Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch

Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch

Wow... neither ironic, nor a straw man... from Marketwatch!!!

Check the stats folks: The last time America’s wealth gap between the Super Rich and the other 99% was this big was just before the 1929 Crash and the Great Depression.

You can’t remember? Or you won’t? America is trapped in “terminal denial,” a setup for failure. Too many still live in the false hope of this Super-Rich Delusion. Do you believe government stats hyping a recovery? Believe Wall Street’s nonsense about a new bull market ahead? Believe Exxon-Mobile’s misleading ads about energy stocks. Believe Bill Gross’ when he says dump Treasuries, and buy his emerging country bonds? Dream on.
Start preparing for the third meltdown of the 21st Century, and depression

Denial and lies. Remember, 93% of what you hear about markets, finance and the economy are guesses, wishful thinking and lies intended to manipulate you into making decisions that suck money from your pockets into Wall Street. They get rich telling lies about securities. They hate any SEC fiduciary rules forcing them to tell the truth.

WSJ Shifts EPA Attack To Accuse Supreme Court Of "Judicial Invention" | Media Matters for America

WSJ Shifts EPA Attack To Accuse Supreme Court Of "Judicial Invention" | Media Matters for America

Now, as the Senate prepares to vote on a proposal that would repeal the EPA's scientific endangerment finding on greenhouse gases and prohibit the EPA from addressing GHG emissions, the Journal has produced another editorial bashing the agency's regulations. This time the Journal acknowledges the 2007 Supreme Court ruling, but claims that the Court "broadly rewrote the definition of 'pollutant'" to "create new powers via judicial invention":

The story of how we arrived at this pass begins in 1999, when Clinton EPA chief Carol Browner floated the idea that carbon dioxide could be regulated as a pollutant under the 1970 Clean Air Act and its later amendments. The Bush Administration rejected Ms. Browner's theory, in part because Congress kept rejecting statutory language to that effect.

Several states and green groups sued, and the question reached the Supreme Court in 2006. With Massachusetts v. EPA, a 5-4 majority broadly rewrote the definition of "pollutant," but it also narrowly held that "EPA no doubt has significant latitude as to the manner, timing, content, and coordination of its regulations" (our emphasis). In other words, the Court created new powers via judicial invention but left their use to the discretion of the executive branch.

Did the Court broadly rewrite the definition of pollutant? You be the judge. The Court's decision quotes the definition of pollutant provided by Congress in the Clean Air Act. From the ruling:

The Clean Air Act's sweeping definition of "air pollutant" includes "any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical ... substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air ... ." §7602(g) (emphasis added). On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word "any." Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt "physical [and] chemical ... substance[s] which [are] emitted into ... the ambient air." The statute is unambiguous.

The Court concluded: "Because greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act's capacious definition of 'air pollutant,' we hold that EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of such gases from new motor vehicles." The majority further ruled that "Under the clear terms of the Clean Air Act, EPA can avoid taking further action only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do."