Orlando's moonbat congressman, Alan Grayson, wants to throw even more money down the Medicare rat hole:

"Congressman Alan Grayson, D-Fla., today introduced a bill (H.R. 4789) which would give the option to buy into Medicare to every citizen of the United States. The Public Option Act, also known as the Medicare You Can Buy Into Act, would open up the Medicare network to anyone who can pay for it.

Congressman Grayson said, Obviously, America wants and needs more competition in health coverage, and a public option offers that. But its just as important that we offer people not just another choice, but another kind of choice. A lot of people don't want to be at the mercy of greedy insurance companies that will make money by denying them the care that they need to stay healthy, or to stay alive. We deserve to have a real alternative."

Well, it's easy to compete when you can operate at a perpetual, taxpayer funded loss and are making all the rules. Medicare is not only broke, but suffers from levels of fraud that would put any private insurer out of business, which is the ultimate goal of all these harebrained schemes.

Additionally, the government already accounts for around 50% of the health care system and the losses from its underpayments to doctors and hospitals are shifted to private insurers.


And you would think an industry that's so "greedy" would do a better job of ripping us off:

"According to the most recent Fortune 500 rankings, health insurers are not even among the top-30 United States industries in profit-margin. Health insurers rank 35th, with a profit-margin of just 2.2 percent — less than one-fifth the profit-margin of railroads. None of the ten largest American health insurers made profits of more than 4.5 percent, and two of them lost money. Health insurers’ collective profit-margin is less than one-eighth that of drug companies and less than one-seventh that of companies that sell medical products or equipment. It’s also less than that of medical facilities. Yet when was the last time you heard President Obama rail against greedy hospitals?

The combined profits of America’s ten largest health insurers are $8.3 billion. That’s less than two-thirds of the profits of Wal-Mart alone, less than half of the profits of General Electric alone, and less than one-seventh of what Medicare loses each year to fraud. Health insurers collectively have one-eighth the profit-margin of McDonald’s or Coke, one-ninth that of eBay, and one-fifteenth that of Merck."

Moving more people into a government system will shift more costs to a dwindling private insurance pool, resulting in even higher premiums or destructive losses that will eventually kill the private health care industry. With no one left to stick with these inefficiencies, they will paid for with higher taxes and reduced or denied care.

Then we are left no choice and have to rely on the tender mercies of the anointed in government who proclaim themselves immune from ordinary human failings, as they are possessed with unique wisdom and virtue.

The Conservation of Liberty

Another excellent essay from Doctor Zero. Here's the money quote:

Statists mistakenly believe the economy is a zero-sum game, in which the prosperity of one means the poverty of others. They hold this belief so tightly that it leaves them incapable of processing evidence to the contrary. Even liberals with advanced economic degrees are reduced to babbling idiots in the face of increased Treasury revenue through reduced tax rates. There is one crucial ingredient to prosperity whose supply is fixed: freedom. It is not a “renewable resource.” Every power seized by the government diminishes it. Each tax and subsidy melts down more of our liberty, to be forged into more pipes for a monstrous system of political plumbing. The ominous leaking and shuddering of those pipes heralds the utter failure and collapse of the system.

There’s nothing paranoid about pointing this out. The Tea Party critique of banks and the Fed has far too much documentation to be dismissed as a “conspiracy theory.” The assumption that government is “pure and virtuous” has led us to ruin. The truth is that once it reaches a certain size, it becomes all but incapable of virtuous action. The precious commodity of liberty has diminished so much that any further extraction of it becomes agonizing – a matter of brute force instead of persuasion. You can ask a rich man for a dollar, but you must take it from a pauper. We have all become impoverished in the coin of freedom, and in order to make his health-care scheme work, the President demands our bottom dollar.

California global warming law may lead to job losses, report says

May lead to job losses? Look, you don't have to be an economist to understand that channeling money from efficient to inefficient uses is going to have negative consequences:

"The state's nonpartisan legislative analyst's office examined 2008 economic modeling by the California Air Resources Board and concluded that it "may overstate the number of jobs" attributable to future implementation of the 2006 climate law..."

Anyone can make a predictive model say anything they want by changing the underlying assumptions to produce the desired result. But the real purpose of these predictions by the so-called smart people is to convince us to suspend common sense.

"The report came in response to a query from Sen. Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto), a critic of the law. Released by Cogdill on Monday, the report emphasized that job effects are "difficult to accurately predict . . . with gains in some occupations (including so-called green jobs) and losses in others (primarily involving fossil fuel-related energy production)."

Gee, no kidding. If we were to dictate that all farmers stop using tractors and go back to horse drawn plows, there would certainly be an increase in jobs for blacksmiths and plow makers, along with a decrease in energy usage. But farming will now be less efficient and productive as it will take more time and money to grow the same amount of produce. That has the net effect of killing jobs as capital that would have been used by the farmer to save, invest and spend in the larger economy is now being wasted on an inefficient technology.

The same holds true for alternative energy. Wind and solar are grossly inefficient as compared to fossil fuels, and the free market would never use them without a combination of government force and taxpayer funded subsidies. The only real increase in jobs is for the non productive bureaucrats that will now be needed to administer these stupid schemes.

"Asked about the legislative analyst report, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited new solar facilities and biofuel plants in the state and said, "I'm absolutely convinced that AB 32 will create more jobs than kill jobs."

I'm sure you are, Arnold. That's why you should have stuck to acting.

Health Care a Right?

With his usual clarity, Walter Williams breaks down the real difference between negative and positive rights:

"...Say a person, let's call him Harry, suffers from diabetes and he has no means to pay a laboratory for blood work, a doctor for treatment and a pharmacy for medication. Does Harry have a right to XYZ lab's and Dr. Jones' services and a prescription from a pharmacist? And, if those services are not provided without charge, should Harry be able to call for criminal sanctions against those persons for violating his rights to health care?

You say, "Williams, that would come very close to slavery if one person had the right to force someone to serve him without pay." You're right.

Suppose instead of Harry being able to force a lab, doctor and pharmacy to provide services without pay, Congress uses its taxing power to take a couple of hundred dollars out of the paycheck of some American to give to Harry so that he could pay the lab, doctor and pharmacist. Would there be any difference in principle, namely forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another?...

...True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. In other words, my rights to speech or travel impose no obligations on another except those of noninterference.

If we apply ideas behind rights to health care to my rights to speech or travel, my free speech rights would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium, television studio or radio station. My right to travel freely would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with airfare and hotel accommodations.

For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else's rights, namely their rights to their earnings...

America's Richest Counties That You Pay For

Forbes has ranked the 25 richest counties based on median household incomes for 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Browse through the slide show and you will notice that 12 of the 25 are Virginia and Maryland counties surrounding Washington DC. Those two states have a combined population of around 13 million people in a country of over 300 million.

This illustrates just how much money is now inefficiently spent by industries, interest groups and assorted parasites to either protect themselves, gain advantages or just get taxpayer cash.

The federal government produces nothing and everything of value it has is artificially created through the force of law. Money spent for tribute to an overbearing government is money that wont be used to create jobs and wealth in the private sector. Instead it is used to enhance the wealth and power of the governing elite at the expense of the taxpayer. In short, we are funding the destruction of our liberties and our economic well being.

Obama’s Bank Tax – The Victim is YOU!

This isn't news to anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics, which is why most Americans don't get it:

"As ABC News reports, the CBO wrote a letter yesterday to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in which it highlighted that the American people will bear the true brunt of the President’s proposal. From the CBO’s letter:

[T]he ultimate cost of a tax or fee is not necessarily borne by the entity that writes the check to the government.

The cost of the proposed fee would ultimately be borne to varying degrees by an institution’s customers, employees, and investors.

Customers would probably absorb some of the cost in the form of higher borrowing rates and other charges, although competition from financial institutions not subject to the fee would limit the extent to which the cost could be passed to borrowers. Employees might bear some of the cost by accepting some reduction in their compensation, including income from bonuses, if they did not have better employment opportunities available to them. Investors could bear some of the cost in the form of lower prices of their stock if the fee reduced the institution’s future profits.

Obama promised not to raise taxes on anyone not guilty of the sin of earning more than $250,000. But what all too many don't realize is that any tax on anyone is ultimately a tax on everyone.

NY seeks 'fat tax' on sodas

UK Telegraph...State Health Commissioner Richard Daines took up the issue Monday, speaking of a "golden opportunity" to create the tax.

"The dramatic underpricing of sugar-sweetened beverages, their widespread availability, and the ceaseless marketing of these products constitute a stumbling block to good health and are a clear and present danger to the future of our children," Daines said.

Now that the statists have squeezed as much regulation and taxes out of tobacco that they can, they are now turning their attention to individual behaviors that will provide even bigger sources of power and money. New York is not alone as this latest liberty sapping scheme is being considered by several other states, and at the federal level.

It would be too easy to just say " I told you so" to all the people who have enthusiastically supported the confiscation of the rights and money of smokers. As predicted, the same faulty premise that's been used to trample the rights of a minority is now being used against the majority:

"Health experts blame insufficient exercise, but also the habit, particularly among the poor, of washing down fast food with extra-sugary soda.

The crisis has fed ballooning public costs - $7.6 billion (£5 billion) in annual obesity-related medical bills in New York state alone - much of which are covered by taxpayers.

Tax proponents say that soft drinks should be treated like tobacco so that the government can effectively price people away from their bad habits."

Let's break this down: The taxpayers fund public health costs, therefore the taxpayers should pay more in order to bring down those costs. As surreal as that logic is, it is identical to the rationale that's been used against taxpaying smokers. But now the tyranny of the majority is being used by the government against the majority itself. How do you now argue against the same crazy rationale that you once supported?

New York's most notorious lifestyle fascist has weighed in:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, well known for his anti-smoking crusade in the city, also touted the idea in his weekly radio address Sunday.

"In these tough economic times, easy fixes to our problems are hard to come by," he said. "But the soda tax is a fix that just makes sense. It would save lives, it would cut rising health costs."

It wont do any of those things, just as the jihad against smoking has failed to produce similar results. But notice how Bloomberg views taking more money from the citizenry as an "easy fix" for the government's fiscal problems. In "tough economic times", the first thing to be fed is the insatiable state and that will somehow help the individuals that the food is being stolen from.

Trains To Nowhere

Reason TV adds more fuel to the argument against high speed rail:

1. The lowball costs. CNN estimates that delivering on the plan could cost well over $500 billion and take decades to build, all while failing to cover much of the country at all. Internationally, only two high-speed rail lines have recouped their capital costs and all depend on huge subsidies to stay in operation.

2. The supposed benefits. "We're gonna be taking cars off of congested highways and reducing carbon emissions," says Vice President Joe Biden, an ardent rail booster. But most traffic jams are urban, not inter-city, so high-speed rail between metro areas will have no effect on your daily commute. And when construction costs are factored in, high-speed rail "may yield only marginal net greenhouse gas reductions," say UC-Berkeley researchers.

3. The delusional Amtrak example. Obama and Biden look to Amtrak as precedent, but since its founding in 1971, the nation's passenger rail system has sucked up almost $35 billion in subsidies and, says The Washington Post's Robert J. Samuelson, "a typical trip is subsidized by about $50." About 140 million Americans shlep to work every day, while Amtrak carries just 78,000 passengers. There's no reason to think that high-speed rail will pump up those numbers, though there's every reason to believe its costs will grow and grow.

Meanwhile, the St. Pete Times reports that Florida's share of this boondoggle is facing an uphill battle. Let's hope so:

What's less certain is whether officials will be able to keep the project's money, public support and construction on track to start running trains in 2015, its architects said Thursday during a national rail conference in Orlando...

President Barack Obama promised $1.25 billion in stimulus money to start the project — about half of what the state requested...

"We're going to need full funding for the project or we can't move forward," said Nazih Haddad, chief operating officer of the Florida Rail Enterprise, who discounted the chances of lining up private construction financing given the economy.

Does anyone wonder why no private, for profit concern has ever proposed a project like this? They haven't because it makes no financial sense, which makes the government - and taxpayers - the suckers of last resort.

Based on 2.1 million riders a year with $20 average fares, the Florida Department of Transportation says high speed rail's revenue could pay for its costs. However, even Siemens and other possible contractors are skeptical of those numbers.

So even the beneficiaries of this taxpayer funded white elephant are questioning the government's rosy projections. This insanity needs to be stopped now.

Multi Family and Household Formation

From the NAR:

In the broad landscape of commercial properties, the multifamily sector has fared comparatively better. Demand for space was modest but positive. Net absorption closed the year at 105,458 units. Yet, there are factors which caused adverse impacts in the sector.

The Mutli-Family sector almost always fares better in a downturn. Companies downsize and disappear, people generally don't. Everyone needs someplace to live and an increasing population softens the blow to these investments:

Household formation seems to be one of those factors. More precisely, the prolonged recession of the past two years has taken a toll on the number of people starting a household. Based on household formation data from the Census Bureau, the 10-year average of new households being formed has been 1.3 million per year. However, this number decreased significantly in both 2008 and 2009. From a decade-high of 3.5 million in 2001, household formation dropped to 772,000 in 2008 and only 398,000 in 2009.

That's actually the bright spot of pent up demand. A household is any separate housing space occupied by one or more people. The drop in household formation means there's a lot of people living together who would rather not, such as the adult child living in your basement. If the economy improves in any meaningful way, that log jam will begin to break and cause a spike in demand for rentals and purchases.

That's a big if, of course and the expected rise in interest rates along with the economy strangling uncertainty coming out of Washington could keep the markets going sideways for a while.

For what it's worth, Warren Buffet thinks the Real Estate market will start to rebound in 2011. OK. It's as good a guess as any, if not paricularly original.

List: Cities Where The Recession Is Easing

From Forbes: I'm not a big fan of these economic lists because they're usually based on very rudimentary information. This one is interesting however, because four of the ten cities are in Texas, the most fiscally sane of our large states:

"To find out which metros were doing best in the economic downturn, Forbes used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on job growth and unemployment, Moody's Economy.com's predictions for how much jobs would grow in three years, as well as their estimate of each metro's Gross Domestic Product"

Fannie to U.S.: We need another $15.3 billion

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Battered by the housing crisis, mortgage finance company Fannie Mae said Friday that it needs another $15.3 billion in bailout money from the federal government.

Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500), which is controlled by the government, reported a fourth-quarter loss of $16.3 billion, including $1.2 billion in dividend payments to the Treasury Department. This is down from $25.2 billion a year earlier and $19.8 billion in the third quarter.

Dividends? Since when does a company distribute profits when it loses money? It does when the Federal government owns it and wants to show phony returns on a losing investment. Then it turns around and gives Fannie more borrowed taxpayer money to alleviate losses partially caused by the dividend payments themselves.

Would this be a crime if a private company did this. Why, yes. Yes it would. This is like having a Ponzi scheme with one investor who has agreed to rip off himself.

DEMINT: White House land grab

Democrat Presidents love to pay off their enviro-marxist allies by confiscating private property and taking it out of productive use:

"A secret administration memo has surfaced revealing plans for the federal government to seize more than 10 million acres from Montana to New Mexico, halting job- creating activities like ranching, forestry, mining and energy development. Worse, this land grab would dry up tax revenue that's essential for funding schools, firehouses and community centers...

It says all kinds of animals would be better off by doing so, like the coyotes, badgers, grouse, chickens and lizards. But giving the chickens more room to roost is no reason for the government to override states' rights...

Using the Antiquities Act, President Carter locked up more land than any other president had before him, taking more than 50 million acres in Alaska despite strong opposition from the state.

One of the monuments President Clinton created was the Grande Staircase-Escalante in Utah, where 135,000 acres of land were leased for oil and gas and about 65,000 barrels of oil were produced each year from five active wells. But, President Clinton put an end to developing those resources.

President Obama could do the same in other energy-rich places unless Congress takes action. At least 13.5 million acres are already on his Department of Interior's real estate shopping list...

This is a nationwide problem. The government currently owns 650 million acres, or 29 percent of the nation's total land..."MORE at the Washington Times

Idling almost a third of a nations land and its resources for dubious environmental purposes is not only economic suicide but is a gross violation of private property rights. But the statists don't believe that any property is or should be private since it produces private wealth and independence that reduces state power. Environmental concerns are merely a vehicle for the larger purpose of more government control of the nation's economy.

Florida's Public Option For Homeowners

A national public option in health insurance would work out in much the same way:

"Unlike private companies, when the government can't cover its costs, it does not go out of business; it just finds ways to tax someone else. So it is for Citizens. Unlike real businesses, Citizens' financial shortfalls are made up by charging "assessments" to all of the remaining homeowners, auto, boat, motorcycle and business insurance policies - including policies of competing private insurance. The bottom line is that well-managed and financially solvent private companies cannot compete against state-sanctioned and subsidized operations.

It means a slow death of the private insurance market, but a painful and costly one for consumers. As Citizens grows and charges the customers of private insurers for its financial misdeeds, more customers leave for Citizens, which pushes private insurers out of the market and increases the market share of Citizens.

It's an endless cycle. It's the public option. But the scheme will soon leave Citizens fewer privately served citizens to level its assessments upon and leave Citizens as the state's high-cost monopoly...More from TBO.com

The notion that government can fairly and efficiently compete with the private sector in any business is as preposterous as allowing a home sports team provide its own referees, change the rules at any time and take points away from the opposition when they fall behind.

After one-year blip, Florida's population to grow again

Florida's population should rebound this year from its first loss in more than half a century, according to new estimates from the University of Florida.

The state is expected to add about 23,000 residents between April 1, 2009, and April 1, 2010, following a loss of almost 57,000 residents the previous year, UF's Bureau of Economic and Business Research reported Tuesday.

They are probably right on this one. As more people find ways to unload their homes and escape overbearing and failing states e.g. New York, Michigan, California - the long term domestic migration trends will continue. The good news for Florida is that most of these people are the productive ones who are fed up with paying the bills for insatiable state governments and their union allies.

Another American Media Failure

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has highlighted the Dinosaur Media's abject failure to report on the biggest and most expensive fraud in human history. He also documents and links to much of the damning evidence that continues to mount and will eventually collapse this global conspiracy:

• University of East Anglia e-mails that exposed data destruction, attempts to hide contradictory data, and conspiracies to sabotage the work of skeptical scientists
• The East Anglia CRU threw out their raw data, undermining any effort to check their work
• NOAA/GHCN “homogenization” falsified climate declines into increases
• East Anglia CRU’s below-standard computer modeling
• No rise in atmospheric carbon fraction over the last 150 years: University of Bristol
• IPCC withdraws claim that AGW will wipe out Himalayan glaciers by 2035
• IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri knew Himalayan claim was bogus for months before exposure
• Amazonian rainforest conclusions not based on scientific research but on advocacy group claims
• Mountain glacier claims based on unsubstantiated student theses and anecdotes from climber magazine
• Search of IPCC report footnotes exposes ten more student dissertations presented as peer-reviewed research
• Medieval Warming Period temperatures may have been global, undermining entire AGW case
• Measurements used for AGW case were influenced by urbanization, poor location, bad data sets
• African-crop claims exposed as false
• IPCC researchers excluded Southern Hemisphere data to exaggerate effects of warming on hurricanes
• Hurricane claims further exposed as false by actual peer-reviewed research — including by some AGW researchers
• Major scientific group concludes IPCC-linked researchers “complicit in the alleged scientific malpractices“

None of these — none — were exposed by a major American media outlet.

Chicago Gun Ban Goes to The Supreme Court

Oral arguments began today to decide whether the Second Amendment applies to the states. The plaintiff, Otis McDonald, sums up his case:

"There's more guns coming into this city than the police can take away from them. So if I've got a gun, and if others have guns in their homes to protect themselves, then that's one thing that police would have to worry about less." "It makes me feel like the city cares more for the thugs than they do me, and I'm the one paying taxes,"

Indeed. No matter how many arcane legal arguments are made, Mr. McDonald understands that his inalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are meaningless without the means to defend them.

In 1982, Chicago imposed the strict gun ordinance to help combat rampant gang and firearm violence that plagued the city.

In court papers, lawyers for the city of Chicago pointed out that 402 of the 412 firearm homicides occurred with the use of handguns in 2008.

Right, and those crimes were committed by criminals who don't give a rip about gun laws. The only thing Chicago's gun laws have succeeded in doing is to prevent law abiding citizens from defending themselves and their community.

Government's Not The Problem, It's Us

More pearls of wisdom from the anointed. This time it's Evan Thomas at Newsweek.

The problem is not the system. It's us—our "got mine" culture of entitlement. . ..The triumph of individual and civil rights, a wondrous fulfillment of the true meaning of the Constitution, was too often perverted into an "I got my rights" sense of victimhood.

He says this while the “system” is trying to shove another vote buying entitlement down our throats that we don’t want.

Mix shallow, one-dimensional thinking with generous amounts of condescension and you too can be an elitist.

Defining What You "Need"

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." -- Karl Marx, 1875

"It's a tax on insurance companies that offer Cadillac, or quite frankly, Rolls Royce policies that in essence people don't need." -- Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, 2-25-10

The day after Pres. Obama carped about people calling him a socialist, he sent his top spokesman out to describe a plan to tax health insurance policies that provide benefits more generous than what people "need."...MORE

And that's exactly what socialism, or statism if you prefer, does. Obama is either ignorant of what those terms mean or he thinks we are. Since he's been marinating in collectivist philosophy his entire life, my guess is it's the latter.

When they say your insurance policy covers more than what you "need", what they really mean is that your ability to buy that policy is unfair to those who can't. Therefore, you must be forced to relinquish some of your property to the state in order to satisfy the never ending needs of others and atone for the economic crime of being successful.

What else will the government tax that they decide is more than you need? Your house, food, computer, clothes...your Cadillac? And as the government gets bigger and the individual smaller, the "needs" of everyone gets defined downward as incentives shrivel and the economy stagnates.

Central Florida Rail: Region's game-changer?

It sure is. But not in the way Alex Martins thinks. He is the Chairman of Central Florida Partnership and CEO of the Orlando Magic. But that doesn't make him immune from having misguided opinions:

High-speed rail can make the difference when it comes to our ability to compete on the global stage. Tampa Bay has a population of 3.75 million and Central Florida has a population of 3.46 million. As a combined super region, we are the seventh most-populated region in the country, and the 10th-largest economy in the United States...

...We know that you build a professional basketball team by making strategic decisions over time. Likewise, we understand that Florida is committed to building a safe and efficient multimodal transportation network to serve residents and visitors. High-speed and commuter rail are just the first links in the transportation system that will better connect our communities.

...I couldn't agree more. Growing up in the New York metro area, I used the rail system to attend sporting events and Broadway matinees. That system grew to become the easiest, most direct transportation source for work and play. From my experiences, I know that high-speed rail will be a real game-changer for Central Florida.

That last paragraph is where Mr. Martins' argument runs off the rails, so to speak. The New York transit system, like those in Boston, Chicago and elsewhere, were built in densely populated areas that came of age prior to the advent of the automobile. Dense suburbs grew up close to them as bedroom communities for those downtown areas. So it was relatively easy to place stations within convenient reach of large numbers of people.

And lets remember that those systems were started as private companies with money raised from investors who thought they could make a profit. No private concern will do that in Central Florida because it makes no economic sense.

The population density of the N.Y. Metro area is 2,792 people per square mile, whereas the Tampa Bay and Greater Orlando Metro areas are 521 and 494 people per square mile respectively. There is no way to have enough stops to make rail work conveniently or efficiently under those circumstances. How will people get to those distant stations and what will they do when they get to their destination? Answer: They won't bother. One only has to look to places like Los Angeles and Seattle, where taxpayer funded rail schemes have failed, to see what will happen here.

Additionally, most people in places like Central Florida commute from suburb to suburb, not a central downtown location. There's no way to easily get around those places without an automobile.

Simply put, this will fail to attract any significant ridership just as it has in other places that were developed around the automobile. People can complain about living in a decentralized area while enjoying its benefits as much as they want. But pretending you're something you're not in order to justify building a wildly expensive white elephant, just creates more problems while solving nothing.

Lawsuit accuses Obama administration of failing to protect Florida panther

SARASOTA — A coalition of environmental and civic groups sued the Obama administration Thursday over its refusal to declare 1.3 million acres as critical habitat for the endangered Florida panther...Panthers once roamed the Southeast, but now about 100 panthers remain in the wild, prowling the swamps and forests south of the Caloosahatchee River in South Florida.

...In 2002 a group of panther and habitat mapping experts recommended the federal agency declare the area where the panthers now live as critical habitat. Doing so would subject any plans to alter that habitat — by development, farming or mining — to increased scrutiny and additional requirements to make up for the loss of land.

Instead the agency is now working with a separate coalition of environmental groups and major landowners to craft a cooperative plan to protect some habitat while still allowing development

...The lawsuit seeks enhanced protection of more than 3 million acres in fast-growing Collier, Lee and Hendry counties.

This is how radical environmentalists essentially steal property from individuals through government force by prohibiting its use. In this case, the Eco-Marxists seek to provide 30,000 acres per Panther of others land without paying one dime for it. This destroys wealth while increasing the cost of available land remaining.

No honest cost-benefit analysis can make this insanity pencil out. But it doesn't have to apparently, when you're hiding your uncompromising anti-private property agenda behind a furry feline. That agenda is vividly revealed in this unreasonable litigation.

Mother nature kills off dozens of species of flora and fauna every day. In fact, over 90% of all species that have existed are now extinct due to natural causes. Of course, there are many ways to preserve the Florida Panther without throwing a monkey wrench into private property rights. But the Panther is secondary to the fanatical nihilism of the enviros.

Drilling Bans Cost Trillions

Do the Hands Across The Sand knuckleheads know this or even care? Probably neither. Math is hard, but it will be illustrated perfectly when no one can afford to come to Florida's beaches. We're the only country in the world that deliberately leaves energy resources in the ground and off limits. Countries from Canada to Saudi Arabia are more than happy to enable our stupidity by selling us theirs:

"From trying to stimulate jobs in nonexistent ZIP codes at great expense to worshiping the false gods of climate change, our biggest deficit these days may be in the area of common sense. A new study shows that many of our wounds are self-inflicted as we forgo the wealth and jobs to be found in our waters and under our feet.

The study by Science Applications International Corp. at the request of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Gas Technology Institute and others shows the U.S. economy will suffer $2.3 trillion in lost opportunity costs over the next two decades, monies that would go a long way to reining in runaway deficits and creating economic growth.

Critics will say this is another self-serving study paid for by oil industry groups, but unlike the climate change fantasies concocted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Britain's Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the study's data can survive fact-checking and the conclusions are rooted in reality.

Drilling restrictions in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in offshore areas such as the Chukchi Sea and Outer Continental Shelf, the report says, are denying us access to at least nine years' worth of total U.S. oil and gas consumption...

...These are not climate fantasies derived by running faulty assumptions and bad data through inaccurate computer models. This is simple math, common sense and Economics 101. Energy is expensive. We're leaving vast amounts in the ground while importing it from others. In a word: duh."

Nightfall In America

From the Wall Street Journal:

The federal deficit this fiscal year will be $1.6 trillion, or about 10.6% of gross domestic product. That is the largest deficit since World War II, and even President Obama's optimistic estimates show our deficits will not return to sustainable levels for at least the next decade.

The administration's projection of total federal spending over those 10 years (2011-20) is $45.8 trillion, while expected taxes and other receipts will be $37.3 trillion. The $8.5 trillion deficit is about 20% of spending. And all of these numbers are based on a full and lasting economic recovery, which, based on current experience, is a pretty optimistic projection.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal's editorial page did an analysis of the federal government's debt that will be held by the public over the coming decade. When the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, the debt held by the public was 36.2% of GDP. It rose to 40.2% the next year. This year it will be about 63.6%, next year 68.6%, then 77% of GDP in 2020. And the Obama administration's budget estimates 218% in 2050.

The reason for these rising deficits is the huge increases in federal spending--the intended growth of the federal government--that Congress and the president are pushing. The deficit in 2007 was $160 billion. In the next year the Pelosi-Reid Congress took it up to $458 billion, and when President Obama came into office in 2009 it hit $1.4 trillion. The current 2010 projected deficit is $1.6 trillion, which will lead to a tripling of our national debt from 2008 to 2020...

...This administration wants larger, not smaller government; broader, not lesser regulation; and greater government, not greater individual liberties. That would make our country weaker on the international stage, make it much more difficult for us to handle future recessions, and even more difficult to implement new programs or strategies that may be needed to improve our economy.

Democrats: Republicans are stimulus hypocrites, or something

Notice that Democrats aren't defending the stimulus, but are instead employing the "you did it too" tactic.



Once this boondoggle was passed, every American taxpayer became responsible for its payments. At that point, Republicans had the choice of either getting some of that money back for their taxpayers or keeping it in the slush fund to buy Democrat votes. The money was going to be spent no matter what.

So now the Republicans are hypocrites for trying to get back a piece of the pie Democrats stole from their constituents? Sure, they could have stood on principle, but the damage was already done. Leaving all the money in Democrat hands would have only made it worse.





More at Hot Air.

Where's housing headed? Follow rents?

Rents and vacancy rates are examined in various ways in order to gauge the overall health of the housing market. This report looks at the ratio of leasing versus ownership costs:

...That brings us to the Deutsche Bank studies. Its REIT research team first established a benchmark for a "normal" ratio of rents to ownership costs -- what it calls ATMP, or after-tax mortgage payment -- for 53 U.S. cities.

On average, DB found that families across America were spending about 87% as much to rent as to own in 1999. Hence, they were traditionally willing to pay a premium as homeowners, though not a big one

But by mid-2006, with the craze in full swing, the figure fell below 60%. At that point, Americans were spending an incredible 66% more to own than to rent. It was far worse in the bubble markets: In Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami, homeowners were paying twice as much as renters, and in San Francisco and Orange Country, owners' monthly payments were triple those of their neighbors with leases instead of mortgages.

DB reckoned that housing prices are more or less reasonable when the ratio returns to its 1999 level. Why 1999? Because the ratio was relatively stable throughout the 1990s, and it was the year the steep rise in prices began in earnest.. At the end of the third quarter of 2009, the overall number stood at 83%, meaning renting was just a tad more attractive than owning.

In other words, at some point prices will fall and/or rents will rise to a point where it becomes more attractive to own than rent. But there are other variables at work here. Interest rates will almost certainly rise soon and big inflation shocks are inevitable when government spends, borrows and prints money at its current, unsustainable pace. Additionally, there is a shadow inventory of distressed homes that will continue to add to supply in record numbers.

Yes, there is pent-up demand, but there is also a lot of pent-up supply along with much economic uncertainty that our government is only exacerbating. Like any other measure, this one should be just one tool in the box.

Man accused of turning foreclosed homes into rentals

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing:

NEW PORT RICHEY — The homes had been vacated due to foreclosure when Stephen Bybel discovered them.

Authorities say Bybel attempted to seize the properties through an obscure state law, then posted the properties on Craigslist and filled the homes with tenants...But the Pasco County Sheriff's Office says Bybel was simply helping himself, collecting rent on dozens of homes he didn't own or legally control. In January alone, authorities say, Bybel pocketed $16,780 in rent...

...When Bybel found a foreclosure property, authorities said, he posted a notice on the home alerting the owner he would take "adverse possession" of the property unless the owner contacted him in seven days.

The notice cited chapter 95 of Florida Statutes, which spells out how someone can take possession of a property through squatter's rights. The law requires a person occupy the property for at least seven years and fulfill other legal requirements.

Had Bybel or this reporter taken my class, I would have told them the following:

First of all, adverse posession is not an "obscure state law" and it exists in various forms in all fifty states. Without getting too deep in the weeds, the history and purpose of adverse posession goes back centuries and is designed to place a statute of limitations on ownership of disputed property. In other words, a property owner has a certain amount of time to remove a hostile trespasser or they will lose that right.

Florida law not only requires a seven year waiting period, but also requires that the would be possessor pay the property taxes during that time. Among other things, it also says that you have to show evidence of some legitimate claim to the property, whatever that may be.


Nevertheless, you have to admire this guy's inventiveness, if not his stupidity. I'm impressed that he managed to take 71 houses and rented over 30 of them. If anything, this shows just how unmanageable these foreclosures have become.

The Green Death

With the Global Warming hoax crumbling, it's a good time for a reminder of the continuing genocide caused by radical environmentalism. Doctor Zero explains:

Who is the worst killer in the long, ugly history of war and extermination? Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? Not even close. A single book called Silent Spring killed far more people than all those fiends put together.

Published in 1962, Silent Spring used manipulated data and wildly exaggerated claims (sound familiar?) to push for a worldwide ban on the pesticide known as DDT – which is, to this day, the most effective weapon against malarial mosquitoes. The Environmental Protection Agency held extensive hearings after the uproar produced by this book… and these hearings concluded that DDT should not be banned. A few months after the hearings ended, EPA administrator William Ruckleshaus over-ruled his own agency and banned DDT anyway, in what he later admitted was a “political” decision. Threats to withhold American foreign aid swiftly spread the ban across the world.

The resulting explosion of mosquito-borne malaria in Africa has claimed over sixty million lives. This was not a gradual process – a surge of infection and death happened almost immediately. The use of DDT reduces the spread of mosquito-borne malaria by fifty to eighty percent, so its discontinuation quickly produced an explosion of crippling and fatal illness. The same environmental movement which has been falsifying data, suppressing dissent, and reading tea leaves to support the global-warming fraud has studiously ignored this blood-drenched “hockey stick” for decades. MORE...

A lot more resources are available HERE that outline the largely unreported slaughter of millions from politicized junk science.

I and a lot of other people have been extremely frustrated that this massive scandal has been ignored for so long. But now the time is right to draw parallels between this and the Global Warming fraud to further show that these evils have nothing to do with science and everything to do with progressive politics.

Here's a previous post on the subject:

Today's Global Warming campaign is endangering real, honest science. Global Warming superstition has become an international power grab, and good science suffers as a result.

...Pathological science kills people and ruins lives. Such fake science is still peddled by the PC establishment in Europe and America. Global Warming is only the most recent case. Rachel Carson's screed against DDT caused malaria to re-emerge in Africa, killing hundreds of thousands of human beings. Those human-caused disasters have never been discussed honestly in the media, and rarely if ever in science journals. The DDT scandal is still suppressed.

...Some scientists rationalize this corruption of their vocation by saying that people can lie for a good cause. The record shows otherwise. Fraudulent science and science journalism has led to AIDS going out of control; to DDT being banned and malaria gaining a new lease on life in Africa; to decades of famines in Russia; to children being badly mis-educated on such basics as reading and arithmetic; to end endless slew of unjustified health scares, like Mad Cow; and to a worldwide Leftist campaign cynically aiming to gain international power and enormous sums of money, based on a simple, unscientific fraud.

Most of the people killed by the DDT fraud are "people of color" in third world countries that the left likes to claim as their wards. The left needs to explain the efficacy of killing so many of the people they supposedly have unique compassion for.

Cold is Devasting Manatees

Global Warming can certainly be ironic:

So many manatees are turning up stressed from the extreme cold temperatures this winter that it's putting a strain on the statewide system for caring for the injured marine mammals.

Some facilities have become overcrowded, while others are making room by releasing back into the wild manatees that have been in captivity.

Yeah, I know weather is not climate. But since the Church of AGW has been ignoring that fact since day one of this hoax, turnabout is fair play. Besides, now they're telling us that cold weather is a sign of warming. Heads I win, Tails you lose science is anything but.

Three Big Firms Pull Out of Climate Partnership

The collapse of the biggest fraud in human history continues:

WASHINGTON—Three large corporations are quitting the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad group of businesses and environmental organizations that has been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases.

Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips along with Caterpillar, Inc., the Peoria, Ill., heavy-equipment maker, have decided against renewing their membership in the organization, according to a statement released by the group Tuesday.

Red Cavaney, ConocoPhillips senior vice president for government affairs, said USCAP was focused on getting a climate-change bill passed, whereas Conoco is increasingly concerned with what the details of such a bill would be.

"USCAP was starting to do more and more on trying to get a bill out without trying to work as much on the substance of it," Mr. Cavaney said.

These companies are now seeing their extortionist's power withering away. USCAP is an odd consortium of large industrial corporations
and parasitical environmental groups bent on their destruction e.g. Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy and The World Resources Institute.


In other words, USCAP is a protection racket that companies are forced to join in order to avoid nuisance litigation, bad publicity from a compliant media or the wrath of the Eco-Marxists statist patrons in government through regulation and legislation.

Drilling Protesters Gather at The Beach

SIESTA KEY - More than 250 people joined hands on the famous powdery sands of Siesta Public Beach on Saturday to show opposition to oil drilling as close as three to 10 miles offshore...The Siesta Key protest was one of around 60 across the state...Sarasota Mayor Dick Clapp joined the protests, saying that the local economy depends on the beaches to draw tourists.

Moss organized the local protest after hearing about "Hands Across the Sand" on local public radio.

Hands Across the Sand includes many local governments and various Chambers of Commerce. Obviously they have an interest in this but do they know or care who they are climbing into bed with?

Their website features prominent links to radical groups like Progress Florida and The Florida Green Party, which is part of the Green Party of The United States. Their mission goes well beyond protecting the environment as they are essentially Socialist groups that use environmental causes to destroy private property rights and the free market system.

There is a compromise here that could allow drilling up to say, fifty miles from shore, well over the horizon but much closer than the ridiculous distance of 225 miles now in effect. On top of the obvious economic benefits for Florida and the country, oil rigs will also provide much needed artificial reefs that will expand the fish population in the desert that is Florida's Gulf Coast.

But local governments and business groups will never find common ground as long as they associate themselves with Anti-American radicals that view them as a temporary ally.

'Airstream Ranch' along I-4 does not violate law, judges rule

A small victory for private property rights:

TAMPA — Love it or hate it, the Winnebago-sized installation known as the "Airstream Ranch" is legal, a three-judge panel has ruled.

This week's decision reverses a $100-per-day fine on Frank and Dorothy Bates, who put up the shiny row of silver RVs in 2007. Hillsborough County officials can appeal, but Bates plans to keep the trailers buried nose-first in view of drivers whizzing through Dover on Interstate 4.

Got that? This is along I-4! I don't know if it's art or not, but it certainly breaks up the monotony of driving to Orlando. The taxpayers of Hillsbourough must be pleased as punch that their money has been wasted on this lawsuit.

"The attraction has drawn tourists from as far away as Japan, was the backdrop for a fashion shoot and has been featured in a country music video. Two people asked about marrying there."

Prediction: In twenty or thirty years someone else will own the property and new busybodies will try to prevent them from taking it down because it's "historically significant".

St. Pete Beach eyes federal stimulus money for marina, Corey boardwalk

It's nice to see that at least some of my federal tax dollars might be wasted closer to home:

ST. PETE BEACH — A city-owned marina and a boardwalk under the Corey Avenue Bridge are ideas that just won't die.

Despite past funding setbacks, the city is now pushing to get $500,000 in federal stimulus funds to build a 725-foot boardwalk beneath the Corey Avenue Bridge to connect the city's historic Corey Avenue shopping district with the new $8 million community center and park on the north side of the bridge.

Perhaps they could call it The American Economy Memorial Marina and Boardwalk. No one locally wanted to fund this thing, having decided it was a waste of money. But using borrowed and stolen money laundered through Washington is OK. The people (and their children) of St. Pete Beach will pay for this inefficient nonsense anyway, so they might as well put their snouts in the trough.

Pinellas County Prescription Drug Sting

Here's the latest offensive in the war on some drugs:

PINELLAS PARK — A Pinellas County sheriff's task force is planning a Monday sting operation to round up suspects accused of prescription drug crimes...The task force of St. Petersburg police and Pinellas sheriff's investigators was created to help combat the pharmaceutical fraud and doctor-shopping epidemic, officials said...The task force of St. Petersburg police and Pinellas sheriff's investigators was created to help combat the pharmaceutical fraud and doctor-shopping epidemic, officials said.

I'm sure glad the police are out there protecting us against...what? This will accomplish exactly nothing other than wasting taxpayer dollars to screw up the lives of people who are already screwed up enough. The war will continue until people realize they can only be addicted to government approved drugs like alcohol.

The Biggest Jerk in Congress

From Human Events:

“Every school, club, or company has a loudmouth whose outrageous statements and failed attempts at humor cause his friends to shy away, feigning laughter and everyone to think ‘what a jackass.’ Congress always has more than its fair share of such people, and suffers them gladly. Well, most of them. But this congress contains a man who rises above the rest, distinguishing himself beyond all others as this session’s ‘Biggest Jerk In Congress.’ He is Representative Alan Grayson, a first-term Democratic Congressman from Florida’s historically Republican 8th Congressional District, which includes Orlando.”

I disagree. Grayson's world class jerkiness is merely a symptom of his underlying insanity.

Crist, Rubio Spar Over Counting illegals in Census

The argument is academic at this point, since the census has already begun. Nevertheless, Charlie Crist is taking the opportunistic stand as opposed Rubio's more principled one:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio has come out against including illegal immigrants in the national census — even though doing so could significantly reduce Florida’s political power and share of federal funding. …

But, later, a spokesman for Rubio’s Senate campaign said that Rubio did “not support a congressional reapportionment process that counts illegal immigrant populations when allocating seats.” Alex Burgos said Rubio’s position “stems from a concern about rightful representation in Congress and ensuring that every voter has an equal voice.” …

Crist went to North Miami on Tuesday to urge everyone to participate in the census.

“The people of Florida represent a rich legacy of diverse cultures, backgrounds and experiences, and want to be represented accordingly,” Crist said. “Florida families should participate in the 2010 census to ensure our state receives the funding necessary to meet the needs of our citizens.”

Illegal immigrants are not citizens but Crist wants to redefine the word while resorting to the usual "diversity" pandering. He then goes a cynical step further in his criticism of Rubio:

“Florida deserves to have her fair share. And I think making sure that we count every single Floridian is vitally important. That’s why I went to the school yesterday in North Miami,” Crist said.

“It is important. It’s important to our state, it’s important to our people. And the notion that you would not want to accept federal funding to make a political statement is absurd.”

It's not just a political statement, it is a defense of the rule of law and the Constitution. What's absurd is Crist's acceptance of an overbearing federal government that forces states to beg Washington for the return of its citizens money in the form of pork. What's more absurd is the notion that illegal immigrants should be counted in the census in order to get more of that pork.

Perhaps if states didn't receive funding for illegals, they would be less accepting of the problem and would lobby Washington to do its job and protect the borders.

More from Hot Air:

But there is also $400 billion in federal programs available to states, allocated in large part on the basis of population. Crist wants a bigger piece of that pie, and Rubio also acknowledged that those kinds of considerations are not unimportant. That should demonstrate how federal programs distort political processes, though, and not give an excuse to pork feeders at the trough. The Constitutional requirement for a Census every ten years is to make sure that Americans have fair representation in the House, not to determine which little piggy gets the most slop.

Obama Railway

">President Obama arrived in Tampa today with federal taxpayer cash to build yet another railway that no one will use and cost far more than any benefits derived.

"Speaking at the University of Tampa, Obama called high speed rail "building our infrastructure of the future… We want to start looking deep into the 21st century. There is no reason why other countries can build high speed rail lines and we can't."

Well, we can build it but that doesn't mean we should. Rail projects like this have been built all over the country and have almost invariably suffered from low ridership and have required massive subsidies (federal, state and local) to keep them running. The main reason people don't ride them is population density.

Mass transit works in older, densely populated, vertical cities that came of age before the invention of the automobile e.g. Boston, New York Chicago. Much less track is needed to conveniently reach the amount of people required to make those systems viable. Not so in cities that have experienced most of their growth in the last century. The automobile allowed people to live further apart and on more land. Tampa, Orlando and most of Florida falls in that category and no rail system here can efficiently have enough stops conveniently close to make it an attractive alternative. Simply put: If you drive your car 10 miles to the Tampa station and ride to Orlando, what do you do when you get there? How do you get around that sprawling metropolis?

As for other countries with high speed rail, population density and other factors make them poor comparisons. Robert Samuelson explains:

"What works in Europe and Asia won't in the United States. Even abroad, passenger trains are subsidized. But the subsidies are more justifiable because geography and energy policies differ.

Densities are much higher, and high densities favor rail with direct connections between heavily populated city centers and business districts. In Japan, density is 880 people per square mile; it's 653 in Britain, 611 in Germany and 259 in France. By contrast, plentiful land in the United States has led to suburbanized homes, offices and factories. Density is 86 people per square mile. Trains can't pick up most people where they live and work and take them to where they want to go. Cars can.

Distances also matter. America is big; trips are longer. Beyond 400 to 500 miles, fast trains can't compete with planes. Finally, Europe and Japan tax car transportation more heavily, pushing people to trains. In August 2008, notes the GAO, gasoline in Japan was $6.50 a gallon. Americans regard $4 a gallon as an outrage. Proposals for stiff gasoline taxes (advocated by many, including me) go nowhere."

The only way to get people into trains they don't want to ride is through a combination of bribes through taxpayer subsidies, and force through heavy taxation of gasoline and air travel.

There's a reason why no private concern has ever proposed a project like this: It's an inefficient loser. If no one is willing to risk their own money on these boondoggles, then why should taxpayers do it through government force? This is just one more reason why government spending doesn't stimulate anything other than politician's careers.

More on this subject: American Thinker, Cato Institute, Reason.