost demand have been shown to be counterproductive. The Fed has belatedly realized that it needs to tighten the monetary spigot. But its policies have already done a lot of damage and will continue to haunt lower income Americans in the form of higher home prices, inflation, and rents for years to come.

The compounding effect of these changes will mean less resiliency for borrowers and neighborhoods, many of which are lower-income and minority, to withstand an economic stress event. With many economic dangers from rising interest rates, inflation, and sky-high home prices, lurking, regulators should do more to protect borrowers and taxpayers, rather than lowering lending standards. We have seen this movie before and we should not allow it to happen again.

What should be done beyond state and local actions to add to supply? Congress should set a policy goal of reliably building sustainable generational wealth for lower-income and minority Americans.  Build intergenerational wealth and neighborhood and borrower resiliency by reducing the loan term to 20- or 15-years on high-risk loans (Low-Income First Time Homebuyers (LIFT Home)):[3]

  • The FHA should implement Low-Income First Time Homebuyers (LIFT Home) for low-income, first-time, first-generation home buyers.[4]
  • The GSEs should implement the Wealth Building Home Loan to reduce risk to taxpayers and to encourage borrowers to build equity.[5]
  • Congress should consider funding the Low-Income First-Time Homebuyer tax credit (LIFT Home).[6]S. Senator Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and colleagues in 2021 introduced the Low-Income First Time Homebuyers (LIFT) Act to establish a new program to help first-time, first-generation homebuyers – predominately Americans of color – build wealth much more rapidly.  By offering new homeowners a 20-year mortgage for roughly the same monthly payment as a traditional 30-year loan, LIFT will allow them to grow equity twice as fast.[7]

Find the executive summary on the Housing Center website here and read the full testimony here. 

Footnotes:

[1] https://www.epi.org/nominal-wage-tracker/ and https://www.aei.org/housing

[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/148613/economic-confidence-sinks-lowest-level-march.aspx

[3] Wealth Building Home Loan and LIFT Home

[4] LIFT loans should be structured as an interest rate buy down on a 20-year loan made to first-generation homebuyers, rather than down payment assistance. The rate buy down, combined with a slightly lower rate due to the shorter term, along with a lower mortgage insurance cost, allows LIFT Home to have the same buying power as a 30-year loan. For the rate buy down, assistance should be provided as compensation to HUD/Rural Housing/Treasury for buying a below market yield Ginnie MBS.

[5] Applies the same concepts as LIFT Home, but runs through conventional loans and without federal subsidy.

[6] BBBA provided $5 billion for Lift Home.

[7] https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/9/warner-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-assist-first

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Protests Rage As Chinese Banks Won’t Let People Withdraw Their Funds

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By Jack Mcevoy

Crowds of Chinese bank customers demonstrated outside a bank on Sunday over bank accounts that were frozen for months in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, according to the Associated Press.

Several hundred protesters shouting slogans gathered in the early morning at the entrance to a branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in Zhengzhou, a Chinese city located 380 miles southwest of Beijing, reported the AP. The protesters are among thousands of depositors who found that they could not withdraw their money from the accounts for months due to an upgrade of the bank’s internal systems, Reuters reported. (RELATED: Chinese Internet Users Mock Japan And Celebrate Abe’s Assassination).

Police, who closed off the area after they arrived, told protesters that they were illegally assembled and would be detained if they refused to disperse, the AP reported. A banking regulator and a local government official also arrived to address the crowd, but the protesters shouted them down.

Protesters were pushed and dragged off the bank’s steps by plainclothes security teams. When the security staff rushed to disperse the crowd, protesters threw objects, including water bottles, at them.

The demonstrators were then escorted to numerous sites where they were forced to sign letters vowing that they would no longer protest at the bank, according to the AP.

Four banks in the Henan province froze deposits worth up to $1.5 billion in mid-April amid China’s recent economic downturn, leaving thousands of citizens in the Henan and neighboring Anhui province without access to their bank accounts.

This led to unrest and planned protests after the banks and authorities failed to respond to complaints, reported the AP. Last month, the planned demonstrations were suppressed by China’s COVID-19 tracking app, which barred citizens from traveling to the bank by designating them as a public health risk.

The banks, which include the Shanghai Huimin Country Bank and Yuzhou Xinminsheng Village Bank, are under investigation by the authorities for illegal fundraising, the state-run Global Times reported.

The PBOC did not immediately respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

*****

This article was published by The Daily Caller News Foundation and is reprinted with permission.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

“It’s In-Your-Face Capitalism.” Low-Paid ‘Virtual Cashiers’ Provoke Outrage among Labor Activists thumbnail

“It’s In-Your-Face Capitalism.” Low-Paid ‘Virtual Cashiers’ Provoke Outrage among Labor Activists

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Virtual cashiers may be coming to a restaurant near you.

A new start-up called Percy is based on a simple yet revolutionary idea: virtual cashiers. Essentially, a video calling device is set up at the cash register of your local restaurant or shop. When you want to buy something, you are connected with someone in a remote location, sometimes thousands of miles away, and they take your order. That way, if a store is having trouble finding local workers, or if staff members call in sick, stores can simply outsource the cashier job, often at a fraction of the cost.

Sounds brilliant, right?

The founders of Percy certainly think so. CEO Matthew Corrin and his co-founders Angela Argo and Ali Aqueel have been working on this project for months after initially trying it out at their Canadian restaurant company Freshii.

“The pandemic created this mass exodus of workers in the restaurant industry,” said Argo in a recent interview. “It made us start thinking about what roles in a restaurant can be done without a human being physically present. How can a restaurant owner capitalize on the virtual world?”

“The demand for fast-food workers far outweighs supply right now,” Argo continued. “You can look on Indeed.ca and you’ll see for yourself that everyone is offering more than minimum wage for restaurant workers — and they still can’t get staff.”

Percy’s track record so far is making a good case that Argo is on to something. The company already has more than a dozen clients in North America, including several fast-food chains.

“We’re growing quickly,” said Argo. “We tried [Percy] out at a few Freshii locations, and the response from restaurant owners, again and again, was: ‘this is a lifesaver.’”

But while restaurant owners may be celebrating, not everyone is thrilled about this new idea. Labor activists in particular have taken issue with the low wages being offered to workers in developing countries. The company currently employs about 100 workers in Nicaragua, Pakistan, and Bolivia, and a recent investigation revealed that some of the Nicaraguan workers are paid as little as $3.75 USD an hour. By comparison, an Ontario worker is guaranteed a minimum wage of $15 CAD an hour (~$11.43 USD).

“This … moves entirely in the wrong direction,” said Ontario labor minister Monte McNaughton in April. “I expect better from a Toronto-based company and know customers will vote with their feet.”

“They can keep their outsourcing jobs pilot project away from our province,” said British Columbia’s labor minister Harry Bains in a tweet.

Retail analyst and author Bruce Winder also had harsh words for the company.

“It’s in-your-face capitalism,” said Winder. “It reminds the customer, while they’re ordering food, that the company is taking away a live person and replacing them with a video of someone earning much less money.”

The concerns raised by labor activists are unsurprising, but the activists miss a key piece of the puzzle. Yes, the workers in developing countries are getting paid low wages by our standards, but think about it from their perspective.

If you’re a poor person living in a Third World country, a job that pays $3.75 USD an hour is an opportunity. Sure, it’s not the best, but it’s probably far better than the alternatives, which could range from sifting through trash to prostitution.

The point is, by choosing this job, these employees are demonstrating that, in their opinion, this job is better than any other alternative available to them. By coming into these countries, Percy is expanding these workers’ options, giving them opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have. In short, Percy is helping them, not hurting them.

Now, some may want to ban this kind of outsourcing out of compassion for these workers, but a ban would only leave them worse off. By taking away the best opportunities these workers have, a ban on this practice would force them to take other, less appealing jobs.

Another option would be setting a minimum wage for this kind of labor, but that runs into similar problems. With higher wages, fewer businesses will buy into the program, which means fewer workers will be hired. With a wage of $3.75 USD an hour, a restaurant might be induced to hire a worker. But if that wage has to be at least, say, $10 USD an hour, restaurants will very likely avoid hiring them. Thus, instead of making $3.75 an hour, many potential workers will be left sifting through trash. It’s a textbook example of making perfect the enemy of good.

Aside from helping workers in third world countries, Percy is also helping restaurants deal with their labor problems. This, in turn, helps consumers, who will get better service and lower prices thanks to these initiatives.

It’s really a win-win.

This is the magic of capitalism. When we have economic freedom, we can come up with all sorts of creative ways to help each other. We can create jobs for poor people in developing countries while solving our own labor shortage problems at the same time. They need jobs. We need workers. Everyone is better off as a result.

Once we understand this, we can start to see why government interference in the market creates problems. By getting in the way of these win-win transactions, government prohibitions take away mutually beneficial opportunities that would otherwise have been pursued. “The minimum wage law provides no jobs,” Rothbard reminds us, “it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result.”

With this in mind, it becomes clear that the labor-activist paradigm is not just wrong, it’s actually backwards. They say companies like Percy are hurting poor people in Third World countries and that government rules will help these people. But in reality, these companies are being incredibly helpful, and it is government restrictions that are causing problems.

The best thing we can do for workers in poor countries is to bring them into the global economy, and the easiest way to do that is by giving them the freedom to make the best arrangements they can. Companies like Percy should be celebrated for helping these people by facilitating mutually beneficial arrangements. Instead, they are vilified as exploiters.

But guess what, all trade is exploitative, at least in a sense. The buyer is exploiting the fact that the seller wants his money, and the seller is exploiting the fact that the buyer wants his product. And there’s nothing wrong with that, we do it every day. Free-market transactions are all about this mutual “exploitation.” That’s what makes them mutually beneficial.

In this case, Percy may be “exploiting” workers who have limited options, but these workers are just as much “exploiting” the labor shortage in richer countries to their advantage. And I say, good for them.

So, does this initiative qualify as “in-your-face capitalism?” Absolutely. And that’s precisely what makes it so beautiful.

This article was adapted from an issue of the FEE Daily email newsletter. Click here to sign up and get free-market news and analysis like this in your inbox every weekday.

AUTHOR

Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and is an Editorial Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Bernie Sanders’ Dark Money Political Coordinator Launches #DontRunJoe thumbnail

Bernie Sanders’ Dark Money Political Coordinator Launches #DontRunJoe

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By Jihad Watch

Someone had to fire the first shot in the circular firing squad. And it was always going to come from the Left. No matter how much Biden appeases the Marxists, they’re always going to turn on him.

It’s the nature of the snake.

And yet too many Democrats think that the extremists who want to destroy America support their party.

A progressive grassroots organization that supported Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 and 2020 White House bids announced on Monday that it will launch a campaign to oppose President Biden’s reelection in 2024.

RootsAction wrote in a press release that Biden has been “neither bold nor inspiring” since taking office early last year. And because his “prospects for winning re-election appear to be bleak,” it will launch the #DontRunJoe campaign on Nov. 9, one day after the midterm elections.

RootsAction is a thinly disguised anti-war lefty group.

Its co-founder and national director, Norman Solomon was “immersed in anti-war, social justice and environmental movements since the late 1960s, he is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy” and “Made Love, Got War.”

The campaign coordinator, David Swanson, “is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org His books include “War Is A Lie.” He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org.”

And just because you couldn’t do this without Iran…

“Hanieh Jodat Barnes is an Iranian American activist, and one of the founding members of Women’s March Los Angeles, and a former board member of Women’s March California and LA. As a Bernie national delegate, she co-founded Muslim Delegates and Allies and currently serves as the National Director of Lift the Sanctions Campaign. Hanieh is a state delegate at the California Democratic Party and for her work, as an activist, she has been recognized by the National Iranian American Council as one of the 40 Iranians under 40 to inspire the community.”

And then there’s Sam Rosenthal.

“Political Director: Sam Rosenthal is an organizer and researcher based in Washington, DC. He previously served as the political director at Our Revolution and in elected leadership with Central Brooklyn Democratic Socialists of America.”

Our Revolution was a key part of the Bernie machine.

Our Revolution, however, has sent dozens of emails in recent weeks to its supporters touting the work it’s doing to get Sanders elected. The group’s chairman, Larry Cohen, detailed in an email Monday how he had spent a week in Iowa mobilizing 5,000 volunteers to caucus for Sanders.

Our Revolution national political coordinator Sam Rosenthal wrote in an email in November: “[I]f we do our job, we will have the opportunity to vote for Bernie Sanders to become the next President of the United States … help Our Revolution elect Bernie Sanders and fight big money in politics up and down the ballot!”

I’ve written quite a bit about One Revolution.

His book is named after Our Revolution, a 501©(4) “social welfare” organization that he set up to influence elections and which can accept unlimited amounts of money from donors without disclosing them.

According to Our Revolution’s former organizing director, it was set up that way to “take big checks from billionaires.”

Our Revolution, Bernie’s dark money organization, planned to solicit money from Soros. Due to the secrecy of both Soros and Our Revolution, it’s hard to know whether Soros ponied up.

But we do know that Our Revolution got its largest contribution of $100,000 from the Sixteen Thirty Fund which is partly funded by George Soros.

Attacking Biden and building a list is one way to announce the beginning of a Biden takedown from the Left.

NOTE: Visit the Don’t Run Joe website.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

RELATED ARTICLE: Liberal Analyst Warns Dems of Massive Losses Among Hispanics, Working Class

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

SURVEY: Women Voters 50+ Say Inflation and Rising Costs Will Influence their Vote in 2022 thumbnail

SURVEY: Women Voters 50+ Say Inflation and Rising Costs Will Influence their Vote in 2022

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By Dr. Rich Swier

HARRISBURG, Pa./PRNewswire/ —  A new survey from AARP Pennsylvania reveals that the priorities and concerns of women voters age 50 and older will influence the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections.  Women 50-plus make up a significant share of the 2022 electorate in Pennsylvania.  They account for one-third (32%) of likely voters overall, and more than half (53%) of likely voters 50-plus.

New data from the survey shows women voters 50-plus are heading into the 2022 general election worried about pocketbook issues with gas prices (49%) and food costs (27%) at the top of their inflation concerns.  The survey also points out that several of AARP’s core issues – protecting Social Security (90%) and Medicare (83%) – are extremely or very important to these influential voters. Further, 79% say that the country is on the wrong track and a significant majority (87%) indicate that they are “extremely motivated” to vote in the 2022 general election.

“There are two things those running for office need to know about women voters 50-plus: They vote, and they’re influential,” said Bill Johnston-Walsh, AARP Pennsylvania State Director. “Nearly 37 million women voters over 50 cast a ballot in the 2018 midterms — that’s 30% of all Americans who showed up at the polls. Today, with the prices of groceries, gas and prescription drugs skyrocketing, women voters in Pennsylvania want to see solutions.”

Among women voters 50-plus, Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) leads State Senator Doug Mastriano (R), 55% to 41%. John Fetterman (D), the Lieutenant Governor, leads Mehmet Oz (R), 56% to 40% in the open race for U.S. Senate. Both Democratic candidates hold their overall narrow leads (3 percentage points in the Governor’s race, and 6 percentage points in the Senate race) in part due to support from women 50+.

The survey found that the top issues for Pennsylvania women voters over 50 include:

  • 94% are more likely to vote for a U.S. Senate candidate who supports protecting Social Security from cuts to workers’ earned benefits;
  • 94% are more likely to vote for a U.S. Senate candidate who supports protecting Medicare from cuts and ensure America’s seniors get the healthcare they need;
  • 93% are more likely to vote for U.S. Senate candidate who supports allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices;
  • 91% are more likely to support a candidate for governor who will provide funding to allow seniors needing daily support to receive care at home rather than having to enter a costly nursing home;
  • 87% are more likely to support a candidate for governor who will protect low-income older Pennsylvanians from property tax increases; and
  • 70% are more likely to vote for a gubernatorial candidate who supports creating Keystone Saves, so that they have an option to contribute a portion of their paychecks to their retirement. Currently, 2 in 5 Pennsylvania workers do not have access to a retirement savings program through their employer.

Earlier in 2022, AARP’s “She’s the Difference” poll conducted by GOP pollsters Kristen Soltis Anderson and Chris Matthews, and Democratic pollsters Celinda Lake and Margie Omero, found similar results. By more than a two-to-one margin, women voters over 50 want a politician who is willing to work together to get things done — even if the result is an occasional compromise that goes against voters’ values (67%) — over a politician who consistently fights for their values but doesn’t often find a solution (30%). This finding remains consistent across party identifications, with 77% of Democratic women and 57% of Republican women preferring a politician who compromises, while 21% of Democratic women and 40% of Republican women prefer a values-oriented politician.

AARP commissioned Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research to conduct this survey. The firms interviewed 1,382 likely Pennsylvania voters, which includes a statewide representative sample of 500 likely voters, with an oversample of up to 550 likely voters age 50 and older, and an oversample of up to 332 African-American/Black likely voters age 50 and older. The survey was conducted between June 12-19 via landline, cellphone, and SMS-to-web. The margin of error for the 500 statewide sample is ±4.4%; for the 855 total sample of voters 50+ it is ±3.3%. View the full survey results.

For more information on how, when and where to vote in Pennsylvania, visit aarp.org/PAvotes.

About AARP

AARP is the nation’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With a nationwide presence and nearly 38 million members, AARP strengthens communities and advocates for what matters most to families: health security, financial stability and personal fulfillment. AARP also produces the nation’s largest circulation publications: AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. To learn more, visit www.aarp.org, www.aarp.org/espanol or follow @AARP, @AARPenEspanol @AARPadvocates and @AliadosAdelante on social media.

©PRNewswire. All rights reserved.

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Leverage & Interconnectedness Are Blowing Up Crypto & DeFi

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By Wolf Richter

That’s what’s different this time: Stuff blows up because of leverage and cascades through the crypto space because everything’s interconnected.

Crypto lender and broker Voyager Digital, which also took deposits and offered yield products with huge interest rates of up to 12%, said in a series of tweets today that it is, “actively pursuing a series of strategic alternatives” and that it is “focused on protecting assets and maximizing value for all customers as quickly as possible.” That’s horrifying language for people who have their cryptos on deposit at Voyager and now cannot get their cryptos or anything else out.

What’s different this time about the collapse of cryptos, compared to last time in 2018, are two huge factors that were barely in their infancy back then: massive leverage and interconnectedness.

All these crypto firms lent to each other and borrowed from each other in cryptos, to speculate in cryptos with borrowed cryptos, they lent out borrowed cryptos, and they posted cryptos as collateral with each other for more leverage, which is now triggering margin calls, forced selling, and wipeouts cascading through the space. This interconnectedness created huge systemic risks within the crypto space that are now coming home to roost.

On Friday, Voyager Digital suspended trading and withdrawals. In other words, depositors cannot get their cryptos and collateral out. And they cannot get any fiat out either.

These people are unsecured creditors if Voyager files for bankruptcy. Voyager has already hired restructuring and bankruptcy lawyers and consultants.

Voyager got taken down by the crypto hedge fund, Three Arrows Capital, which blew up amid huge leverage when cryptos plunged.

Three Arrows Capital, which was said to have managed about $10 billion of cryptos as of March, was ordered into liquidation by a court in the British Virgin Islands, where it’s legally headquartered. On Friday, it filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in the US.

Voyager had lent 15,250 bitcoins and 350 million USD Coins, a stablecoin, to the hedge fund. Combined, that loan amounts to about $650 million at current prices. And Three Arrows had defaulted on that loan.

Three Arrows ran into trouble when cryptos dropped below a certain level and when Luna, in which it was heavily invested, collapsed by 100%, at which point it received margin calls that demanded more collateral, and when that wasn’t forthcoming, its leveraged positions were liquidated by crypto exchanges including BitMEX and Deribit.

Voyager said in the series of tweets today, Sunday, that it has $1.3 billion worth of cryptos left on its platform – presumably put there by depositors – who are now locked out, and that it has $650 million in claims against Three Arrows Capital, which Three Arrows has defaulted on.

Voyager trades on the Toronto stock exchange. On Friday, July 1st, when it announced that it had locked out its depositors, the Toronto Stock Exchange was closed in observance of Canada Day. In the US, where Voyager trades over the counter, its shares plunged 31% on Friday, to 30 cents.

Voyager was founded in 2018 and started trading in Canada in September 2021 at around 16 Canadian dollars a share, and amid immense crypto hype and hoopla rose to over $21 by peak crypto-mania in November 2021. The stock has now collapsed by nearly 100% in 10 months. So that wipeout was fast.

Companies like Voyager are in the space called Decentralized Finance. DeFi is doing what the hated and despised fiat banks are doing, except they’re doing it in cryptos instead of fiat, and there is no deposit insurance, and there is no regulation, and everything goes, and there is no central bank for them, and no protections for depositors. In addition, they lured customers into depositing their cryptos there by promising to pay huge interest rates of up to 20% a year. Which is totally nuts.

And now the two concepts of leverage and interconnectedness are tearing up the cryptos, crypto exchanges, DeFi outfits, crypto stocks, and crypto hedge funds.

The leverage is mostly hidden and tangled up with other crypto firms, and parts of it surface only when something blows up. And the interconnectedness causes the blow-ups to cascade through the crypto space.

So now this is an entirely different game of margin calls, forced selling, bankruptcies and liquidations, and preparations for potential future bankruptcies, the total annihilation of some cryptos, including TerraUSD and Luna, and leaving customers with deposits at crypto exchanges and crypto lending platforms twisting in the wind…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Wolf Street.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

Delta Paid Passengers $10,000 to Give Up Their Flight Seats. How One Economist Made It Possible thumbnail

Delta Paid Passengers $10,000 to Give Up Their Flight Seats. How One Economist Made It Possible

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Julian Simon understood that inherent in market systems are the upsides of mutually beneficial exchange.

Delta Air Lines made headlines this month for offering passengers $10,000 to leave their flight. Several customers heading to Minnesota reported being offered $10,000 (in dollars, not flight credits) to voluntarily deboard an overbooked flight.

“On Delta flight from GRR to MSP and they just offered $10,000 for people to give up their seats,” tweeted Inc. tech columnist Jason Aten. “Ten. Thousand. Dollars.”

A different passenger on the flight, Todd McCrumb, told Fortune magazine it was no joke.

“It’s a true story,” McCrumb tweeted. “I was on that flight!”

When flights are overbooked, it means airlines have more passengers with tickets for a flight than there are seats. And, as I previously reported, complaints about oversold flights have increased relative to pre-pandemic times.

And while you might think airlines offering to pay customers for overbooked flights represents a bug in the airline industry, it’s actually the opposite. Airline overbooking payments are an intentional strategy by companies, and they are a great case study on the power of markets.

To see why, let’s look at the history of airline overbooking.

Prior to 1978, the airline industry dealt with a consistent bug: oversold flights. Oversold flights occurred as a means for airlines to deal with the fact that passengers frequently skip flights. This would lead to several empty seats on flights that could have otherwise been sold to other willing fliers.

While one or two empty seats in a flight may not seem like a big deal, this adds up when you consider the thousands of flights airlines offer every year. Each empty seat represents a lost opportunity to fly passengers at a lower cost.

So airlines solved this problem by selling more tickets than there were seats. Oversold flights were in a gray area for federal regulations, but this didn’t stop companies. They simply claimed this was sometimes done unintentionally. The American Airlines handbook for 1974-1975 stated:

American Airlines never deliberately causes a passenger to be oversold. We tolerate only a limited number of oversold and inconvenienced passengers only because we must allow some margin of error in our operation.

Despite this claim, it was an open secret in the industry that airlines overbooked to increase sales.

And before 1978, there was no good solution to an overbooked flight. The previously mentioned handbook gave crews some guidance for these situations such as:

Reservations will select for removal, the most recently sold locally boarding passenger, whenever good judgment dictates that this passenger will be less inconvenienced than some other passenger, except when undue hardship will be incurred.

In extreme cases the handbook said, “it may be necessary to cancel the flight until all passengers have deplaned.”

Lastly, the handbook is clear that employees should “[n]ever give an oversold passenger anything in writing which admits an error on the part of American Airlines.”

So volunteers were solicited, and, if none could be found, employees arbitrarily selected passengers according to ambiguous perceptions of inconvenience.

So, airlines oversold their flights to the detriment of involuntarily bumped passengers.

All of this changed after economist Julian Simon proposed a solution. In 1968, Simon, a professor of business administration at the University of Maryland, published an article cheekily titled “An Almost Practical Solution to Airline Overbooking.” His solution was simple—introduce a market.

Specifically, Simon proposed a reverse auction system. In this system, passengers would write down the minimum amount they would need to be paid to give up their seat. The person with the lowest amount would win the auction and receive money to give up the right to a seat.

It took nearly a decade for regulators and the industry to implement Simon’s solution in 1978— but it had many perks.

This market, like all markets, introduced a win-win scenario. Passengers who win the auction get an amount of money they value more than the seat. Other passengers don’t have to fear losing their seats. Airlines retain the ability to overbook flights. Everyone wins.

If you’re skeptical that airlines are made better off here, consider the data below.

VIEW CHART: TOTAL OVERSALES PER 10,000 BOARDINGS

As you can see from the graph, airlines massively increased overbooking when the reverse auction system was implemented in 1978. This suggests the system was profitable for airlines. If it wasn’t, airlines simply could have suspended overbooking.

The total oversales per 10,000 passengers continued to be higher than 1978 until in 2017, when the infamous United Express Flight 3411 incident occurred which led to major decreases in airlines utilizing overbooking.

The Flight 3411 incident infamously involved Dr. David Dao who was involuntarily selected to deboard his flight. After refusing, an officer forced Dao off the plane leading to a broken nose and concussion. Before the incident, United tried to offer vouchers to incentivize volunteers, but they refused to offer more than $800.

After the incident, United and several airlines began to severely cut oversales, but post pandemic those numbers seem to be rising again.

This sort of situation, where a change leads to all parties being better off, is known by economists as a Pareto improvement.

The market had other advantages as well. Unlike the prior system, the passenger who gives up a seat is not chosen arbitrarily. Instead, the person who loses the seat is someone who doesn’t value it very much anyways. This is another advantage of markets. Resources tend to be allocated to the people who value them most.

These valuable features should come as no surprise. Simon’s solution was for airlines to create markets, and inherent in market systems are the upsides of mutually beneficial exchange and resources being allocated to highest valued uses.

So a $10,000 offer to incentivize someone to deboard a plane isn’t a failure of markets—it’s the beauty of markets in action. I can only hope to someday be on a flight that offers me $10,000 to make new plans.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden’s Transportation Department Targets CO2 Emissions of Cars on Highways to Push EVs thumbnail

Biden’s Transportation Department Targets CO2 Emissions of Cars on Highways to Push EVs

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By Bonner Cohen

One week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency could not regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants because the agency lacks congressional authorization to do so, the Biden Department of Transportation (DOT) proposed a rule targeting CO2 emissions from highway vehicles, for which DOT also has no legal authority.

DOT’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is proposing a rule that would require states and municipalities to “track and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their highways.” In keeping with a regulatory tradition that is as longstanding as it is misleading, DOT assures the public that the “carbon reduction program” contained in the rule will be “flexible,” allowing state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to “set their own targets.” That flexibility quickly disappears, however, when the DOT adds that the declining targets must “align” with the Biden administration’s “net-zero targets” as outlined in two executive orders and commitments made at the International Leaders Climate Summit.

The scheme to have state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations set ever-declining targets for emissions from on-road vehicles has no basis in law. Congress has never instructed DOT to take any such step. As close as it came were a few provisions in last year’s bipartisan infrastructure bill that established a few CO2 emissions-reduction programs at DOT. But nowhere in that legislation was DOT granted the authority to require vehicular emissions targets, much less targets that serve any “net-zero” goal.

In the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, the High Court ruled that EPA lacked statutory authority to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants. The same legal principle applies here. DOT’s proposed rule will trigger lawsuits arguing that the Biden administration’s action violates the separation of powers the court upheld in West Virginia v. EPA. Citing that precedent, plaintiffs will say that executive branch DOT officials acted unconstitutionally by assuming powers that only the legislative branch can grant. If the case makes it to the Supreme Court (and that could take years), and if that body is composed as it is now, the DOT’s power grab is likely to go the way of the Obama/Biden plan to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.

Clearing the Way for EVs

In a rare moment of regulatory candor, the administration acknowledges in the docket supporting DOT’s proposed rule that DOT’s scheme will ultimately encourage Americans to switch from gasoline-powered cars to EVs.

“The potential benefits that may flow from the proposed greenhouse gas measure stem from its potential to support more informed choices about transportation investments and other policies to achieve net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050, including projects eligible under the Carbon Reduction Program and the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, both established under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” the docket said.

Doing away with conventionally-powered automobiles, and replacing them with EVs, has been part of the Biden administration’s larger war on fossil fuels. While sales of EVs continue to creep up, so do their prices, keeping them well beyond the reach of ordinary Americans. The cost of the raw materials that go into EV batteries continues to soar, and the recharging infrastructure needed to support the millions of EVs said soon to be zipping down our highways is barely in its infancy.

Neither the Biden administration nor the automakers thumping their chests over their embrace of EVs have offered any realistic explanation for where the electricity for all these EVs will come from in a post-fossil-fuel world. Certainly not from windmills and solar panels. Nor has sufficient thought been given to how today’s already shaky grid is going to hold up under the stress of providing power to a growing number of EVs.

*****

This article was published by CFACT, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

Inflation Hits Yet Another Record High As Americans Feel The Squeeze thumbnail

Inflation Hits Yet Another Record High As Americans Feel The Squeeze

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By The Daily Caller

Inflation climbed 9.1% over the past 12 months, the highest year-over-year percentage increase since December 1981, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced Wednesday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 1.3% between May and June, according to the DOL report released Wednesday. Economists had predicted that CPI would increase by 1.1% last month and 8.8% over the 12-month period ending in June.

“The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent and the other major component indexes also rising,” the DOL said in their report. “The food index rose 1.0 percent in June, as did the food at home index.”

The White House preemptively downplayed the inflation data, saying the metric was already outdated as prices have begun to supposedly decrease.

“June CPI data is already out of date because energy prices have come down substantially this month and are expected to fall further,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.

BREAKING: Inflation just hit 9.1% in the United States.

Unreal.

— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) July 13, 2022

“I don’t think that number peaks until September and I think at that point it will be in double digits,” E.J. Antoni, research fellow for Regional Economics at The Heritage Foundation told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Wednesday’s report follows a steady stream of negative polling for President Joe Biden, including one New York Times survey that found a majority of Democrats would prefer the 79-year-old not run in 2024. Voters have cited the economy and inflation as major issues ahead of the midterms.

The gasoline index rose 11.2%, while the food at home index increased 10.4%,  year over year, BLS reported. Almost all aspects of American purchases increased in June, including shelter, airline fares, new and used cars and trucks, medical care, household furnishings and operations, recreation and clothing, according to BLS.

CPI surpassed the Federal Reserve’s 2% target in May 2021 and has continuously climbed higher and higher since, according to federal data.

AUTHOR

MAX KEATING

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: The DeSantis Boom: Florida Economy Soars As State Records Highest Budget Surplus Ever

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

VIDEO: Ten Minute Lesson on the Nature of Money thumbnail

VIDEO: Ten Minute Lesson on the Nature of Money

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By Vlad Tepes Blog

I was sent this by a gentleman who has a financial magazine read by some of the top people in finance. This is not my field and am uncomfortable even thinking about it in some ways. But I am reliably informed by a few people now, that there is truth in this world view, and profundity. In fact, this is not the usual video about how things work or what to invest in, so much is its an attempt to explain an entire world view about how money is created and destroyed, what wealth is, and so on. I plan to watch it a few more times and hopefully develop an understanding that gives me some predictive ability.

To the extent that I get it now, it doesn’t necessarily change much. It still appears that we are moving from a more or less credit driven free market system into what might be a more controlled feudal system. I dunno. Hopefully this offers insight. Looking forward to the comments on this.

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column by  Eeyore is republished with permission.

EPA Now Stuck Between A Rock and A Hard Place on CO2

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By David Wojick

EPA is stuck. What they will now do is anybody’s guess. Enjoy their dilemma!

There are lots of happy reports on the Supreme Court’s ruling throwing out EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan. Some go so far as to suggest that EPA is barred from regulating power plant CO2 emissions.

It is not quite that simple and the result is rather amusing. EPA is still required to regulate CO2 under the terms of the Clean Air Act, but that Act provides no way to do that regulation. The Clean Power Plan attempted to expand an obscure minor clause in the Act to do the job but SCOTUS correctly ruled that the clause does not confer that kind of massive authority.

EPA is between a rock and a hard place. It should tell Congress that it cannot do the job and needs a new law, along the lines of the SO2 law added to the Act in 1990, curbing emissions. But such a law has zero chance of passing in the foreseeable future.

EPA is stuck. What they will now do is anybody’s guess. Enjoy their dilemma!

Here is a bit more detail on the situation.

On one hand, EPA’s legal mandate to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act is clear. First the (prior) Supreme Court ruled that CO2 was a “pollutant” under the Act. This is because buried in the 1990 Amendments was a clause adding causing climate change to the definition of “pollutant”. The Court accepted the government’s claim that the CO2 increase could cause climate change. The new Court could change this but is unlikely to do so.

Given CO2 is a pollutant under the Act, EPA was required to decide if it was dangerous to human well-being or not. It then produced an “endangerment finding” saying that CO2 was indeed a threat.

Given these two steps, the Act then requires EPA to regulate CO2. It has been trying to figure out how to do so ever since.

The deep problem is that the Clean Air Act specifies very specific regulatory actions, none of which work for CO2. This is because CO2 is nothing like the true pollutants that the Act was developed to regulate.

The Act’s mainline mechanism is the NAAQS (pronounced “nacks”) which stands for National Ambient Air Quality Standards. These standards specify the ambient concentration levels allowed for various pollutants. Carbon dioxide’s cousin carbon monoxide is one of these pollutants. Locations that exceed the NAAQS receive stiff penalties.

Clearly, this mechanism assumes that local levels are due to local emissions, which can be controlled to achieve and maintain compliance.

But CO2 is nothing like that. There is no way America can control the ambient CO2 level. Even if humans are causing that level (which is itself controversial), it is then based on global emissions. CO2 is not a local pollutant.

For a CO2 NAAQS EPA could either set the standard below the global level or above it. If below then all of America would be out of compliance and subject to the Act’s penalties, with no way to comply. It is very unlikely that the Court would allow these universal endless penalties.

If the CO2 NAAQS were above the present level then there would be no legal basis for EPA taking any action, since compliance was complete.

So the NAAQS mechanism simply does not work.

Another major mechanism is to control the emissions of what are called “hazardous air pollutants” or HAPS. EPA explains it this way:

“Hazardous air pollutants are those known to cause cancer and other serious health impacts.  The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to regulate toxic air pollutants, also known as air toxics, from categories of industrial facilities.”

But CO2 is nontoxic, so not a HAP. In fact, our exhaled breath contains over one hundred times the ambient level of CO2, that is over 40,000 ppm. Clearly, if ambient 400 ppm CO2 were toxic we would all be dead. It would be absurd for EPA to try to classify CO2 as a HAP. No Court would stand for it.

The only other piece of the Clean Air Act that EPA might try to use is called “New Source Performance Standards” but as the name says they only apply to new construction (or major modifications). The myriad existing fossil-fueled power plants that supply our daily juice would not be covered. Even worse if EPA drove up the cost of new gas-fired plants we would likely restart the host of retired coal-fueled plants. What a hoot that would be!

So there you have it. EPA bought itself CO2 as a Clean Air Act pollutant, but there is no way under the Act to regulate it. To mix metaphors, EPA is all dressed up with no place to go. The Supreme Court decision returned EPA to its regulatory dead end.

I find this ridiculous situation to be truly laughable. What were they thinking? Does the EPA Administrator understand this? Has he told the President? How about Congress?

EPA’s problem with CO2 is much deeper than the latest Supreme Court Decision. The Clean Air Act simply does not work for CO2. What will EPA do?

*****

This article was published by the Heartland Institute and is reproduced with permission.

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The FDA Is Considering a Change That Would Have Huge Implications for Birth Control

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

The downsides of government mandates requiring a prescription are significant.

With the Supreme Court’s recent abortion decision, unplanned pregnancies are top-of-mind for many Americans. So, whatever one believes about abortion, the timing of a new debate on birth control policy within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) couldn’t be more important.

The FDA just received a request from a contraceptive company seeking authorization to sell its birth control pills over-the-counter—without a prescription, as is required nationwide under current laws. This has prompted renewed calls for the FDA to approve this change. And, according to the New York Times, it’s seriously considering it this time.

The FDA received its first application for the sale of a nonprescription birth control pill. The Paris-based company that asked for the over-the-counter authorization said the timing, weeks after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, was a coincidence. https://t.co/bHvsZra2zL

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 11, 2022

Why? Well, the downsides of government mandates requiring a prescription are significant.

For one thing, it makes birth control harder to access for people without health insurance or the time/resources to obtain professional medical care. It also adds significantly to the cost of birth control by introducing middlemen and additional steps.

The current restrictive regime is defended in the name of safety. After all, hormonal birth control pills can have serious side effects and some women shouldn’t take them if they have certain medical factors that conflict with the medication.

Still, while the medication is indeed serious, it should still be made available over the counter. Right now, the government is needlessly standing in the way between the medical community and countless women who could benefit from care but can’t necessarily obtain a prescription.

You don’t have to take my word for it. The American Medical Association (AMA) has firmly endorsed making birth control available over-the-counter and called on the FDA to approve the change.

“Providing patients with [over-the-counter] access to the birth control pill is an easy call from a public health perspective,” AMA Board Member David H. Aizuss, M.D. said. “Access is one of the most cited reasons why patients do not use oral contraceptives, use them inconsistently, or discontinue use. Expanding [over-the-counter] access would make it easier for patients to properly use oral contraceptives, leading to fewer unplanned pregnancies.”

Studies have shown that, in absence of a required doctor consultation, women are able to self-screen and determine if they meet any of the conditions where one shouldn’t take hormonal birth control. (You know, like people do all the time with various medications). They can also always consult the pharmacists, which doesn’t typically require insurance or even an appointment.

Other expert groups like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also support making the medication available without a prescription.

It would hardly be an unprecedented move.

Dozens of other countries don’t require a prescription for birth control, including Mexico, Portugal, India, Greece, and Brazil. It’s mostly western Europe, the US, Canada, and other advanced nations—with big, bloated bureaucratic governments—that have barriers in place. But in the countries where it is available, it seems to work out just fine.

More fundamentally, it’s a matter of who gets to decide. Can women weigh the risks and benefits of a medication and decide for themselves? Or should that decision be made for them by supposedly benevolent bureaucrats and the nanny state?

For those who believe in individual liberty, the answer is clear.

“Freedom over one’s physical person is the most basic freedom of all, and people in a free society should be sovereign over their own bodies,” former Congressman Ron Paul, himself a medical doctor, once said. “When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept that the state owns our bodies.”

The FDA shouldn’t own women’s bodies. They should.

As one long-time advocate of making birth control available over-the-counter, (my friend) the Washington Examiner writer Tiana Lowe, put it, “[The FDA] could do something that not only is broadly supported by people of all political stripes but also has a marked ability to prevent unplanned pregnancies from occurring in the first place.”

All it has to do is get out of the way.

AUTHOR

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The DeSantis Boom: Florida Economy Soars As State Records Highest Budget Surplus Ever thumbnail

The DeSantis Boom: Florida Economy Soars As State Records Highest Budget Surplus Ever

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By The Geller Report

If only the rest of America was governed like Florida. Governor DeSantis is the greatest governor in America. And it’s not even close. DeSantis will lead the post-Trump Republican Party. #DeSantis2028!

The DeSantis Boom: Florida Economy Soars As State Records Highest Budget Surplus Ever

By The Daily Caller, July 9, 2022

Florida ran a budget surplus of $21.8 billion in fiscal year 2021-22, the highest in state history, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday.

“Despite the headwinds created by the Biden administration’s policies, Florida is in a strong fiscal position because we preserved freedom and kept our economy open,” said DeSantis. “Our responsible policies have allowed us to make record investments to support our communities, promote education, protect the environment, and provide record tax relief for Floridians, all while building record reserves to protect the state against the reckless fiscal policies from Washington.”

AUTHOR

Geller Report Staff

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Make America Florida: The Case for DeSantis

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PODCAST: Can They Stop Governor Ron DeSantis?

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Another Government Blunder thumbnail

Another Government Blunder

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By Neland Nobel

We have experienced and witnessed a string of catastrophic government blunders in the past several years.

A partial listing of these blunders by our elected leaders includes:

  • The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, intervention in Ukraine with no strategy to win, the introduction of wokeness into the military creating a recruitment crisis, and failure to stand up for Hong Kong
  • Deliberately creating a disaster at the border with the importation of millions of illegal migrants, and ignoring the rising death toll from fentanyl
  • Pushing “green” energy before it is proven and phasing out energy that is proven before it is time, suppressing drilling and exploration of oil and natural gas creating a shortage hurting all Americans, and selling oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the Chinese Communists
  • Double-digit inflation caused by poor fiscal and monetary policy, failure to have a sensible budget and stabilize Social Security and Medicare, failure to properly regulate cryptocurrencies
  • Defunding the police and creating a crime wave, cashless bail that releases violent criminals onto the streets in many cities, and failure to enforce the laws fairly without discrimination
  • A failure to educate our children with basic skills while propagandizing them with racism and sexual perversion, and responding to legitimate parental complaints by labeling them as domestic terrorists
  • Failure to address the baby formula crisis, and an ongoing chip shortage crisis affecting much of America’s manufacturing capability

Whew!  And, this is just a partial list.

The big one was, of course, the response to Covid.  From the decision to “lockdown” came many of our economic woes.

The state and federal governments’ Covid response severely damaged civil liberties by quarantining the healthy rather than the sick, failed to “flatten the curve” in a time frame close to that proposed, ignored normal protocols for the safety and efficacy of vaccines, completely overstated both the effectiveness of vaccines and masks, failed to diligently pursue treatments, distorted the labor markets and the economy in general, and failed to investigate the origins of the virus, regardless of where that investigation would take us. 

On the educational front, the most recent  The Economist simply says “Covid learning loss has been a global disaster” and that new data shows it “far worse than anyone expected.”

In addition, there has been a failure to investigate conflicts of interest among federal health officials and their financial ties to government-regulated pharmaceutical companies.

One of the “bipartisan” measures touted by both parties was the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP.

You might remember these were non-collateralized loans, with no recourse, extended to small businesses (fewer than 500 employees) to offset the effect of the “lockdown.” In a sense, it was justified because it was the government that was putting companies out of business and creating huge layoffs.

For a government program, it was developed and executed quite rapidly, barely three weeks after the emergency for the Wuhan virus was declared.

Initiated under Trump in March of 2020, most of the “loans” were forgiven by Biden by June 2022.

This and other handout programs drastically increased money in circulation. Unlike Quantitative Easing which bolstered banks’ reserves (which stayed mostly within the banking system), this and other programs just handed out newly created money to the public in general. This is largely responsible for the inflation crisis and acculturating the public to expect direct payments from the government.

Moreover, the program itself was grotesquely inefficient. A new study has found that while it did save some jobs (jobs that would not have needed saving if the government had not adopted lockdown), it did so with great waste.

A new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis finds that it cost between $169,000 to $258,000 to save a job that averages $58,200.

The authors of the study concluded it cost taxpayers about $4 for every $1 in “saved” jobs.

Besides this miserable outcome, the study found that 72% of PPP funds went to households in the top 20% of income. In short, it was a massive handout to the rich and affluent. This simply exacerbated further the problem of income inequality.

Well, you could say, this is what happens in emergencies. But it was the government (mostly public health officials) that created the emergency. Further, it appears that government-funded programs gave birth to the virus itself!

Covid deaths were concentrated among the very elderly and those with co-morbidities, often two or more. There has never been any real threat to the great majority of workers or small businesses.

Even if there was a threat to the general population, you have to wonder if government SBA loans and bolstering the use of unemployment insurance would not have been a less wasteful way to handle the problem. Spending $4 to save $1 makes little sense.

Moreover, many small businesses “saved” are never coming back. It has been estimated that some 60% of businesses that were closed during lockdown are not coming back.

It was a monumental waste and failed in the end to save a huge swath of small businesses.

This is the downside to the “never let a crisis go to waste” mentality of those of both political parties in Washington, DC.

Often programs are ill-conceived, wasteful, set terrible precedent, and are difficult to repeal.

About the only good thing about this program that can be said, is that it ended in fairly short order.

This raises a very interesting macro question: given the string of errors made by our government leaders and corporate elites, why does a large segment of the population still insist that government programs, using compulsion and public money, are the way to solve complex problems?

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

Why Etsy made the 2022 Dirty Dozen List — Take Action! thumbnail

Why Etsy made the 2022 Dirty Dozen List — Take Action!

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By National Center on Sexual Exploitation

SIGN THE PETITION

Each year, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation releases the Dirty Dozen List, an annual campaign that names twelve entities that have facilitated or profited from sexual exploitation – and each year, we see significant victories and progress that give us hope for a world truly free from these abuses.

You’ve probably heard of some of the companies that are on the list this year, and some may be new or even confusing to you. In 2022, we’ve gotten questions about Etsy in particular.

I love Etsy – most of the art in my own home comes from talented Etsy artists. So why is NCOSE calling them out on the Dirty Dozen List?

While Etsy supports thousands of creators making handmade and unique products, the company is also in the business of selling:

  • pornographic merchandise,
  • image-based sexual abuse,
  • misogynistic apparel,
  • sex dolls – including ones resembling children and young teens.

That’s why we are calling on Etsy to fulfill their obligation to stop profiting from and normalizing child sex abuse and exploitation, and to improve their moderation and filtering techniques.

We are now about halfway through 2022, and your voice and support are more important than ever!

Help us encourage Etsy to stop selling sexual exploitation by taking action here, and join the thousands of other concerned advocates by signing this petition!

The power of our collective voices cannot be understated. We need more to join us, and I know you are just as passionate about changing the world for the better as we are here at NCOSE.

SIGN THE PETITION

©NCOSE. All rights reserved.

Fed’s QT Kicks Off: Total Assets Drop by $74 Billion from Peak, New Era Begins thumbnail

Fed’s QT Kicks Off: Total Assets Drop by $74 Billion from Peak, New Era Begins

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By Wolf Richter

QE creates money. QT does the opposite: it destroys money.

Total assets on the Fed’s weekly balance sheet as of July 6, released this afternoon, fell by $22 billion from the prior week, and by $74 billion from the peak in April, to $8.89 trillion, the lowest since February 9, as the Fed’s quantitative tightening (QT) has kicked off. The zigzag pattern is due to the peculiar nature of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) that we’ll get to in a moment.

Treasury securities fell by $20 billion for the week, and by $27 billion from peak.

Run-offs: twice a month. Treasury notes and bonds mature mid-month and end of the month, which is when they come off the Fed’s balance sheet, which in June was June 15th and June 30th.

Tightening deniers. Last week’s balance sheet was as of June 29 and didn’t include the June 30th run-off. However, the army of tightening-deniers trolling the internet and social media doesn’t know that, and so a week ago, they fanned out and announced that the Fed had already ended QT, or was backtracking on it because Treasuries hadn’t dropped in two weeks, which was hilarious. Or more sinister: hedge funds manipulating markets through their minions.

Inflation compensation from TIPS adds to balance. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities pay inflation compensation that is added to the face value of the TIPS (similar to the popular “I bonds”). So if you hold a fixed number of TIPS, their face value will rise with the amount of the inflation compensation. When they mature, you will receive the total amount of original face value plus inflation compensation.

The Fed holds $384 billion in TIPS at its original face value. It has received $92 billion of inflation compensation on those TIPS. This inflation compensation increased its holdings of TIPS to $476 billion.

Over the month of June, inflation compensation increased by $4 billion. In other words, until those TIPS mature and run off the balance sheet, the Fed’s holdings of TIPS will increase by the amount of inflation compensation – currently around $1-1.5 billion a week!

No TIPS matured in June. But next week, July 15, TIPS with an original face value of $9.6 billion-plus $2.5 billion in inflation compensation will mature, for a total of $12.1 billion, that the Fed will get paid. After that, the next maturity of TIPS on the Fed’s balance sheet is on January 15, 2023. And the TIPS balance will increase from July 15 through January 15 due to inflation compensation.

The thing to remember about the Fed’s TIPS is that the inflation compensation is added to the balance of TIPS and therefore to the balance of Treasury securities, at around $1-1.5 billion a week currently.

The balance of Treasury securities fell by $20 billion from the prior week and by $27 billion from the peak on June 8, to $5.74 trillion, the lowest since February 23:

  • Note the two run-offs on the balance sheets on June 16 and today.
  • Note the small steady increase of around $1-1.5 billion a week after QE had ended from mid-March into June, which is the inflation compensation from TIPS.

MBS fell by $31 billion from the peak.

Pass-through principal payments. Holders of MBS receive pass-through principal payments when the underlying mortgages are paid off after the home is sold or the mortgage is refinanced, and when mortgage payments are made. As a passthrough principal payment is made, the balance of the MBS shrinks by that amount. These pass-through principal payments are uneven and unpredictable.

Purchases in the TBA market and delayed settlement. During QE, and to a much lesser extent during the taper, and to a minuscule extent now, the Fed tries to keep the balance of MBS from shrinking too fast by buying MBS in the “To Be Announced” (TBA) market. But purchases in the TBA market take one to three months to settle. The Fed books its trades after they settle. So the purchases included in any balance sheet were made one to three months earlier.

This delay is why it takes months for MBS balance to reflect the Fed’s current purchases. The purchases we see show up on the balance sheet in June were made somewhere around March and April.

And these purchases are not aligned with the pass-through principal payments that the Fed receives. This misalignment creates the ups and downs of the MBS balance, that also carries through to the overall balance sheet.

In addition, MBS may also get called by the issuer (such as Fannie Mae) when the principal balance has shrunk so much that it’s not worth maintaining the MBS (the issuer then repackages the remaining underlying mortgages into new MBS).

Tightening deniers. So when the tightening-deniers – including a hedge-fund guy with a big Twitter following – trolled the internet and the social media about QT not happening because MBS balance ticked up by $1.2 billion on the June 23 balance sheet, they got tangled up in their own underwear. The following week, the MBS balance fell by $19.5 billion. That’s how MBS on the Fed’s balance sheet work. These folks just didn’t know, or more insidiously, tried to manipulate the markets…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Wolf Street.

TAKE ACTION

Are you concerned about election integrity? What informed United States citizen isn’t? Did the 2020 national election raise many questions about election integrity? Are you concerned about the current cycle of primaries and then the general election in November? No doubt the answer for The Prickly Pear readers is YES.

Click below for a message from Tony Sanchez, the RNC Arizona Election Integrity Director to sign up for the opportunity to become an official Poll Observer for the 8/2 AZ Primary and the 11/8 General Election in your county of residence. We need many, many good citizens to do this – get involved now and help make the difference for clean and honest elections.

SUPPLY CHAIN CRISIS: 70,000 Self-Employed Truckers in California Forced Off The Road Under New Democrat State Law thumbnail

SUPPLY CHAIN CRISIS: 70,000 Self-Employed Truckers in California Forced Off The Road Under New Democrat State Law

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By The Geller Report

The Democrats war on the hard working American ratcheted up another unimaginable notch. But this time, it not only outs the small businessman out of business, throw in massive shortages (food, supplies etc.), supply chain issues etc. It’s a catastrophe

Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a review on whether California Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) violates the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 as it applies to self-employed truck drivers.

70,000 Self-Employed Truckers in California Face Shutdown Under New State Law

Industry says it’s ‘pouring gasoline’ on supply chain crisis

By Allan Stein, The Epoch Times, July 8, 2022:

Tens of thousands of independent California truck owner-operators could be out of business soon under a new statewide worker classification law designating them as employees.

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a review on whether California Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) violates the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 as it applies to self-employed truck drivers.

“Gasoline has been poured on the fire that is our ongoing supply chain crisis,” the California Trucking Association (CTA) wrote in a June 30 response to the high court’s decision regarding the association’s legal challenge to the bill.

“In addition to the direct impact on California’s 70,000 owner-operators—who have seven days to cease long-standing independent businesses—the impact of taking tens of thousands of truck drivers off the road will have devastating repercussions on an already fragile supply chain, increasing costs and worsening runaway inflation,” the association added.

“We are disappointed the court does not recognize the irrevocable damage eliminating independent truckers will have on interstate commerce and communities across the state.

“The legislature and [Gavin] Newsom administration must immediately take action to avoid worsening the supply chain crisis and inflation.”

The California State Assembly adopted AB-5 in September 2019, sparking CTA’s legal challenge and the Supreme Court’s latest decision.

The bill’s primary sponsor was Lorena Gonzalez (D), a union leader and former Assembly member.

Under AB-5, a self-employed commercial truck owner must satisfy a three-part test to be considered an independent contractor, with exceptions for construction trucking services.

The bill adds that existing law “creates a presumption that a worker who performs services for a hirer is an employee for purposes of claims for wages and benefits arising under wage orders issued by the Industrial Welfare Commission.”

Existing law defines employees for purposes that include “any individual who, under the usual common law rules applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, has the status of an employee.”

Self-Employed Truckers Entitled to Benefits

The bill would entitle those self-employed truck drivers and owners to the same benefits and workers’ compensation as regular employees.

According to Globecom Freight Systems, a leading provider of transportation services, owner-operators make up 9 percent (350,000) of the commercial truckers on the road today. Their average salary is about $50,000.

A recent study by the American Trucking Association found that the nationwide shortage of 80,000 truck drivers could double by 2030. In light of the shortage, many trucking companies now offer lucrative sign-on bonuses and salaries to attract more drivers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently launched an apprenticeship driver program for those aged 18–to–20 that would allow them to cross state lines to help further alleviate the shortage.

Tony Bradley, president and CEO of the Arizona Trucking Association, criticized AB-5 as a “horribly misguided piece of legislation” by California labor unions that will have a “drastic impact across all trucking.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Economics: Natural Gas Soars 700% thumbnail

Biden Economics: Natural Gas Soars 700%

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By The Geller Report

“Best economy in history.” — White House

Natural Gas Soars 700%, Becoming Driving Force in the New Cold War

(Bloomberg) — One morning in early June, a fire broke out at an obscure facility in Texas that takes natural gas from US shale basins, chills it into a liquid and ships it overseas. It was extinguished in 40 minutes or so. No one was injured.

It sounds like a story for the local press, at most — except that more than three weeks later, financial and political shockwaves are still reverberating across Europe, Asia and beyond.

That’s because natural gas is the hottest commodity in the world right now. It’s a key driver of global inflation, posting price jumps that are extreme even by the standards of today’s turbulent markets — some 700% in Europe since the start of last year, pushing the continent to the brink of recession. It’s at the heart of a dawning era of confrontation between the great powers, one so intense that in capitals across the West, plans to fight climate change are getting relegated to the back-burner.

In short, natural gas now rivals oil as the fuel that shapes geopolitics. And there isn’t enough of it to go around.

It’s the war in Ukraine that catalyzed the gas crisis to a new level, by taking out a crucial chunk of supply. Russia is cutting back on pipeline deliveries to Europe — which says it wants to stop buying from Moscow anyway, if not quite yet. The scramble to fill that gap is turning into a worldwide stampede, as countries race to secure scarce cargoes of liquefied natural gas ahead of the northern-hemisphere winter.

The New Oil?

Germany says gas shortfalls could trigger a Lehman Brothers-like collapse, as Europe’s economic powerhouse faces the unprecedented prospect of businesses and consumers running out of power. The main Nord Stream pipeline that carries Russian gas to Germany is due to shut down on July 11 for ten days of maintenance, and there’s growing fear that Moscow may not reopen it. Group of Seven leaders are seeking ways to curb Russia’s gas earnings, which help finance the invasion of Ukraine — and backing new LNG investments. And poorer countries

that built energy systems around cheap gas are now struggling to afford it.

“This is the 1970s for natural gas,” says Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a Washington-based research firm. “The world is now thinking about gas as it once thought about oil, and the essential role that gas plays in modern economies and the need for secure and diverse supply have become very visible.”

Natural gas used to be a sleepy commodity that changed hands in fragmented regional markets. Now, even though globalization appears to be in retreat across much of the world economy, the gas trade is headed in the opposite direction. It’s globalizing fast — but maybe not fast enough.

Keep reading……

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: EU Declares Fossil Fuel To Be ‘Green’ Energy As ‘Climate Change’ Narrative Self-Destructs

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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