Goodbye, GM …by Michael Moore

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war — a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call “cars” may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn’t give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true — that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don’t put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce — and most of those who have been laid off — employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades — and we don’t even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven’t used it, is criminal. Let’s hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we’re going to have automobiles, let’s have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories — that simply isn’t true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that’s a start. Please, please, please don’t save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don’t throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

Lets take that last part to it’s logical conclusion. Lets not have fascism or socialism and steal people’s wealth. More specicly how about the government fokes not take over GM at all and allow the market to show them the door and reallocate capital appropriately.

Gotta love how he bashes GM management regarding how it treated the workers. The half million getting pensions? The ones sitting around the factory floor getting 90% their salery to sit around? The union (with government help) which has pushed up salaries beyond market?

$2 tax on every gallon of gasoline? I’m sure the rather wealthy Mr. Moore wouldn’t notice much but I bet the average American would.

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The White House is open to compromise on certain key elements of its climate-change agenda, including whether businesses could get some emissions allowances free, administration officials said Wednesday.

“[The president's] preferred approach was 100% auction to create incentives for companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions,” said White House spokesman Ben LaBolt. “Members of Congress are looking at a variety of policy options to help us make that transition, and the administration will be flexible during the policymaking process as long as those larger goals are met,” he said in an email.

Many lawmakers have warned that passing a climate bill will be difficult if the administration sticks to a position that all of the greenhouse-gas emissions allowances under a so-called cap and trade system would have to be purchased at auction. Recent Senate votes have indicated that proponents of an economywide cap and trade proposal don’t yet have the 60 votes needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.

Many of those same senators have written to Mr. Obama warning against trying to push a bill with 100% auction and outlining some of their concerns. Legislators are concerned that auctioning off so many credits would cost their industries too much and they want a larger portion of the revenues funneled into low-carbon energy technologies and energy-intensive sectors.

In the president’s fiscal year 2010 budget, the administration proposed cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 83% from 2005 levels by 2050, and auctioning off all of the credits that give the holder the right to emit gases such as carbon dioxide. Mr. Obama proposed distributing most of the revenues gathered in the auction as a tax credits to lower-income households, while siphoning off a fraction to fund clean-energy technologies.

If CO2 is truly a pollutant how is it legitimate that the government allows people to pollute? Giving them the permission to explicitly do so? Isn’t that exactly what lead to the polluted state we live in now? By going from upholding property rights to explicitly allowing others to infringe on them. It shows that they really don’t buy into the whole crisis thing. It’s just a way to gain more power and control and is heavily supported with the state socialist movements of the world. Cap and trade has shown to be at best ineffective if not an outright racket in which, as always, big business uses government as a means to keep out competition. Leading to corporatism, fascism, socialism.

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Just when you thought it was safe to drive in the People’s Republic of California–as long as your car isn’t painted black, here’s the latest “innovation” for “saving the planet” that is beginning to gain traction (pun intended) in our “most progressive” state: mandatory checking of tire pressure by auto repair shops every time a customer brings his car in for maintenance.

“An issue that briefly brought President Barack Obama ridicule on the campaign trail last year is gaining traction in California, where air regulators are seeking to mandate proper tire inflation as a way to reduce fuel consumption.The state Air Resources Board on Thursday adopted a resolution requiring auto repair shops to check tire pressure every time drivers bring in their vehicle for maintenance, oil changes and smog tests. The next step is to develop detailed rules to implement the mandate, which will take effect in July 2010.

Regulators say widespread awareness of having properly inflated tires could lead to California motorists saving 75 million gallons of gasoline a year and using 700,000 fewer tires.”

And that’s not all:

California Proposes Ban on Energy-Hogging HDTVs Starting in 2011

“The California Energy Commission is going ahead with a proposal this summer that promises to ban State shops from selling televisions not considered energy efficient.The proposal is set up as a two-tiered system. The first enforces efficiency standards beginning in 2011 and would save 3,831 gigawatt hours (and bring down overall TV energy consumption by 33%) by placing a cap on the active mode power usage (in watts) of individual TVs. Current standards in California only regulate TVs in standby mode, at a cap of 3.0 watts.”

It sure is going to be fun to watch the socio-fascist State of California collapse. Someone should send Schwarzenegger a copy of Human Action or Socialism. He’s Austrian… can read them in the original language.

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Our movements are already tracked by CCTV, speed cameras and even spies in dustbins.

Now snooping on the public has reached new heights with local authorities putting spy planes in the air to snoop on homeowners who are wasting too much energy.

Thermal imaging cameras are being used to create colour-coded maps which will enable council officers to identify offenders and pay them a visit to educate them about the harm to the environment and measures they can take.

A scheme is already under way in Broadland District Council in Norfolk, which has spent £30,000 hiring a plane with a thermal imaging camera.

It said the exercise has been so successful other local authorities are planning to follow suit.

But critics have warned the crackdown was another example of local authorities extending their charter to poke their noses into every aspect of people’s lives.

Broadland, which covers towns including Aylsham, Reepham and Acle, hired the plane from a Leicestershire-based company for five days at the end of January.

The aircraft took images of homes and businesses, with those losing the most heat showing up as red, while better insulated properties appear blue.

The council’s head of environmental services, Andy Jarvis, said the original plan was to target businesses but it was realised the scope could be extended to include residental properties.

‘The project we put together was for a plane to go up on various nights flying strips of the district and taking pictures,’ he said.

‘Through those images, a thermal image photograph can be created in which you can pick out individual properties which are losing a lot of heat.

‘We do a lot on domestic energy conservation already and realised it would be useful to see if any of the homes which were particularly hot were properties where people had not insulated their lofts.

‘We were also able to look at very cold properties and think we might have picked up people on low incomes who are not heating their homes because they cannot afford to.’

More than half the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions come from the domestic sector, which includes property and transport.

Almost 60 per cent of a household’s heat is lost through uninsulated walls, lofts and windows, costing the average home £380 a year.

Insulation is estimated to reduce each home’s carbon emissions by around two tonnes annually.

The first city in the UK to make a heat-loss map was Aberdeen, while the first local authority in England was Haringey Council, in London – although environmental groups at that time said they viewed the practice as a ‘gimmick’ of little real value.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has added concerns about the issue of privacy.

Chief executive Matthew Elliott said: ‘People are sick and tired of being heckled and spied on by local government and this council has shown an utter disregard for the man on the street.’

He added: ‘We’re in a recession and you would have thought this council had better ways to spend £30,000.

‘Taxpayers are already footing the bill for innumerable advertising campaigns at a time when families are struggling to make ends meet.’

But Conservative-led Broadlands insisted the heat-loss map would allow officers to pinpoint offenders and point out how to get help and grants to improve insulation to cut carbon emissions.

Council leader Simon Woodbridge said the project would ‘effectively pay for itself within a few weeks in terms of the amounts of money we can help people to save’.

Lib Dem group leader Stuart Beadle added: ‘Cameras are in place all over today and we have to accept them. So long as the right guidelines are in place and it will bring benefits, I think the scheme is a good thing.’

Britain now has more than four million CCTV cameras – a fifth of those in use around the world – and around 8,000 speed cameras.

Almost 500 local authorities have been using anti-terrorism powers brought in under the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act to launch a string of bizarre investigations.

These have included checks on dog fouling, putting bins out on the wrong day and people trying to cheat school catchment area rules.

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The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.

The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.

If the environmental agency determines that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, it would set off one of the most extensive regulatory rule makings in history. Ms. Jackson knows that she would be stepping into a minefield of Congressional and industry opposition and said that she was trying to devise a program that allayed these worries.

He said that under the clean air law any source emitting more than 250 tons of a declared pollutant would be subject to regulation, potentially including schools, hospitals, shopping centers, even bakeries, which has prompted some critics to call it the “Dunkin’ Donuts rule.”

But Mr. Bookbinder and other supporters say the regulations can be written to exempt these potential emitters. Ms. Jackson said that there was no timetable for issuing regulations governing carbon emissions and that her agency would not engage in “rash decision making.”

Either carbon dioxide is a “dangerous pollutant” there should be no exceptions. A 1 250 tons “polluter” is just as bad as 250 1 ton “polluters.” A law like this would incentivize businesses to build smaller emitters and more of them. At some point the limit would lower, covering more emitters and increasing the difficulty of enforcement. At 1kg / day and 305,837,000 individuals subject the this proposed regulation we get 337,127.584 short tons. Divided by 250 we get 1348.51 legally regulatable sources. The law should be consistantly applied. Proportional to output. That is assuming property rights are ignored and everything is treated as “commons.” When you account for private property rights pollution is a subjective designation. The only person or persons able to define what pollution is are those who OWN the property. If you are a farmer and believe the studies which show that increased CO2 percentages increase crop yield you may not care that the guy next door is allowing CO2 onto your property. If however he’s burning coal and covering the landscape in soot you have a clear, involuntary, property rights infringement which can be brought to arbitration and gives the infringed the legitimate use of force to prevent further infringement and cover damages.

This is of course ignoring any consideration that CO2 may in fact not be a significant contributor to global climate change. Given that H2O vapor and methane play far larger roles in being components of the earth green house gas composition either due to its increase heat retention per unit or due to shear quantity of the gas in the atmosphere.

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Things are looking pretty bleak. There is bad news in housing, the stock market, commercial real estate, jobs, and wages . Unfortunately, no matter how bad things are, someone always comes along to propose a “solution” that is guaranteed to make the situation much worse. Please consider the following ideas.

Punish savers and make them spend money: Near-zero interest rates and even a tax on bank deposits are necessary to force those with cash to use it productively

Assuming interest rates are reduced to about 1 per cent today, it will make little difference to savers if they fall all the way to zero. To all intents and purposes, income from bank accounts will be reduced to nil.

The next logical step, although it may be politically controversial, would be to do the opposite of what the Tories suggest. Instead of reducing taxes on interest payments, the Government could tax all bank deposits and other risk-free savings. This would create a negative risk-free interest rate, encouraging savers either to invest in property, shares and other productive assets – or simply to save less and consume more. In either case, the result would be more consumption and physical investment, less unemployment and faster recovery from the slump.

The Case for Bigger Government

Thirty years ago, Americans were told that government was part of the problem, not the solution. We bet on the magic of the marketplace, but the magic proved illusory. Every major part of the economy – health care, energy, transportation, food and finance – is deeply troubled. Now we are ready to invite government back in to help solve our problems, if the price is right and the strategies are convincing. By spending more through government and treating government as a partner rather than an enemy of the private sector, we can potentially save vast sums in the long run through a more efficient health-care system, safer climate, more competitive economy and more secure country.

A big difference between the U.S. and the rest of the rich world is that for the past 30 years or so, Americans consistently rejected “government solutions” to the problems of health, poverty, education and the environment.

What Hath Big Government Wrought?

• It was big government that brought us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• It was big government that sponsored the war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq.
• It was big government that gave us nightmare problems we face with Medicaid and Medicare.
• It was big government that gave us overlapping hundred billion dollar systems in the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
• It is big government that sponsored 10’s of thousands of pork barrel projects and bridges to nowhere.
• It is big government that gave us the Davis Bacon Act and the insanity pf prevailing wages.
• It was big government sponsorship of the rating agencies that created the “AAA” rated securities that went to zero.
• It was big government that took us off the gold standard and illegally confiscated citizen’s money.
• It was big government that allowed fractional reserve lending and theft by inflation this is the root cause of a shrinking middle class today.
• It was big government that created the Fed, and it was the Greenspan Fed that blew serial bubble after bubble culminating in the housing crash we are in today.

Big government either created or made worse every problem we have today. Yet Time Magazine and free lunch proponents like Krugman propose an even bigger government is necessary to fix the enormous problems of an already too big government.

I’d like to add that the idea that “Americans consistently rejected “government solutions” to the problems of health, poverty, education and the environment” is completely fallacious and ridiculous. Medicare, medicaid, the war on poverty, from little or no federal involvement to No Child Left Behind, huge federal college subsidies, the increase of scope and power of the EPA, etc. Just because Americans didn’t jump on board as quickly as other socialist / fascist States doesn’t mean such ideas were rejected.

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First batch here.

Here is the second. Like the first batch, they are well-considered and interesting throughout; they will surely make many readers continue to wish fervently for a Paul presidency.

Thanks again to Rep. Paul for his time and insights, and to all of you for the good questions.

Q: What is the first thing the country should do about its monetary policy?

A: We should immediately audit the Federal Reserve. I am the ranking member of the Monetary Policy subcommittee in the U.S. Congress, yet I can get more information about the internal workings of the C.I.A. than I can about our central bank. This secrecy is fundamentally wrong, and I believe that people from all over the ideological political spectrum can agree on that.

Bloomberg News this month has gone to court compel the Fed to disclose securities the central bank is accepting on behalf of American taxpayers as collateral for trillions of dollars of loans to banks. Expanding transparency is critical and could be done very quickly.

Q: What are your expectations for the next four years under an Obama administration? How might President Obama’s interventionist economic policies impact our lives?

A: Unfortunately, I don’t expect many good things. I do expect a lot of spending and even more debt. To really cut spending and balance our budget, we need to change foreign policy. Obama’s rhetoric on foreign policy is better than what we have gotten recently, but don’t expect any real change.

He may be more likely to wind things down in Iraq, but he’s still planning on keeping troops there for a least 16 more months. He wants money for Georgia and more troops in Afghanistan. He isn’t going to bring home our 30,000 troops from Korea or our 50,000 soldiers in Germany, and he won’t close any of our 700 foreign bases. At the same time, he is planning even bigger spending here at home. I hope I’m wrong, but if this spending and debt continue, the dollar is going to crash and we will see the middle class in this country take a grave hit.

Q: Do you deny global warming? Is Obama right to invest money in green technology? If you don’t deny it, and don’t think Obama is right, what is your solution?

A: I try to look at global warming the same way I look at all other serious issues: as objectively and open-minded as possible. There is clear evidence that the temperatures in some parts of the globe are rising, but temperatures are cooling in other parts. The average surface temperature had risen for several decades, but it fell back substantially in the past few years.

Clearly there is something afoot. The question is: Is the upward fluctuation in temperature man-made or part of a natural phenomenon. Geological records indicate that in the 12th century, Earth experienced a warming period during which Greenland was literally green and served as rich farmland for Nordic peoples. There was then a mini ice age, the polar ice caps grew, and the once-thriving population of Greenland was virtually wiped out.

It is clear that the earth experiences natural cycles in temperature. However, science shows that human activity probably does play a role in stimulating the current fluctuations.

The question is: how much? Rather than taking a “sky is falling” approach, I think there are common-sense steps we can take to cut emissions and preserve our environment. I am, after all, a conservative and seek to conserve not just American traditions and our Constitution, but our natural resources as well.

We should start by ending subsidies for oil companies. And we should never, ever go to war to protect our perceived oil interests. If oil were allowed to rise to its natural price, there would be tremendous market incentives to find alternate sources of energy. At the same time, I can’t support government “investment” in alternative sources either, for this is not investment at all.

Government cannot invest, it can only redistribute resources. Just look at the mess government created with ethanol. Congress decided that we needed more biofuels, and the best choice was ethanol from corn. So we subsidized corn farmers at the expense of others, and investment in other types of renewables was crowded out.

Now it turns out that corn ethanol is inefficient, and it actually takes more energy to produce the fuel than you get when you burn it. The most efficient ethanol may come from hemp, but hemp production is illegal and there has been little progress on hemp ethanol. And on top of that, corn is now going into our gas tanks instead of onto our tables or feeding our livestock or dairy cows; so food prices have been driven up. This is what happens when we allow government to make choices instead of the market; I hope we avoid those mistakes moving forward.

Q: Will you run for a leadership position in the House Republican caucus?

A: I have no plans to do so. I don’t cut deals and trade votes, which is exactly what a role like that requires.

Q: What are your thoughts on abolishing America’s income tax and switching over to a consumption tax such as the fair tax?

A: I want to abolish the income tax, but I don’t want to replace it with anything. About 45 percent of all federal revenue comes from the personal income tax. That means that about 55 percent — over half of all revenue — comes from other sources, like excise taxes, fees, and corporate taxes.

We could eliminate the income tax, replace it with nothing, and still fund the same level of big government we had in the late 1990’s. We don’t need to “replace” the income tax at all. I see a consumption tax as being a little better than the personal income tax, and I would vote for the Fair-Tax if it came up in the House of Representatives, but it is not my goal. We can do better.

Q: Did former Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan really believe in free markets or did he fail to practice what he preached?

A: In my book The Revolution: A Manifesto I talk about an encounter I had with Greenspan when he was still Fed chairman. I had come across an old Objectivist newsletter Greenspan had written in the 1960’s supporting a real gold standard. It was great stuff!

At a gathering we both attended, I presented the booklet and asked if he still believed in its subject. He said he remembered the piece and still believed every word. I can’t profess to know what is in Mr. Greenspan’s heart, but his own words lead me to believe that he knew better than to pursue the policies he did.

Q: What policies should have been put into place in 1932 to stimulate the economy instead of the confiscation of monetary gold?

A: A trust in free markets and sound money would have made the 1930’s much less rough. Inflation caused the Depression, and the big government policies of Roosevelt exacerbated the problem. Murray Rothbard wrote a masterpiece on the cause of the 1929 crash and the Great Depression, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a deep interest who wants to read the authoritative view.

Q: Is there any part of the Republican Party reaching out to you? At what point do we dump the G.O.P. and leave it for dead?

A: The leadership in the House of Representatives and at the N.R.C.C. has been cordial, and I as a ranking subcommittee member am myself in leadership. Other national leadership bodies largely ignore me.

Where I get the most attention, though, is from rank-and-file members. Dozens of Republican congressmen from across the country asked me for money and support in November’s election. I was happy to support and contribute to several deserving individuals through my Liberty PAC.

As far as quitting or staying with the Republicans, everyone will have to make up his or her own mind. There can be value in choosing either path. I myself have no plans to leave the G.O.P.

Q: Why is it that, even in the midst of unimaginable deficits and an economic crisis, both our enormous military and our policy of drug prohibition remain sacrosanct? Do you think this reflects actual democratic opinion, or is it the work of powerful, but numerically small interest groups?

A: I think that it might reflect democratic opinion, but only because each issue has been demagogued.

Take military spending. I believe in a strong national defense. I want our troops here, defending our territory; I want nuclear submarines and an adequate arsenal of weapons that can repeal any conceivable attack. What I don’t want to do is spend a trillion dollars a year maintaining an empire.

Today, our troops are in 130 countries. We have 700 foreign bases. We can spend far less and have a stronger national defense than we do right now. But if you question our foreign policy, you are branded as un-American. And we’re told that if we don’t “fight them over there, we’ll fight them over here.” That’s absurd.

On your second example, the federal war on drugs has proven costly and ineffective, while creating terrible violent crime. But if you question policy, you are accused of being pro-drug. That is preposterous. As a physician, father, and grandfather, I abhor drugs. I just know that there is a better way — through local laws, communities, churches, and families — to combat the very serious problem of drug abuse than a massive federal-government bureaucracy.

There are certainly some powerful special interests that benefit from our flawed foreign and drug policies. Now, do I think they openly conspire together to deceive and manipulate? No I don’t. The system is much to complicated to think a few puppet masters control the strings. But I do think we’d be a lot better off if we listened to our founding fathers and obeyed the Constitution. The founders would never have formed a D.E.A., and they would be horrified if they saw our troops spread thin around the globe.

Q: What do you think were your biggest mistakes in the primary race, and what would you now do differently?

A: I was always pessimistic and never thought we would get to where we did. My regret is that we couldn’t see how quickly things would grow and were not adequately prepared for the explosion in money and support when they came. There are dozens, hundreds of things we could have done better, but we all worked hard and did our best. And I know we built something that will only get stronger in the years to come.

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Envirowise is calling on businesses to appoint tea monitors to make sure people do not waste water.

It is advising companies to use teapots instead of making individual cups of tea, and hopes to re-introduce tea urns to the workplace.

They say that the moves will cut greenhouse gas emissions and, in turn, help businesses to save money.

Envirowise, which is funded by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, estimates that more than 30 billion cups of water are unnecessarily boiled each year.

In a statement it tells businesses: “Appoint a tea task force or tea monitor to make sure all your office hot drink-making facilities are as efficient as they could be. Only boil the water you use – this will avoid water and energy being wasted.”

They go on to say that employees should use a teapot when making a round of hot drinks as this “allows you to measure the correct amount of water you will need, and often tastes nicer than making tea in the cup.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…

Coastguards have been banned from using flares in rescue missions after they were ruled to be a risk to health and safety.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency says the devices, which are used to illuminate large areas of land and sea during night-time searches, could cause ‘considerable injury’.

Rescue teams have been told to use ’safer’ alternatives such as torches and night-vision goggles during land-based cliff and beach rescues.

All 400 Coastguard rescue teams now have until the end of the year to use up their cache of flares or hand them over to the Ministry of Defence for disposal.

Yesterday volunteers claimed the decision will put lives at risk because flares are essential for locating lost people and vessels in the dark.

One crewman said: ‘This is the most stupid, ignorant thing I’ve heard of. Flares light up the entire sky and aid rescue missions – something that obviously can’t be done with a hand-held torch.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/…

Restaurants could be made to reveal on menus how much, if any, of their service charge is paid to waiting staff. The measure will be among proposals announced next week to ensure that diners know what happens to their tips, The Times has learnt.

Some establishments keep all gratuities, while others – particularly restaurant chains – funnel tips into waiters’ basic wages. Ministers have already pledged to close a loophole that allows restaurants and hotels to use service charges to top up pay rates beneath the minimum wage, currently £5.73 an hour.

Next week they will publish proposals for greater information on what happens to discretionary charges, typically 10 per cent or 12.5 per cent.

The consultation comes after negotiations between the industry and the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform.

A senior figure involved in the talks said: “People leaving a gratuity assume that it’s going to the person that served them – they have a right to know whether that’s the case.”

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The cost of living in the U.S. was unchanged in September, restrained by declines in fuel costs, automobile prices and airline fares that show the slowing economy is starting to cool inflation.

The Labor Department’s consumer price index was unchanged after a 0.1 percent drop in August; economists had forecast an increase for last month. So-called core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.1 percent, also less than forecast.

Today’s figures show that for the first time in two years, prices didn’t increase for two straight months. Waning inflation gives Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke scope to lower interest rates further as policy makers attempt to unfreeze credit markets.

“It’ll give the Fed a little bit of cover to cut rates when they meet next,” on Oct. 28-29, John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Does this look like a wane in inflation?

Oh… they mean price inflation. Well… that will come. The wave is coming. I’d like to be upset about the impending interest drop but at this point so much money has been injected and will be injected in the future… a 0.0% rate wouldn’t make much of a difference.

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2. Federal Reserve buys Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS)
3. Inflation on demand: FED to flood world with dollars

They both want more regulation, more totalitarian “oversight,” more national socialism. So far, the only debate is centered around a lie perpetuated by both sides: That the Republicans are for smaller government.

McCain Is a Socialist, Too!
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:15 PM

Palin argues that McCain is anything but laissez-faire. After all, he’s for campaign finance censorship and tobacco nanny statism.

She’s Getting Away With It
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:19 PM

The key for McCain is to somehow run against the status quo, to run against his own party’s recent legacy. Palin says that we shouldn’t trust national health care, unless we have been happy with the way the feds have been handling things lately. Of course, she is right. Those who hate the Bush legacy — meaning, total statism — should logically oppose socialism too. But the McCain/Palin administration would be more of the same, more Bushism, more socialism. This severe ideological confusion helps both parties, and creates the illusion that there is a difference between the two.

Biden is getting away with it too, blaming the Republicans for shrinking the state. I can’t stand either one.

The Elephant in the Room
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:23 PM

They both support the fascist bailout. They both support a trillion-dollar foreign policy and a multi-trillion dollar corporate/entitlement state. They are debating over millions when the state they wish to run spends trillions. Even assuming the greatness of mass democracy, this is a grave injustice. They should be debating big, real issues. Not this trivia.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign continues to campaign on the fact that for a few days they nominally stopped campaiging.

The GOP’s Embrace of Autarky
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:30 PM

When, by the way, did the Republicans and almost all conservatives come to champion the frightening and economically ludicrous concept of “energy independence”? What they mean, of course, is autarky and socialism: All energy produced within America, and every single form of energy — solar, coal, oil, nuclear, wind, etc. — subsidized massively by the federal government. Even the Alaska drilling issue isn’t conceived of with anything approaching market reasoning. “We,” as in the federal government, should drill.

(Although the Republicans are more skeptical of the global warming zeitgist, they seem willing to champion big government programs such as carbon emissions limits to address climate change. Hey, environmentalists, with all the Republican leaders and corporate state adopting this line, you know it’s wrong.)

Biden Just Admitted It
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:39 PM

Obama’s Iraq withdrawal plan is the same as Bush’s. Biden does say, however, that the Dems will end the war, eventually. Palin doesn’t even make this much of a promise. On foreign policy, the Dems still seem slightly better than the Repubs.

On the other hand, “Pakistan already has nuclear weapons,” Biden points out, and so, I guess, we should be at war with them.

A Relief
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 08:54 PM

Well, at least both say Israel must be protected at all costs, that nothing is more important, and that Iran is the greatest threat ever. Indeed, they both accuse the other of being insufficiently determined to keep the Persians in line.

They also agreed on gay marriage, just as Bush and Kerry did: More equality under the law but no marriage for homosexuals. Same exact position. Different emphasis.

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