Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

Over the last 15 years, we've been told that human CO2 emissions would cause global warming to accelerate to new dangerous levels, and this "unequivocal" warming would generate fantastic, catastrophic climate change disasters - the IPCC's climate models told us this, and truth be told, they were absolutely and spectacularly wrong. As the U.S. has baked during the hot summer of 2012, the rest of the globe has been treading water, so to speak.  As the HadCRUT global temperature chart above shows, the large growth in atmospheric CO2 levels continues. Yet the 15-year trend of stable to a slight global cooling remains . This extended 180-month period of non-warming was not predicted by a single global climate model. The IPCC's climate models obviously have very serious, fundamental issues that can't just be 'tweaked' away. The most serious issue is their being CO2-centric, thus minimizing other factors (i.e., forcings) that influence temperatures an...

Socialism in Europe and in this country always starts the same way – promise people free health care and free retirement and free housing and whatever free stuff wins political favor and gets you reelected. This is what progressive liberals do and what Obama is doing. And people keep voting for them because they love "free stuff".  They don't care where the money comes from.  Some claim that the "rich" will pay for it all. But, the rich do not have enough money. They may have enough to pay for the very poor, but not for everyone. So, the socialists borrow the money. That way, they are still giving the populace free health care. But, at some point you can't borrow the money anymore because the people you are borrowing it from realize that they will never be paid back. This is the tipping point at which socialism fails. Past this point, you have to tax the people to whom you promised the "free" stuff in order to pay for their "free" s...

“Trickle down” is of course a disingenuous misnomer invented by the left to stigmatize conservative supply-side economic policies. It implies favoring the rich—that doing so will “trickle down” to everyone else. Nonsense. Conservatives don’t care any more or less about the rich than do liberals. The point for conservatives is not to help the rich, but to limit the harm done to incentives by tax policy so individuals have greater opportunities to become rich. President Obama misrepresents supply-side economics and then goes on to misinform his audience that it’s never worked. People are entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to their own facts.    Every time supply-side economic policies have been tried, tax rate reductions were applied to every income group — lower-income, middle-income, and upper-income alike — giving everyone a better shot at success. This is true regarding supply-side policies of the 1920s, 1960s, 1980s and 2000s. Economist Thomas S...

Romney is making this election about Barack Obama. Considering the current state of the economy, Barack Obama has a record that he simply cannot run on. This is why the "Generic Republican" did so well in the primary season polls against Obama.  Republicans are putting forward a contrasting vision, but the election is ultimately a referendum on Obama.  Romney is correctly focusing on that issue. Romney has a history of turning things around. With the economy still limping along, only a 63 percent labor force participation rate, and American debt dangerously spiraling out of control, this country absolutely must have a change in direction.  Fixing entities that are in trouble is exactly what Mitt Romney has spent much of his life doing. As CEO of Bain Capital, Romney oversaw the investment and renovation of numbers of struggling companies, with an 80% overall success rate.  He successfully led the effort to save the 2002 Winter Olympics, which...

1. Higher taxes lead to higher spending, not lower deficits . Evidence from Europe shows that politicians almost always claim that higher taxes will be used to reduce red ink, but the inevitable result is bigger government.  2. A value-added tax would be a disaster . The statists won’t be able to impose a European-style welfare state in the United States without first imposing this European-style money machine for big government. 3. A welfare state cripples the human spirit . 4. Nations reach a point of no return when the number of people mooching off government exceeds the number of people producing . The welfare state, unchecked, inevitably leads to fiscal collapse. One need only look to Greece to see this in action. 5. Bailouts don’t work .   Imagine how much better things would be in Europe if Greece never received an initial bailout. Much less money would have been flushed down the toilet and this tough-love approach would have sent a very positive message to...

First of all, this is just not true. Secondly, this makes an assumption that all conservatives are white. There are many black conservatives.   Are there racists in the Republican party? Sure, but no more than you’ll find in the Democratic Party. So, why are Republicans being constantly accused of racism? It’s a political strategy . If black Americans weren’t convinced that the GOP was racist, they’d probably break 70/30 or even 60/40 for the Democrats instead of 90/10 and that would be devastating to the left. That’s why the Democrats are desperate to shout "racism" at every possible opportunity. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or false because the political stakes are so high for the left. Thinking for oneself, loving your country, understanding and embracing the free market capitalist system, and loving your Constitution means you are not “black” but instead you are a "house negro" or a "token" for the Republican party.  ...

  UN? Here’s how to get your mojo back on global warming: (1) Stop holding sustainability conferences in the world’s most exotic locales, like Rio, and stop booking yourselves into five-star hotels on everybody else’s dime. People’s BS detectors are pretty much set on “high” all the time these days, given the beleaguered state of the global economy. When you preach that everyone else needs to adopt a more modest lifestyle while living high off the public teat and emitting enough greenhouse gases to choke a whale, you undercut your credibility. (2) Stop organizing conferences attended by 50,000 people. Seriously, 50,000? That’s a fuster cluck, not a meeting. (3) Stop pushing ways to make fossil fuels more expensive (through carbon taxes and the ineffective and corrupt cap-and-trade market in Europe) and start pushing ways to make renewable energy less expensive. The economics are simple. Tell people your entire plan for saving the planet means they have to go ...

The Danish health care system is the nightmare of any anti-government free market believer -- it's a tax-funded state-run universal health care system. Denmark provides "free" health care to all residents, funded through taxes. There is an optional private health care sector, but it is tiny compared with the vastly larger public system that is used by most of the population. Users pay for a few procedures, such as fertility treatments (from the third attempt onwards) and non-essential cosmetic surgery, as well as most of their own dental care and a portion of prescription medication.    Apothecaries are privately owned, but doctors" visits and hospitalization, including tests, treatment, follow-up care, and some medication, are fully covered. The Danish health care system is not cheap. According to OECD's Health Data 2009, Denmark's health cost per person, public and private, was $3,512. But in the US the cost is more than double at $7,290! In addition,...

Google (and most other search engines) have special operators and search url suffixes that many internet users are unaware of. Here is a fresh list for your searching pleasure. intitle: Restricts the search to the titles of the web pages, for example if you want to search for the web pages having WordPress or Blogging in the title, use the syntax intitle:WordPress or intitle: “digital photography” (multiple words can be grouped into a phrase by putting them inside quotes). inurl: If you include this keyword in your query, Google will restrict the results to documents containing that word in the URL (address of the website). The query inurl:teaching will return documents that mention the words teaching in their URL. intext: The query using intext:term results in documents containing the term in the text/content. For instance: intext:Globalization will return documents mentioning the term globalization. Additionally, you can use allintext:term with phrases or combination of word...

I’ve seen several pieces over the last week that maintain this as economic fact: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2012/06/17/job-creators/ http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/05/27/rich-guy-on-how-middle-class-are-the-job-creators/ http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/17/1100766/--The-Only-Real-Job-Creators-Are-Consumers I think what happens here is that some liberal blogger, professor or pundit writes something like this and then everybody else jumps aboard and starts echoing the meme without doing any critical thinking. Consumers do drive an economy, but these authors miss the mark. Lots of businesses happen to be consumers of other businesses. So when you tax businesses and pass legislation that makes it harder for business to succeed, businesses stop buying things, which ultimately hurts consumer spending. All of this does not even touch on the fact that small businesses are the true engine of growth for this country. And, most small businesses are taxed like individuals...