Dr. James Hansen Admits The True Goal Of Global Warming Alarmists: Socialist Redistribution Of Wealth

They say there are two kinds of intelligence: Book smarts and Street smarts. Book smarts are good when you are trying to make a better living through self-improvment. Street smarts are essential when you want to live in the real world rather than some impossible-to-achieve fantasy world.

Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies is the perfect example of someone who has book smarts, but has almost no street smarts whatsoever.

As evidence, I present a letter that Dr. Hansen wrote to Barack Obama in which he tells Obama how to use the Global Warming Hoax as a means to implement a socialist policy of wealth redistribution.

This isn't a joke. He wants a "carbon tax" on petroleum products believeing that such will encourage Americans to "move beyond fossil fuels." Here are some excerpts from his letter:

The most effective way to achieve this is a carbon tax (on oil, gas, and coal) at the well-head or port of entry. The tax will then appropriately affect all products and activities that use fossil fuels.

Any first year economics student will be able to tell you that the "appropriate effect" will be artificial price increases all across the board. In other words, anything that uses fossil fuels to get from the producer to the consumer will go up in price. Gas, oil, food, clothing, construction costs, infrastructure costs, public services costs, etc. Everyone will be paying higher prices.

How does Hansen think the public will respond?

The public will support the tax if it is returned to them, equal shares on a per capita basis (half shares for children up to a maximum of two child-shares per family), deposited monthly in bank accounts. No large bureaucracy is needed. A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average makes money. A person with large cars and a big house will pay a tax much higher than the dividend.

First, if Hansen honestly believes that Washington would enact any kind of tax without creating bureaucratic positions to oversee such a tax, then he really has no street smarts at all.

Second, why does it have a maximum share for two children? Is this Hansen's way of telling people how many children they are allowed to have? A way of implementing dictatorial population control?

Third, another thing that Hansen doesn't realize is that the ultimate effect of his proposal would be to subsidize the American people for paying higher fuel prices. In other words, force higher prices by enacting a tax, and then redistributing the tax proceeds so that people can turn around and pay the higher prices. There is no net gain there at all and nothing gets done. Money simply passes from one set of hands to the other and there is absolutely no productive result to show for the transfer.

And another point that shows how out of touch Hansen is with reality is that he actually makes the claim that paying higher fuel prices (and all other inflationary costs that result from such higher prices) would stimulate the economy!

Here is what he has to say about that:

A carbon tax is honest, clear and effective. It will increase energy prices, but low and middle income people, especially, will find ways to reduce carbon emissions so as to come out ahead.

Yeah, let's look at that one for a minute. What would low and middle income people do when costs increase but their paychecks remain the same? They cut back. They cut back on food purchases. They cut back on anything that involves transporting the kids. They cut back on educational resources. They cut back on shopping. They cut back on their recreational activities. They cut back on whatever vacation trips they had planned. In short, they cut back on anything that is affected by the artificial price increase that this lunatic tax would cause.

Again, as any first year economics student will tell you, the net result of all these cut backs is to cause the economy to shrink, but Hansen has completely deluded himself into believing that it will cause the economy to grow!

I don't know of any rationally thinking person who would agree that any of this would be good for low and middle income people.

The Greenhouse Effect Theory and its Anthropogenic Global Warming fellow travelers have been shown to be hoaxes by legitimate scientists as we see average global temperatures drop and record snowfalls thorughout the world. Now we know why the hoax is being perpetuated. Socialists like James Hansen are trying to convince socialists like Barack Obama to use the hoax as a power play for themselves and further wreck our economies as well as the dreams of low and middle income Americans.

This carbon tax is easily one of the most idiotic fantasies ever to be floated in political circles.

Also, proposals like this are a prime example of why Michael Crichton was so firm in his commitment to keeping politics and science completely separate.

You can access the original letter on-line here:

Hansen's Insane Proposal Published At Columbia University
Dr. James Hansen

And here is another blog entry regarding James Hansen's crackpot claims:

Dr. James Hansen Gets It Wrong Again
84rules
November 17, 2008

Democratic Leaders In The U.S. House Discuss Confiscating 401(k)s, IRAs

So, how hot are the Dems to implement a Marxian plan to take money away from those who worked to earn it and give it to those who did not work to earn it? Pretty hot, it would seem.

The Dems have been discussing such a plan and are trying to disguise it as some sort of retirement rescue package.

What it comes down to is theft. Theft of your hard earned money. Writing for the Carolina Journal, Karen McMahan provides us with the details we need to know about:

Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers' personal retirement accounts including 401(k)s and IRAs and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration. Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly. The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers' retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.

Several things to note about this. First, elimination of the tax breaks means that you, the worker, will have a higher tax bill and therefore less money to take care of your family with. Second, the recommendation is to directly confiscate your money, whether you like it or not. Third, and this should cause everyone the most concern, turn that confiscated money over to the Social Security Administration. Yes, the same Social Security Administration that is in danger of bankrupting the entire Federal Government several years down the road because of mismanagment and paying out more than it brings in.

So, what exactly is the plan being discussed? Let's see:

GRAs would guarantee a fixed 3 percent annual rate of return, although later in her article Ghilarducci explained that participants would not "earn a 3% real return in perpetuity." In place of tax breaks workers now receive for contributions and thus a lower tax rate, workers would receive $600 annually from the government, inflation-adjusted. For low-income workers whose annual contributions are less than $600, the government would deposit whatever amount it would take to equal the minimum $600 for all participants. In a radio interview with Kirby Wilbur in Seattle on Oct. 27, 2008, Ghilarducci explained that her proposal doesn't eliminate the tax breaks, rather, "I'm just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading the wealth." All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year.

By her own admission, Ghilarducci shows that this has nothing to do with fixing Social Security or providing a "fix" to a "broken" retirement system. It is all about confiscating money from people who worked to earn it and giving it to people who did not work to earn it. Notice that the Social Security Taxes are still in place which means you are double-paying into the system. Under this plan, not only do you lose control of your own retirement account, but the government will determine how large it will get, how much of your money to confiscate, who will get that money and you get to pay capital gains taxes on top of it all!

And what are the effects of this plan? Read on:

Analysts point to another disturbing part of the plan. With a GRA, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts. For workers who die after retiring, they could bequeath just their own contributions plus the interest but minus any benefits received and minus the employer contributions. Another justification for Ghilarducci's plan is to eliminate investment risk. In her testimony, Ghilarducci said, "humans often lack the foresight, discipline, and investing skills required to sustain a savings plan." She cited the 2004 HSBC global survey on the Future of Retirement, in which she claimed that "a third of Americans wanted the government to force them to save more for retirement." What the survey actually reported was that 33 percent of Americans wanted the government to "enforce additional private savings," a vastly different meaning than mandatory government-run savings. Of the four potential sources of retirement support, which were government, employer, family, and self, the majority of Americans said "self" was the most important contributor, followed by "government." When broken out by family income, low-income U.S. households said the "government" was the most important retirement support, whereas high-income families ranked "government" last and "self" first (2004 HSBC Global survey).

The things to notice here: Ghilarducci basically lied about the HSBC survey she quoted. Also note that this plan is a back door to another inheritance tax. Lastly, from the real survey results, you can see that the lower income households are looking at this plan as a means of getting more money without actually having to work for it.

It does not surprise me that the Dems are seriously looking into a plan like this. It is everything their presidential candidate embraces in terms of a Marxist redistriubution of the wealth.

We need to keep a close eye on these Dems and let them know that we will not tolerate them dragging the United States into the socialist hell that is Europe and most third-world nations.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Dems Target Private Retirement Accounts
Karen McMahan
Carolina Journal
November 4, 2008

Barack Obama's Socialist Agenda Revealed By His Own Words

I've known for a long time that Barack Obama and the vast majority of Democrats in this country are socialists. It's in their policies, it's in their rhetoric and it's in their anti-American stances.

But, Barack Obama finally made that admission in no uncertain terms when he answered a question this past weekend from a small business owner, a man who happens to be a plumber in Ohio. Here is a transcript of what transpired:

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed “more and more for fulfilling the American dream." "It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody."

So, Obama wants to take money away from the people who earned it and give it to people who didn't earn it. That's it. That's his whole economic plan in a nutshell and he even admitted to it. Look at his words: "I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody." That is a one-hundred percent endorsement for wealth redistribution a la Karl Marx.

Punishing people for being successful is precisely what socialists do because it discourages success. Obama says he wants everyone to have a "chance for success?" Why work to succeed if the government is only going to tax away the fruit of your hard work?

This leads to a very important question that Dr. Bobby Eberle asks:

Does Obama really understand the essence of America? It is strong because of the American spirit of invention and the bravery to undertake new endeavors. Those at the economic bottom DO NOT create jobs. Those at the economic bottom get hired for jobs. When the economy is robust, more jobs are created, thus more people get hired. There's not a business existing in America today that doesn't want to "do more business." In order to grow, more workers must be hired, and more capital purchased... both of which benefit the economy. Doesn't Obama understand this??? Let's just do a little simple math to see how taxes really work. Let's say there is a person making $50,000/year and paying 15% in federal income tax. Thus, the person's yearly tax burden is $7,500. If someone making $1,000,000/year paid at the same tax rate, they would pay $150,000 in taxes. So, the person making $50,000 pays $7,500, and the person making a million pays $150,000. Those who make more money, pay more in taxes. It's only logical.

But, since Barack Obama and the Dems are socialists, let's look at the way they try to twist the economy to their own benefit:

However, that is not how a socialist thinks. Rather than each person truly paying "their fair share," the socialist says that the "rich" person should not only pay more because he or she makes more, but they should also pay a higher percentage. So, the person making $1,000,000/year instead pays 35% in taxes for a tax bill of $350,000. That's an extra $200,000 that the government takes out of circulation to pay for their social engineering.

Now, that's $200,000 that will be taken out of the general economy which means it will not be used for capital investment nor for creating jobs. It will simply be squandered on some government hand-out program which does nothing more than reward able-bodied people for not working. In other words, the people who work to earn and produce will be supporting the people who sit back and live off of the government dole.

That's the socialists' dream. Get as many people on the dole as possible and then buy off their votes with more welfare checks. Of course every government that has tried this ended up with an enduring unemployment rate of anywhere between 10 and 20%. That too seems to be the vision Obama has for America.

Are you listening?

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Obama's Socialist Agenda -- Is Anyone Listening?
Dr. Bobby Eberle
GOPUSA.com
October 14, 2008