Thoughts from a Paleo Conservative Mind

Hello Friends,

I'm Jamal Greene. I have a passion for politics, both domestic and international, and this blog is dedicated to that passion. In my blog I cover US politics, the Economy, matters of National Security, and International Relations. I am, as my title suggest, a Conservative, Classically Liberal. Think Goldwater, not Bush.
Progressives are trying to dramatically transform this country into something our Founders would not recognize as the America they sought to establish. I believe it is time for the citizens of this great nation to stand up to those who seek to encroach on our freedoms; its time to stand up and be heard. Be Silent No More.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Anthropogenic global warming is a FRAUD

Anthropogenic global warming is a FRAUD

With my background in studying both domestic and International politics affairs, I tended to write my commentary on issues such as the US war against international terrorism, US-China relations, US-Mideast relations, the US Economy, and Congresses legislative agenda.  The arguments and controversy surrounding Anthropogenic Global Warming, better known as Man Made global warming, have not, up until recently, been on my radar.  However in the light of the controversy I decided to dig deeper for myself to see the so called Proof behind the theory of man made global warming and as expected it was serious flawed and left unanswered many questions.  I originally speculated problems with the theory because it was advanced by liberals, worldwide, so of course it was a hoax. 

We have witnessed the most recent scandal of “climategate”, in which UN scientists and proponents of  man made global warming emails were hacked into an released to the public.  In the emails the scientists discuss the fact that they cannot explain the decades long “COOL” in global temperatures and they also seek to discredit any other scientist who disagreed with them.  The emails became public only a few weeks ago ahead of a world summit on Climate Change that has produced nothing except vague promises and lawless agreements.  China, India, and South Africa, the nations in which the President personally met with during the summit, refuse to sign on to harsh admissions reductions that they know will strangle their economy’s all the sake of bad science.  Governments worldwide understand the fragility of the claim of man made global warming and it is believed by some the it was the Russian government that actually hacked into the emails and had the released because Russia too is a opponent of repressive emissions cuts that will hinder economic growth. 

One of the first things I realized that helped me understand the sham of this theory is that according to NASA reports the Sun’s temperature fluctuates and around the same time the temperatures on Earth start to rise, so has the temperatures on Mars and Jupiter.  Last time I check, there are no people living on these planets; no SUV’s; no airplanes.  The temperature rise was accredited to increased solar activity, which is what many scientists believed happened with earth’s temperatures.  The Sun is the ultimate regulator for global temperatures, not man.  Contrary to global warming alarmist, the 1990s were NOT the warmest decade of the 20th century, the 1930s were; and that was long before the advent of the supposed carbon polluting world we live in now.  The earth’s most recent actual warming period took place over 1,000 years ago in what is referred to as the Medieval warming period; temperature then were significantly higher than what they are today and of course that was many centuries before the Industrial age came into being.  The Ice caps are not melting at the alarming rate that AL Gore says they are; according to NASA Artic ice volume INCREASED by 500,000 sq km in 2008 over 2007 levels.  Another interesting fact is that after World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded carbon emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940; global warming scientists still fail to explain this.  Anthropogenic global warming is a Fraud, a Hoax, plain and simple.  There is overwhelming scientific evidence that suggest this is a hoax, I’ve just named a few examples.  With that said, the current Regime in Washington DC have their eyes set on passing an ambitious, JOB KILLING cap and trade bill under the disguise of fighting Global warming.  Cap and trade will hurt the poor and the middle class as Obama has already promised that if Cap and Trade are passed, I quote “people’s electric bills would skyrocket”.  High energy bills don’t hurt wealthy people because they have the money to pay it; it’s the middle class that will suffer.  What is Cap and Trade?  The basics of cap and trade are it is a system in which the government sets a limit on the amount of CO2 or Carbon individuals and businesses are allowed to emit.  People emit carbon through driving cars, flying on planes, burning coal, and breathing.  Carbon is a natural gas in our atmosphere and plants need it to produced the Oxygen that we humans breathe.  The government will Cap or limit the amount of Carbon will all can emit.  This means limits on driving, flying, and energy development and the only way to emit more carbon than allotted is for a person or business to Purchase “carbon credits”.  Exceeding carbon limits would be against the law and Americans would be fined or jailed for non compliance, kind of like ObamaCare.  And guess who is one of the leading investors in Carbon credits, THE OIL COMPANIES! I would think liberals would be outraged since they seem to collectively hate corporations, especially big oil.  Well Exxon Mobile is one of the biggest Carbon credit investors and will be a supplier of these credits and stand to make BILLIONS.  Under cap and trade, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. 

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Healthcare in America... Why Obama's plan is wrong for America

The RIGHT Perspective:
Healthcare in America

Written by: Jamal Greene

The hottest and most contentious topic in politics today, and I believe for the coming months, is Healthcare Reform, or should I say, “Health Insurance Reform”. From the congressional town halls that dominated the 24-hour news cycles during the recent recess, to the heated debates televised on “Meet the Press” and “This Week”, health insurance reform, as prescribed by the Obama administration, has ignited a fire among the American people. Both sides, Liberals and Conservatives, all agree that we need some sort of health reform in the United States; we simply have different methods of getting there. First, let’s discuss the problems with the Democrat proposal:

1.  Cost

Cost is one of the biggest problems with Democrat’s health insurance reform legislation. The CBO has estimated that the House Democrats’ bill will cost the American between $900 billion and $1 trillion over the next ten years, but that, of course, is a low estimate. The President proposed back in February what he referred to as a “healthcare reserve fund” in the amount of $634 billion to be used as a “down payment” for a universal healthcare system. Combining his $634 billion start-up with what the CBO estimates it would cost annually to run such a program, we are already close to $1.7 trillion over ten years; and that’s still a low estimate since we have been shown time and time again that NO federal program comes in at its original budget forecast. Another point of interest is how the congressional democrats came to the $1 trillion figure. Conservative think tanks and a few liberal ones, such as the Urban Institute, all scored the House bill and came to a cost of $2 trillion or more. So, why the disparity in the numbers? Simple, the House democrats are using an old budgetary trick to hide the true cost. For example, Congress is launching a new entitlement program, such as healthcare reform, and they estimate the cost to be $1 trillion over the next 10 years; however, they don’t plan to launch the program until year six, halfway through the ten year period. So, let’s say the program was to run from the FY 2010-2019 (fiscal years) (actually ending in 2020), but congress decides to delay the program from “officially” starting until year six, seemingly cutting the actual cost in half, right? Wrong. The cost of the program is around $200 billion, so if the program is delayed to start 5 years out, the cost given by the congress is only through FY 2014- 2019: $1 trillion. However, this is an illusion because the bill is budgeted for ten years and will be funded for ten years; just not from FY 2010-2019. In simple terms, the first five years are eventually tacked onto the back end of the program.

Ponder this scenario: There is a waiting list for a liver transplant and, at present, there are two individuals
on the list: one the age of 28 and the other 64. Under a universal system that is specifically designed to curve
cost, the government would mandate the 28 year-old receive the life saving transplant; not the 64 year-old…
The 28 year-old has more to contribute via a life of taxation, while the 64 year-old is nearing retirement…

In the context of a $14 trillion dollar economy, what’s the problem with spending $2 trillion on a universal healthcare system? The problem is the mounting US debt. There have been voices crying out regarding the staggering US debt—from members of Congress to world renowned economist—but none, in my opinion, has been more effective in articulating the seriousness of our debt as former US Comptroller General David Walker. In his words, I quote, “A tsunami is building and ready to hit future generations, but this one won’t be set off by earthquakes or other natural disasters. Instead, it will be a fiscal calamity created by the failure of government and business leaders to deal with the financial drain of millions of retiring baby boomers.” The national debt now stands at over $11 trillion and is growing fast, day after day with no end in sight. Along with the $11 trillion in debt we also have outstanding liabilities for both Medicare and Medicaid totaling over $53 trillion dollars; benefits we have promised, but cannot pay. The first of the baby boomer generation, those born between 1946-1964, totaling near 79 million, began to retire in 2008 with the youngest of the group reaching 65 in 2030. The outstanding cost associated with the retiring of such a massive amount of people is unthinkable; and, at present, unfunded. The benefits promised to these individuals via Medicare and Social Security is where the $53 trillion figure comes from. With the US already having a national debt of over $11 trillion with every indication that it will reach $12 trillion in the coming years, how are we to fund entitlement programs in the red for $53 trillion dollars? The answer is: we can’t. The sad reality is that many seniors, and those soon to be, will not receive all the benefits they have been promised.

2.  Healthcare Rations

The problem with creating such a government behemoth like a universal health insurance is that it has no choice but to lead to rationing of healthcare. In plain terms, the US healthcare system is stretched thin at present. An average wait in an emergency room is anywhere from 3-6 hours depending on your location and the severity of your ailment; I should know. I was recently in one with my partner, the wait was over 5 hours, and we have good health insurance. The healthcare industry is lacking the professionals it desperately needs, mainly doctors and nurses, to efficiently treat patients. This is a major constraint on the healthcare industry. Nationally, we have about 800,000 doctors growing at a minuscule rate of 1% annually, with nurses numbering about 1.4 million. Stretching this limited pool of professionals to care for an additional 47 million people will, in fact, lead to the most severe types of rationing of care. And with most of the healthcare cost from individuals coming at the end of life versus the beginning, who do you think will be most affected by rationing? The Elderly. That’s right… throw grandma under the bus. Ponder this scenario (keeping in mind that one of the main reasons the democrats give for a universal system is to restrain cost): There is a waiting list for a liver transplant and at present there are two individuals on the list: one the age of 28 and the other 64. Under a universal system that is specifically designed to curve cost, the government would mandate the 28 year-old receive the life saving transplant; not the 64 year-old. The reason is that, in the eyes of a government bureaucracy, the 28 year-old is seen as a better “investment”. The 28 year-old has more to contribute via a life of taxation, while the 64 year-old is nearing retirement. It’s an easy call for a bureaucrat whose main objective is to cut cost and generate revenue for the government. Sorry, Grandma. The scenario I used is fictional, but is a real possibility under a government-run health system. There have been hundreds of healthcare horror stories from individuals that live in countries that provide government healthcare and they are not pretty.

Stretching this limited pool of professionals to care for an additional 47 million people will, in fact, lead to the most severe types of rationing of care. And with most of the healthcare cost from individuals coming at the end of life versus the beginning, who do you think will be most affected by rationing? The Elderly. That’s right… throw grandma under the bus…

3.  Medicare Cuts to Seniors

In the house democrat bill there is a provision to cut nearly 10% from Medicare over the coming years, adversely affecting those who have labored their entire lives and thought that they were entering into their golden years with a sense of security: Our Seniors. Not only will many of them receive less than stellar social security benefits, if any, but they will now be forced by the federal government to accept a lower quality of healthcare due to insufficient funding. Medicare barely covers the medical expenses for most seniors today; this is why the government allows seniors to combine Medicare coverage with “private” supplemental plans. But, if the Democrats get their way, Medicare will be cut by 10% and the ones who will suffer most will be the elderly. Why? Unbeknownst to most people, Medicare is not an “optional” healthcare plan for seniors; it is federally mandated. Senior citizens are automatically enrolled in Medicare once they reach the age of availability, whether they want to be or not. So, we force seniors into a system that is insufficient to care for their needs and then, on top of that, tell them we are cutting 10% of the funding?

In my next article on healthcare I will outline a conservative prospective with free market and cost effective solutions for healthcare reform in America. Contrasting points of view are encouraged. This issue is too serious for any of us to sit out on the sidelines…

Article posted courtesy of Jamal Greene and appears in eXcapethematriX magazine, Sept 09 issue