Obamanomics disaster:
Obamanomics-A recipe for disaster:
By Stephen Dinan
The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history.
The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that "the era of big government is over" and joined forces with a Republican-led Congress in the 1990s to pare back the federal work force.
Most of the increases are on the civilian side, which will grow by 153,000 workers, to 1.43 million people, in fiscal 2010.
The expansion could provide more ammunition to those arguing that the government is trying to do too much under President Obama.
"I'm shocked that the 'tea party' hasn't focused on it yet, and the Obama administration only has a thin sliver of time to deal more directly with it, I believe," said Paul C. Light, who studies the federal bureaucracy as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at New York University. "When you talk about big government, you're talking about a big employer."
The new figures are contained in the budget that Mr. Obama sent Monday to Congress.
Mr. Obama says the civilian work force will drop by 80,000 next year, mostly because of a reduction in U.S. census workers added in 2010 but then dropped in 2011 after the national population count is finished. That still leaves 1.35 million civilian federal employees on the payroll in 2011.
From 1981 through 2008, the civilian work force remained at about 1.1 million to 1.2 million, with a low of 1.07 million in 1986 and a high of more than 1.2 million in 1993 and in 2008. In 2009, the number jumped to 1.28 million.
Including both the civilian and defense sectors, the federal government will employ 2.15 million people in 2010 and 2.11 million in 2011, excluding Postal Service workers.
The administration says 79 percent of the increases in recent years are from departments related to the war on terrorism: Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, State and Veterans Affairs.
After years of decline at the end of the Cold War, the Defense Department is restaffing. Mr. Obama estimated that the Pentagon will have 720,000 employees this year and 757,000 employees next year - up from a low of 649,000 in 2003.
The data also show that the Department of Homeland Security will grow by 7,000 a year in 2010 and 2011, and the Veterans Affairs Department will grow by 12,000 in 2010 and an additional 4,000 in 2011.
Peter R. Orszag, Mr. Obama's budget director, also said more people have been hired to oversee outside contracts.
"Over the past eight or nine years, those contracts have doubled in size. The acquisition work force has stayed constant. It's not too hard to figure out that oversight of those contracts has not kept pace with what it should be," Mr. Orszag said.
Even as the total number of federal employees rises, the ratio of employees to Americans has declined steadily, from one employee for every 78 residents in 1953 to one employee for every 110 residents in 1988 to one employee for every 155 residents in 2008.
The federal work force is older than the private-sector work force, which Mr. Light said raises the possibility of reducing the total number through retirements.
About 31 percent of the private work force is 50 or older, while 46 percent of the federal work force is 50 or older.
Mr. Obama is in a situation similar to that of Mr. Clinton, who took office when the budget deficit was at a record high and government bureaucracy was expanding, even though the Pentagon was shedding workers with the end of the Cold War.
Mr. Clinton in 1996 declared that "the era of big government is over" and took steps to work with Congress to control spending and cut the work force, which already had been trending lower.
As he left office in 2000, Mr. Clinton boasted that his administration had helped cut 377,000 government jobs, leaving the smallest civilian federal work force since 1960.
Mr. Obama, though, appears to be accepting a larger federal work force.
The administration has called for federal workers to get a 1.4 percent pay raise next year, which Mr. Orszag said, "frankly, I think to a lot of Americans, sounds pretty good."
The American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents many government workers, said it was combing through the budget and did not have a comment.
Daft statement of the day:
"You don't blow a lot of cash in Vegas."
Barack hussein Obama (No, don't blow in Vegas when you can blow it in Washington)
Green Piece:
No apology from IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri for glacier fallacy
Head of UN climate change body 'not at fault' for false claim Himalaya ice caps would melt by 2035
David Adam and Fred Pearce guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 2 February 2010 20.31 GMT Article history
The embattled chief of the UN's climate change body has hit out at his critics and refused to resign or apologise for a damaging mistake in a landmark 2007 report on global warming.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said it would be hypocritical to apologise for the false claim that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035, because he was not personally responsible for that part of the report. "You can't expect me to be personally responsible for every word in a 3,000 page report," he said.
The IPCC issued a statement that expressed regret for the mistake, but Pachauri said a personal apology would be a "populist" step.
"I don't do too many populist things, that's why I'm so unpopular with a certain section of society," he said.
In a robust defence of his position and of the science of climate change, Pachauri said:
• The mistake had seriously damaged the IPCC's credibility and boosted the efforts of climate sceptics.
• It was an isolated mistake, down to human error and "totally out of character" for the panel.
• It does not undermine the "basic truth" that human activity is causing temperatures to rise.
• That he would not resign and was subject to lies about his personal income and lifestyle.
Pachauri spoke as the second day of the Guardian's investigation into the emails stolen from the University of East Anglia reveals how climate scientists acted to keep research papers they did not like out of academic journals. One UEA scientist, Dr Keith Briffa, wrote to a colleague to ask him for help rejecting a paper from a journal which he edited. "Confidentially I now need a hard, and if required, extensive case for rejecting." The request apparently broke the convention that the review process should be independent and anonymous. Briffa was not able to comment because of an ongoing independent review into the stolen emails.
In another email, sent in March 2003, the leading US climate scientist Prof Michael Mann suggested ostracising a journal for publishing a paper that attacked his work.
"I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues … to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal." Mann denies any attempt to "stifle legitimate sceptical views".
The emails also reveal that one of the most influential data sets in climate science – the "hockey stick" graph of temperature over the past 1,000 years – was controversial not just with sceptics but among climate scientists themselves. "I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story [in the forthcoming IPCC report], but in reality the situation is not quite so simple," wrote Briffa in September 1999.
This Guardian interview, Pachauri defended the IPCC's use of so-called "grey literature" – sources outside peer-reviewed academic journals, such as reports from campaign groups, companies and student theses. The false Himalayan glacier claim came from a report by the green group WWF. He said reports of further errors in the IPCC report linked to grey literature were spurious and the result of a "factory" of people "only there to create pinpricks and get attention".
Stories that claimed errors about losses from natural disasters and Amazon destruction were false, he said. "We looked into that [Amazon claim] and we're totally satisfied that what's been stated in the report is totally valid."
The IPCC is beginning work on its next climate report, and Pachauri said it would stress to authors and reviewers the importance of checking sources. "Our procedures are very clear on the use of grey literature. Whenever an author uses grey literature they need to double check the source of information is authentic and defensible. People have been using grey literature for quite some time now. Apparently in this [Himalayan glacier] case there has been a failure because authors did not follow the procedures required."
To exclude such reports, he said, would give an incomplete picture. "The reality is that in several parts of the world, which will be influenced by the impacts of climate change, it's an unfortunate fact that we just don't have peer-reviewed material available."
Pachauri also rebutted newspapers' claims that he lives a lavish lifestyle and wears $1,000 suits. He said: "It's ridiculous and it's a bunch of lies."
His salary from the research institute that employs him is fixed in the range of 190,000 rupees (£2,600) a month, he said, while he receives only travel expenses for chairing the IPCC.
He added: "There is a tailor who stitches all my suits for 2,200 rupees (£30)."
The panel's report at the centre of the controversy said: "The likelihood of them [the Himalayan glaciers] disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high," a statement referenced to a report by WWF, which had taken it from a magazine article. It was subsequently found to be wrong.
Questions were raised about the glacier claim in an article in the US journal Science in November, and again by the BBC on 5 December, leading to allegations that Pachauri had been told by Pallava Bagla, the Indian journalist who wrote both, that it was problematic, but failed to act.
But Pachauri said he had not become aware of the problem until January. "If he [Bagla] sent me an email and I didn't see it, I can only say that I'm sorry that I didn't see that email. A lot of my emails are handled by my office and I don't get to see them personally."
Pachauri also said he was taking steps to strengthen the staff employed by the panel. "We're in an information society today and we have to respond adequately and professionally. We've been weak in that regard to be honest. The IPCC is starting to realise we're living in a very different world to what we had in 1988.
"I think this [glacier] mistake has certainly cost us dear, there's no question about it," he said. "Everybody thought that what the IPCC brought out was the gold standard and nothing could go wrong. But look at the larger picture, don't get blinded by this one mistake.
"The larger picture is solid, it's convincing and it's extremely important. How can we lose sight of what climate change is going to do to this planet? What it's already doing to this planet?"
Quote du jour:
"Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants."
Benjamin Franklin
Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers
The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy
For the Independent Journal.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
THE importance of the Union, in a commercial light, is one of those points about which there is least room to entertain a difference of opinion, and which has, in fact, commanded the most general assent of men who have any acquaintance with the subject. This applies as well to our intercourse with foreign countries as with each other.
There are appearances to authorize a supposition that the adventurous spirit, which distinguishes the commercial character of America, has already excited uneasy sensations in several of the maritime powers of Europe. They seem to be apprehensive of our too great interference in that carrying trade, which is the support of their navigation and the foundation of their naval strength. Those of them which have colonies in America look forward to what this country is capable of becoming, with painful solicitude. They foresee the dangers that may threaten their American dominions from the neighborhood of States, which have all the dispositions, and would possess all the means, requisite to the creation of a powerful marine. Impressions of this kind will naturally indicate the policy of fostering divisions among us, and of depriving us, as far as possible, of an ACTIVE COMMERCE in our own bottoms. This would answer the threefold purpose of preventing our interference in their navigation, of monopolizing the profits of our trade, and of clipping the wings by which we might soar to a dangerous greatness. Did not prudence forbid the detail, it would not be difficult to trace, by facts, the workings of this policy to the cabinets of ministers.
If we continue united, we may counteract a policy so unfriendly to our prosperity in a variety of ways. By prohibitory regulations, extending, at the same time, throughout the States, we may oblige foreign countries to bid against each other, for the privileges of our markets. This assertion will not appear chimerical to those who are able to appreciate the importance of the markets of three millions of people--increasing in rapid progression, for the most part exclusively addicted to agriculture, and likely from local circumstances to remain so--to any manufacturing nation; and the immense difference there would be to the trade and navigation of such a nation, between a direct communication in its own ships, and an indirect conveyance of its products and returns, to and from America, in the ships of another country. Suppose, for instance, we had a government in America, capable of excluding Great Britain (with whom we have at present no treaty of commerce) from all our ports; what would be the probable operation of this step upon her politics? Would it not enable us to negotiate, with the fairest prospect of success, for commercial privileges of the most valuable and extensive kind, in the dominions of that kingdom? When these questions have been asked, upon other occasions, they have received a plausible, but not a solid or satisfactory answer. It has been said that prohibitions on our part would produce no change in the system of Britain, because she could prosecute her trade with us through the medium of the Dutch, who would be her immediate customers and paymasters for those articles which were wanted for the supply of our markets. But would not her navigation be materially injured by the loss of the important advantage of being her own carrier in that trade? Would not the principal part of its profits be intercepted by the Dutch, as a compensation for their agency and risk? Would not the mere circumstance of freight occasion a considerable deduction? Would not so circuitous an intercourse facilitate the competitions of other nations, by enhancing the price of British commodities in our markets, and by transferring to other hands the management of this interesting branch of the British commerce?
A mature consideration of the objects suggested by these questions will justify a belief that the real disadvantages to Britain from such a state of things, conspiring with the pre-possessions of a great part of the nation in favor of the American trade, and with the importunities of the West India islands, would produce a relaxation in her present system, and would let us into the enjoyment of privileges in the markets of those islands elsewhere, from which our trade would derive the most substantial benefits. Such a point gained from the British government, and which could not be expected without an equivalent in exemptions and immunities in our markets, would be likely to have a correspondent effect on the conduct of other nations, who would not be inclined to see themselves altogether supplanted in our trade.
A further resource for influencing the conduct of European nations toward us, in this respect, would arise from the establishment of a federal navy. There can be no doubt that the continuance of the Union under an efficient government would put it in our power, at a period not very distant, to create a navy which, if it could not vie with those of the great maritime powers, would at least be of respectable weight if thrown into the scale of either of two contending parties. This would be more peculiarly the case in relation to operations in the West Indies. A few ships of the line, sent opportunely to the reinforcement of either side, would often be sufficient to decide the fate of a campaign, on the event of which interests of the greatest magnitude were suspended. Our position is, in this respect, a most commanding one. And if to this consideration we add that of the usefulness of supplies from this country, in the prosecution of military operations in the West Indies, it will readily be perceived that a situation so favorable would enable us to bargain with great advantage for commercial privileges. A price would be set not only upon our friendship, but upon our neutrality. By a steady adherence to the Union we may hope, erelong, to become the arbiter of Europe in America, and to be able to incline the balance of European competitions in this part of the world as our interest may dictate.
But in the reverse of this eligible situation, we shall discover that the rivalships of the parts would make them checks upon each other, and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. In a state so insignificant our commerce would be a prey to the wanton intermeddlings of all nations at war with each other; who, having nothing to fear from us, would with little scruple or remorse, supply their wants by depredations on our property as often as it fell in their way. The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.
Under a vigorous national government, the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible and unchangeable course of nature.
But in a state of disunion, these combinations might exist and might operate with success. It would be in the power of the maritime nations, availing themselves of our universal impotence, to prescribe the conditions of our political existence; and as they have a common interest in being our carriers, and still more in preventing our becoming theirs, they would in all probability combine to embarrass our navigation in such a manner as would in effect destroy it, and confine us to a PASSIVE COMMERCE. We should then be compelled to content ourselves with the first price of our commodities, and to see the profits of our trade snatched from us to enrich our enemies and p rsecutors. That unequaled spirit of enterprise, which signalizes the genius of the American merchants and navigators, and which is in itself an inexhaustible mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost, and poverty and disgrace would overspread a country which, with wisdom, might make herself the admiration and envy of the world.
There are rights of great moment to the trade of America which are rights of the Union--I allude to the fisheries, to the navigation of the Western lakes, and to that of the Mississippi. The dissolution of the Confederacy would give room for delicate questions concerning the future existence of these rights; which the interest of more powerful partners would hardly fail to solve to our disadvantage. The disposition of Spain with regard to the Mississippi needs no comment. France and Britain are concerned with us in the fisheries, and view them as of the utmost moment to their navigation. They, of course, would hardly remain long indifferent to that decided mastery, of which experience has shown us to be possessed in this valuable branch of traffic, and by which we are able to undersell those nations in their own markets. What more natural than that they should be disposed to exclude from the lists such dangerous competitors?
This branch of trade ought not to be considered as a partial benefit. All the navigating States may, in different degrees, advantageously participate in it, and under circumstances of a greater extension of mercantile capital, would not be unlikely to do it. As a nursery of seamen, it now is, or when time shall have more nearly assimilated the principles of navigation in the several States, will become, a universal resource. To the establishment of a navy, it must be indispensable.
To this great national object, a NAVY, union will contribute in various ways. Every institution will grow and flourish in proportion to the quantity and extent of the means concentred towards its formation and support. A navy of the United States, as it would embrace the resources of all, is an object far less remote than a navy of any single State or partial confederacy, which would only embrace the resources of a single part. It happens, indeed, that different portions of confederated America possess each some peculiar advantage for this essential establishment. The more southern States furnish in greater abundance certain kinds of naval stores--tar, pitch, and turpentine. Their wood for the construction of ships is also of a more solid and lasting texture. The difference in the duration of the ships of which the navy might be composed, if chiefly constructed of Southern wood, would be of signal importance, either in the view of naval strength or of national economy. Some of the Southern and of the Middle States yield a greater plenty of iron, and of better quality. Seamen must chiefly be drawn from the Northern hive. The necessity of naval protection to external or maritime commerce does not require a particular elucidation, no more than the conduciveness of that species of commerce to the prosperity of a navy.
An unrestrained intercourse between the States themselves will advance the trade of each by an interchange of their respective productions, not only for the supply of reciprocal wants at home, but for exportation to foreign markets. The veins of commerce in every part will be replenished, and will acquire additional motion and vigor from a free circulation of the commodities of every part. Commercial enterprise will have much greater scope, from the diversity in the productions of different States. When the staple of one fails from a bad harvest or unproductive crop, it can call to its aid the staple of another. The variety, not less than the value, of products for exportation contributes to the activity of foreign commerce. It can be conducted upon much better terms with a large number of materials of a given value than with a small number of materials of the same value; arising from the competitions of trade and from the fluctations of markets. Particular articles may be in great demand at certain periods, and unsalable at others; but if there be a variety of articles, it can scarcely happen that they should all be at one time in the latter predicament, and on this account the operations of the merchant would be less liable to any considerable obstruction or stagnation. The speculative trader will at once perceive the force of these observations, and will acknowledge that the aggregate balance of the commerce of the United States would bid fair to be much more favorable than that of the thirteen States without union or with partial unions.
It may perhaps be replied to this, that whether the States are united or disunited, there would still be an intimate intercourse between them which would answer the same ends; this intercourse would be fettered, interrupted, and narrowed by a multiplicity of causes, which in the course of these papers have been amply detailed. A unity of commercial, as well as political, interests, can only result from a unity of government.
There are other points of view in which this subject might be placed, of a striking and animating kind. But they would lead us too far into the regions of futurity, and would involve topics not proper for a newspaper discussion. I shall briefly observe, that our situation invites and our interests prompt us to aim at an ascendant in the system of American affairs. The world may politically, as well as geographically, be divided into four parts, each having a distinct set of interests. Unhappily for the other three, Europe, by her arms and by her negotiations, by force and by fraud, has, in different degrees, extended her dominion over them all. Africa, Asia, and America, have successively felt her domination. The superiority she has long maintained has tempted her to plume herself as the Mistress of the World, and to consider the rest of mankind as created for her benefit. Men admired as profound philosophers have, in direct terms, attributed to her inhabitants a physical superiority, and have gravely asserted that all animals, and with them the human species, degenerate in America--that even dogs cease to bark after having breathed awhile in our atmosphere.[1] Facts have too long supported these arrogant pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation. Union will enable us to do it. Disunion will will add another victim to his triumphs. Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!
PUBLIUS.
References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.wnd.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.foundingfathers.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Stephen Dinan
David Adam
Fred Pearse
Library of Congress/Federalist PapersFederalist No. 11
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