Cap and Trade (Tax)

Boy, isn't this fun...
Ok, so we're now on the hook for the Dem's version of environmental engineering. One the environmentalist don't like and one that will become the largest tax increase in US history. This MAY be the undoing of the Dem domination in the Congress in 2010. It may (hopefully) usher them out of majority in the next election.

We should all expect our taxes to increase, but more sublime will be the cost passed on by manufacturers as their costs increases.

The complex bill mandates a 17-percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and a 83-percent cut by 2050, reductions that will be accomplished by putting a price on carbon dioxide through a cap-and-trade system. It mandates that 20 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources and increased energy efficiency by 2020. And the legislation gives electric utilities, coal plants, energy-intensive manufacturers, farmers, petroleum refiners, and other industries special protections to help them transition to new, less-fossil fuel-intensive ways of doing business.

Does anyone believe we can be at an 83% decrease by 2050 without a "Manhattan Project" style revamping of our energy? I hope this can happen, but no leadership has offered direction. So, we, as the middle class, will have to pay for this extravagance.

The worst of all this is the fact NO ONE read the 1300 pages -plus 3:00a amendments- of the bill. So much for transparency....

Iran

I went to high school for a couple of years at University High in west LA during the late `70s. This was at the height of the Iranian/Persian migration and knew quite a few Iranian students. We would sit around and smoke and talk about their plight. It was amazing. They didn't like the Shah but were terrified of what was to come. They were good people. So, like the Armenians, I've always watched with some interest on their travails.

So, I've been glued to the Huff Post's live blog by Nico Pitny. It's riveting...

Saturday will be the turning point after Khomeini's Friday prayer speech. Will they or won't they turn out... I hope they do.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

US Bonds found in Italy

I know I've been delinquent in blogging and have missed so much. I hope to have more on the Iran election later, but first this just jumped out at me.

If the bonds are real, it's more then all but three nations holding US bonds. If the are counterfeit, then talk about diluting our currency...

Italian prosecutors were trying to establish yesterday whether US bonds with a face value of $134 billion seized from two alleged smugglers were real or counterfeit.

The bonds were found when the two men — said to be Japanese but as yet not identified — were arrested while attempting to cross into Switzerland from Italy by train at the frontier town of Chiasso this month. Prosecutors in Como said that the two men had hidden the bonds in the false bottom of a suitcase.

Police said that Chiasso was a notorious crossing point for currency and bond smugglers but the sums involved this time were “colossal”. The amount of $134 billion would place the two travellers as the fourth most important investors in US debt, well ahead of Britain ($128.2 billion) and just behind Russia ($138.4 billion).

The bonds were described as being 249 US Federal Reserve bonds each worth $500 million, plus ten Kennedy bonds with face values of $1 billion, in addition to various other types. Police said that the two men had stayed at a hotel in Milan last Tuesday. Instead of taking the express train to Lugano, they had boarded a slow commuter train from a suburban station to attract less attention.

Although Switzerland and Italy adhere to the Schengen accords on frontier-free travel, customs officers from both sides who still watch travellers became suspicious, Italian reports said.

Police said that there was cause for concern even if the bonds turned out to be forgeries, since it would amount to a counterfeiting scam “on an unprecedented scale”.