Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

If you thought the University of East Anglia email dump from two years ago was revealing, put your drink down and take a deep breath. There’s a whole new dump of 5,000 emails and documents leaked by FOIA.org, and they are just as damning – and more so – than the first batch. James Watts has the best synopsis here . Here’s a teaser sample from Michael Mann: email 1680.txt date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:03:05 -0400 from: “Michael E. Mann”.. subject: Re: Something not to pass on to: Phil Jones Phil, I would not respond to this. They will misrepresent and take out of context anything you give them. This is a set up. They will certainly publish this, and will ignore any evidence to the contrary that you provide. s They are going after Wei-Chyung because he’s U.S. and there is a higher threshold for establishing libel. Nonetheless, he should consider filing a defamation lawsuit, perhaps you too. I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigat...

A couple of years ago, Newsweek had a cover story, “We Are All Socialists Now.”  The basic themes of huge stimulus package, ObamaCare, and government overregulation leading once-capitalist America down the dangerous road to socialism  is quite well worn.  There’s some truth to the basic theme:  the state is getting more and more deeply involved in business, even taking controlling interests in some private companies.  And the state is even trying to "make policy" for private companies they do not control.  So state power is growing at the expense of corporations. The problem is, that isn't socialism.  Socialism rests on a firm concept:  the abolition of private property.  What is happening now - particularly in the Obama administration - is an expansion of the state’s role, an increase in public/private joint ventures and partnerships, and much more state regulation of business.  It’s very "European," and some Eur...

Global Warming Hysteria, at least in the USA, has really hit hard times. Maybe it is because global temperatures haven’t risen in a statistically significant manner for more than 12 years, despite increases in carbon dioxide emissions. Perhaps the bad economy is such that even believers don’t want more downward pressure to stop warming that might never come. Or, perhaps the credibility of global warming has been generally lost due to constant dire warnings, trying to make every weather event into global warming, incorrect computer model projections, or whatever, people are just not into the old panic anymore. Or perhaps, it is those evil Koch Brothers and their astonishingly effective propaganda machine. Whatever, the hysteria seems to have run out of gas. Here’s a small but very telling example: Three years ago Pacific Gas and Electric offered its customers the opportunity to put their money where their mouths are by paying a little extra to fund carbon offsets. Well, the program is...

Republicans stink. This, in a nutshell, is what Democrats are running on in 2012. Republicans are mean. They're obstructionists. They don't care about the elderly and they don't care about the middle class. They're dangerous ideologues looking out only for the rich. The country faces serious economic challenges and catastrophic debt. Homes are worthless, jobs are scarce and collapsing European social-welfare states are providing frightening previews of what Americans can expect if Washington doesn't dial back its deficit spending. But Democrats are unwilling to engage in serious, honest debate about their vision for the country. Instead, they just criticize Republicans. What's even more repulsive than this juvenile approach to governance and campaigning? The fact that a huge chunk of the electorate actually buys it. If there's a lesson in all this, one year before Americans go to the polls to again decide the direction of the country, it's that...

A big part of the reason for Occupy malaise is that the social model no longer works. The machine by which universities train young people to become minor regulators and then delivers them into white-collar positions on the basis of credentials in history, political science, literature, ethnic and women’s studies – with or without the benefit of law school – has broken down. The supply is uninterrupted, but the demand has dried up. It’s not the greedy Wall Street bankers who destroyed these people’s hopes. It’s the virtueocracy itself. It’s the people who constructed a benefit-heavy entitlement system whose costs can no longer be sustained. It’s the politicians and union leaders who made reckless pension promises that are now bankrupting cities and states. It’s the socially progressive policy-makers in the U.S. who declared that everyone, even those with no visible means of support, should be able to own a home with no money down, courtesy of their government. The fact of the...

Before you get excited about the last minute Euro-Deal and the 340 point rally in the Dow, consider this: Wall Street has been dancing to Greece's whistle. If Greece says 'jump,' Wall Street jumps, if Greece says 'Sorry, false alarm,' Wall Street cries. This has been going on for about 2 years now, and it's getting pretty tired. Shame on you if you think everything's going to be fine just because Greece and/or its European pretend-to-be saviors announce another plan to come up with a plan. Greece is broke and has no significant revenue sources to pay off its debt. Foreign investors own about $385 billion worth of Greek government debt. Many banks and governments that own Greek debt are at the brink of insolvency already, so Greece's inability to pay its debt may push other countries and their banks into insolvency. You can't trust statements from European officials because they are trying to prevent panic. Panic will make any kind of solutions m...

This is a great letter, and it is real. To All My Valued Employees, There have been some rumblings around the office about the future of this company, and more specifically, your job. As you know, the economy has changed for the worse and presents many challenges. However, the good news is this: The economy doesn't pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country. Of course, as your employer, I am forbidden to tell you whom to vote for - it is against the law to discriminate based on political affiliation, race, creed, religion, etc. Please vote for who you think will serve your interests the best. However, let me tell you some little tidbits of fact which might help you decide what is in your best interest.First, while it is easy to spew rhetoric that casts employers against employees, you have to understand that for every business owner there is a backstory. This back story is often neglected and over...

Kevin Drum, writing in Mother Jones , proposes 5 “Myths” about some common economic issues that he claims aren’t true.  Liberal writers often suffer from a kind of confirmation bias when making such statements. This is the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true. Let’s have a look at what Mr. Drum says, and I’ll provide my own “confirmation bias” to show that the statements are either false, or not wholly accurate: Myth #1 The Stimulus Failed The central theme of this assertion revolves around what FDR did during the Great Depression. Mr. Drum asserts (correctly) that FDR tackled the depression with inflation, easy monetary policy, and government spending. Then in 1937 spending was cut and monetary policy tightened up.    Mr. Drum reports that in 1938 the austerity program was abandoned and the economy started to grow again. What he doesn't report is that  FDR ra...

The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis. Publicists at the United Nations, Al Gore, and their supporters frequently claim that only a few “skeptics” remain – skeptics who are still unconvinced about the existence of a catastrophic human-caused global warming emergency. It is evident that 31,487 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,029 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,487 American scientists are not "skeptics." These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global war...

  I am often scolded by my liberal friends about how this past recession (2008) was different, we almost had an economic collapse, it was as bad or worse than the Great Depression, and various other items all underscoring the need for "more stimulus". They claim that we tried lower tax rates, etc. A quick look at the composition of the stimulus spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (see chart) reveals that the major portion of the spending was to transfers to state and local governments (mostly used for fiscal relief, which is temporary), transfers to persons (temporary) and "Tax Cuts" - almost all of which were temporary in nature. Temporary measures simply cannot provide permanent economic growth. They run out (as they already have), and you end up with more of the original problem that has never been solved in the first place. Plus - an even bigger debt burden. There are not many cases of economic collapse in modern histo...