Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received bad news today in Moscow regarding her quest to secure greater Russian cooperation in holding Iran’s feet to the fire on the nuclear issue. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking after the meeting, said that “all efforts” should be made to maintain dialogue with Iran: We are convinced that threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the present situation are counter-productive. Never mind that Iran already has stonewalled previous efforts to resolve the nuclear issue through diplomatic negotiations and is likely to run out …
Have Russia’s oil and gas replaced Cossack squadrons and tank divisions as the means to intimidate Europe? Will pipeline routes create new dependencies in the 21st century which may force the NATO alliance come apart at the seams? Nord Stream is a gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, with spurs to Germany’s neighbors. It will bypass Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states and Poland – the traditional transit countries. Leaders from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) worry that this pipeline will allow Russia to cut off the gas to the …
If cap and trade is meant to solve our climate crisis, why does the bill include funding to understand climate change? Section 451 of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade legislation includes funding to research the effects of “human-induced or natural changes in the global environment (including alterations in climate, land productivity, oceans or other water resources, atmospheric chemistry, biodiversity, and ecological systems) that may alter the capacity of the Earth to sustain life.” The government will pay for five-year reports on scientific knowledge regarding climate change and how various resource …
On August 12th, President Barack Obama promised the American people: “Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” But if you read the New York Times closely today you learn that the Baucus bill set for a vote today in the Senate Finance Committee breaks that promise. The NYT reports:
In response to yesterday’s PriceWaterhouseCooper’s study showing that the Senate Finance bill would raise, not lower, health insurance premiums for Americans, M.I.T. economist Jonathan Gruber told the New York Times that the opposite was true. But think about it for a minute. Imagine if the federal government announced that car insurers had to provide car insurance for any American that applied. Now imagine that the federal government also forced car insurers to charge everyone the same price for car insurance regardless of their driving history. So a texting teen with …
One of the differences in the Senate version of cap and trade is that it leaves the door wide open on how to deal with countries that do not adopt carbon capping systems. China, India and other developing countries have made it clear they will not implement carbon cabs that would hurt their economies. The passed Waxman-Markey House cap and trade bill would impose a carbon tariff if countries do not implement some sort of carbon capping regime by 2020. Since cap and trade would artificially raise the price on …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62pNLVUycg4[/youtube] Rebiya Kadeer is President of the World Uyghur Congress, an oppressed Muslim minority in Western China. Focrefully seperated from her family, she now lives in exile in the Unites States. We’ve written about Rebiya Kadeer before and her case and her story demand our attention.
Lost in the glowing coverage of the Congressional Budget Office’s “favorable” estimate of Sen. Max Baucus’ health care bill is an astounding fact: it doesn’t lower health care costs. Although the Congressional Budget Office estimates says the bill will reduce the deficit by $81 billion, CBO also says, “Cost is growing at about 8% per year toward the end of the 10-year budget window.” If you take that 8% inflation rate and compound it over 10 years, it means that health care costs will MORE than double every decade. This …
The dollar’s steady and sometimes fleet downward slide in exchange markets is eliciting a number of interesting explanations, but most commentators are only looking at their favorite piece of the economic puzzle. The dollar is under pressure against, well, every currency that matters. But why, and are there other financial markets oddities demanding attention, like U.S. interest rates? Part of the explanation for the dollar’s slide is surely the Obama Administration’s pursuit of a wide range of policies sharing the singular characteristic that they would permanently weaken the U.S. economy. …
This Morning Bell is the second in a five-part week-long series (read Monday’s on out-of-pocket costs) on how Obamacare will affect you. “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period.” President Barack Obama promised this to the American people in his health care address before a Joint Session of Congress on September 9th. Problem is, no one believes him. The Congressional Budget Office has issued reports on the Senate Health Committee bill (HELP), the House Tri-Committee Bill …
