Cap and Trade Protest In Atlanta

The Georgia Tea Party organization put together an impromptu protest Saturday at noon in front of the Georgia capitol. It was certainly a great idea, and we had a huge audience, in that auto traffic going to the Atlanta Braves baseball game, had to pass right by the corner on which we gathered. Jenny Beth Martin, the GA Tea Party coordinator was there. Everyone there was committed to the issues, committed to making a difference, but we have at least two major problems, although they are, of course related.

The first problem is there were only about 35 people total. Most stayed for several hours in the very hot sun on Saturday afternoon. There wasn't a lot of time to get the word out, but it was on the Tea Party website, Facebook, and notifications were sent by email to Georgia Tea Party members. This on the day after the House of Representatives basically destroyed the American economy for possibly decades to come. The mainstream media, sadly including Fox, has broadcast virtually nothing but rumors, innuendo, and pontifications about the life and death of Michael Jackson for days, ignoring everything happening in Washington, where our very futures are being legislated into oblivion.

While I admit Jackson was a pop icon, the Cap and Tax bill that was shoved through the House on Friday, before the 4th of July weekend, without having been read by a single legislator is infinitely more important to every American, or should be, more accurately stated. The problem is no one cares, no one knows, no one is paying attention? I'm not sure why, but I did spend much of the day studying closely the faces in the cars passing us by. It is true we had some honkers, a few thumbs up, as well as a few fingers over two from the thumb, also in the upright position.

What I believe I learned, anecdotally, of course, is that the majority of people, in Georgia, where we are notoriously conservative, are just too caught up in their lives to care a whit about cap and trade, socialized health care, increased taxes, and the government in general. I have been thinking that, but couldn't really make myself believe it. There was an attractive young girl, very passionate, very conservative, that gave me some insight I had been ignoring in trying to understand this major apathy. I've been trying to understand how thousands of people could be mobilized in 2 hours to get to the front of the hospital where Michael Jackson already lay dead, while we could muster only 30 something Americans to protest a bill that will virtually paralyze our economy, increase our personal energy costs, and result in the loss of countless jobs.

What this young lady said is obvious and yet hard to comprehend. There are so many people who have never lived through hard times, and she is right. We are simply spoiled as a nation in the majority. My parent’s generation, most of whom are now either already dead, or living out the end of their lives and unable to contribute significantly, understood what it is like to be hungry. None of us do. Even those or us who experienced the 70s and early 80s when the economy was in the pits, never actually got hungry for the most part.

I even went though some trying times financially, but I had a safety net. My parents were around to help out, although I never really needed them, I always knew I could count on their help. We are about to embark on some years where there is going to be major hardship. At the rate people are losing jobs now, it isn't going to be that long until the security net has been removed for the vast majority of Americans, and their parents, whose wealth is also evaporating. Very few of us will have the wherewithal to support our own grown children with their own kids, mortgages, new cars, and dwindling assets. Perhaps by design at this point, but that story is for another day. In fact, most of our parents who are still living will be lucky to survive at all, particularly when the government determines they are too old to receive expensive medical procedures. Maybe it is for the best. Perhaps we have come to live beyond our usefulness.

Another person I talked to Saturday at the protest is 57, and has determined she may as well plan on saving just enough retirement funds to live until 70, since the government will not likely permit her to survive any major medical issues that tend to arise starting in your late 60s and early 70s. I have not quite reached that point in my mind yet, but once Congress actually passes the health care reform, I can see that her insight will be true for many of us, especially those of us who have already survived a few medical emergencies at a relatively young age.

I understand a little about building and querying databases. The health care medical records, and the mathematical methodology for making medical decisions using that data, will most certainly exclude many of us from expensive treatments, particularly when we have already had one or more serious medical conditions early in life. The odds are increasingly against you with every succeeding illness. I saw that at the end of both of my parent's lives from the doctors and medicare, even though we were still able to decide for ourselves, we still had a choice, even until the very end. That choice, and many other choices in every aspect of our lives are not long for Americans caught up in this Obama-tsunama.

So many people have been living beyond their means. So much paper wealth exists in our country right now, and it is all evaporating in front of our eyes. 401ks have lost 30 to 40% on average, even with the gains over the past couple of months. Housing prices have dropped 20 to 30%, and when the commercial real estate losses hit the banks, all real estate is going to take another significant nose dive. The credit card industry is also going to collapse in another year to 18 months.

One thing I heard recently from a real estate investor friend of mine that isn't being talked about in the media is this: Banks, right now, are calling “due in full” loans from developers who are still paying their bills on time, and this is happening every single day across the country. They are doing this to shore up their balance sheets, and liquidity reports to survive the government intrusion into the banking industry. This is happening at small local banks, regional’s, as well as the big Wall St. firms. Without getting too far into the finance weeds, this news is huge. The media is not covering it at all, not even Fox Business is talking about it. The information comes from a guy who has made his living in real estate for years, and done well with every project he's started. He now cannot get a loan from a single bank, or capital investment firm. Can you imagine that with a track record of 100% success, not one financial organization will loan a cent for real estate investment? Worse still, the banks are stopping developments half finished, calling in loans that can't be paid in full, leaving the projects undone, then foreclosing and selling the land for 50 cents on the dollar to raise liquid capital? This is clearly disturbing and leaves one to ponder what other actions will be taken once the rest of Obama's plans actually hit the markets.

The basic premise of this cap and trade business is not supported, by as many scientists as do support it. And yet we only hear from the scientists who say carbon fuels are causing global warming, when the facts are, that the temperature of the Earth has actually flattened or even dropped a few hundredths of a degree in the last decade, even while carbon emissions have skyrocketed. The Earth is in fact in a warming trend, and has been for 100 years, although this certainly does not represent the first warming trend the Earth has seen in its history. The last 10 years are significant in that it makes the argument for human energy consumption as the cause, baseless in actual fact.

Even assuming you do buy into the argument that human energy consumption is the cause of global warming, the United States can have very little, if any impact on global carbon emissions with respect to China and India, who both pollute in much the same way as the Unites States did a century ago. And that is to say we did nothing to reduce pollution at all. Neither China, nor India is taking any measures to reduce pollution, and both countries are manufacturing balls to the wall, especially China. In comparison, we have very little manufacturing concerns operating in the United States, and will be left with virtually none if this bill actually become law. Under the same assumption that Al Gore is 100% correct, we could reduce our carbon footprint to a much larger degree by replacing our coal fired power houses with nuclear reactors. France is the world leader in nuclear energy and has virtually zero impact on the world's carbon emissions. This bill is not about the environment. It is not about jobs as Nancy Pelosi would have us believe. Spain loses 2.2 jobs for every green job their cap and trade system provides. This bill is about government control, just as the entire platform being pushed on America is about control of the economy, control of behavior, control of the citizens, and the absence of personal liberty!

What the cap and trade will accomplish is to create a new financial instrument to be traded by Goldman Sachs, General Electric, and other Wall St firms. And it will provide the government with a much needed new source of revenue to carry out their grandiose plans, without calling it a tax increase for 95% of Americans, although that is precisely what it is. This legislation is a total sham, inflicted on the American people under the guise of an environmental protection bill. It is a damn lie! Every point from supporters of this legislation is easily refuted on multiple levels, but the mainstream media is in bed with the liberals, and stand to make a fortune. General Electric, the parent company of NBC has already set up a subsidiary corporation to buy and sell energy credits. As for the rest of the media, it remains to be seen how long Obama's honeymoon will last. I'm not certain the country can survive too many more Friday night, holiday preceding bills. Of course, this hasn't passed the Senate, but Obama and his Congressional stooges have been very successful thus far.

There are many people who will likely make a great deal of money on this. Everyone who does get rich, including the government getting a new revenue stream, will do so from the pockets of the poor and the middle class. Anyone who is already rich, will figure out a way to make more money on the new financial instrument than they will pay in increased energy costs, or even the cost of goods. Similarly, anyone who is already rich, is an employer, not an employee, and can easily move their manufacturing business to Mexico, or contract a Chinese factory to build their product. Even the oil companies will make money on this legislation, and the buying, selling, and trading of energy credits.

Unfortunately, most Americans have no idea what I'm talking about. I said unfortunate, but what I really mean is that it is criminal on the part of American citizens to allow themselves to be duped by the current Congress. The group at Resistnet, along with the Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations are working toward changing the reality, but I fear we are fighting a losing battle. What I saw in the faces of those people passing a small group of Tea Party protesters was apathy. They wouldn’t even look in our direction most of the time, even though we were right in their faces. It was the sort of apathy I am certain could have been seen in the faces of the Germans in the 1930s, the Italians, as they looked the other way when the government began taking control of their industry, then their businesses, and finally as the government started burning books, and squashing dissent before the really bad stuff started. The same can be said for every country in history who has lost their liberty to a government seizing all power during a time of economic stress. That is the way it always happens. I never thought it could happen here, and yet Obama has done more to destroy the Constitution in five months than has been done in the past 230+ years. And so few are standing up! Why?

People aren't going to realize they are in trouble until they have been affected personally in a way they can do nothing to change. When they have lost everything, including their liberty, and have only what the government decides they can have, they will wonder, how did this happen? Why didn't I see? Why didn't someone tell me? The Cap and Trade bill is the second time Congress has passed major legislation this year without reading it, and right before a holiday, on a Friday afternoon, or Saturday. Pretty soon these bills will be made by acclimation, at the will of the executive. The Congress has turned over its' power to the president, his CZARS, and his minions, Pelosi, Reid, Rahm Emanuel. Even the Supreme Court, and I still don’t understand why, has refused to weigh in on the fact that the president of the United States has abrogated contract law in full view of the nation on national TV, in a very aggressive manner. How long until Americans are treated like Iranians? Will we be writing letters to Obama for favors, and getting them occasionally? What will be the issue that eventually results in Americans being cut down in the streets as criminals for demanding our laws be honored? It could be any one of a number of things I suppose, but we are headed in that very direction. We no longer stand for freedom in the world. We do not object to the Iranians killing their citizens. We do nothing when North Korea taunts us. What does America stand for in 2009? How long does this go on before the people recognize the danger? What can we do to shake the rest of America awake before it is too late?