Couldn’t Help But Notice (070507)
Justin at Right on the Right has relaunched his site with a focus on teens, and “mak(ing) us a generation of free thinkers and free ideas.” Go for it, man.
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Emotional Terrorism indeed. How can a network get so much so wrong unless it’s deliberate?
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I meant to get to this set of points earlier, and this Hot Air vid was a good reminder:
- Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff apparently believed that the $4.4 billion specially allocated for security in the immigration bill just voted down would give him what he needs to enforce immigration laws.
- Chertoff said that without passage of the immigration bill, he would not be in a position to be able to enforce existing law.
- To my knowledge, Chertoff has not asked for that $4.4 billion.
- One must therefore assume that Chertoff is not interested enough in enforcing immigration law to demand what he needs to do his job properly.
- The inescapable conclusion is that Chertoff owes it to everyone to step aside in favor of someone who will do what’s necessary to enforce immigration law, and who will fight for what he or she needs if it’s not there already.
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June 2007 US Treasury receipts are shaping up to be up 5% or more over June 2006, based on a look at the final Daily Treasury Statement for the month (figures are in millions; June 2006’s final Daily report is here):
There was a nice pickup in collections from taxpayers who make quarterly estimated payments. Collections of withheld taxes didn’t go up much because there were 21 business days in 2007 compared to 22 in 2006. It shouldn’t go unnoticed that on Monday, the first business day of July 2007, $22 billion in withholding collections took place, up from $21 billion on the comparable day in 2006.
I haven’t figured out how to get from the final Daily report to the Monthly, but if it were easy, the Feds wouldn’t have to wait until the eighth business day of the next month to release the Monthly report. The next one comes out on July 12. It may be the first indication that the shelf life of the supply-side tax cuts is being cut short by the prospect of their going away, thanks either to legislation pending in Congress or a change in what party the next president is from.
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Non-Big Three carmakers had a great month:
- Nissan — Up 23%.
- Honda — Up 11%, to a record level for the company.
- Hyundai — Up 11%, also a company record.
- Toyota — Up 10%.
- General Motors — Down 21%. GM reduced fleet sales to rental-car companies, but that only accounted for one-fifth of the 21% drop.
- Ford — Down 8.1%. The link says that “it was the first month since October 2006 that the Ford, Mercury and Lincoln brands posted a combined retail sales increase” (i.e., excluding fleet sales). That’s 14 months of decline in the past 16 months. For the first six months of this year, Ford’s sales are down 11.1%.
- Chrysler — Down 1%.
What appears to be at least a short-term trend towards smaller vehicles is primarily helping the transplant companies. This ought to be a reason for Nancy Pelosi to at least listen to, instead of fight with, Congressman John Dingell of Michigan about the negative consequences of radically increasing CAFE mileage requirements. Fat chance.
I submitted this to AT, but I’ll give you a heads up, if they don’t use it, you might have something to work with. Dan
Incompetence over oil refining
A recent article from the AFP http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070702/ts_afp/commoditiesenergyoil;_ylt=AkztzDYjUS4QuFU7drK63RwS.MwF highlights the international concern over US gasoline refining. Apparently, the lack of refining capacity in the US is beginning to affect the world oil markets. While US holiday driving season was in years past simply a US domestic concern causing temporary gasoline price increases over peak driving periods, it has now become an international concern with international repercussions. Such concern reflects the long developing US gasoline refining shortage created by liberal Democrats pandering to environmentalists by legislating onerous regulations and delays which for all intensive purposes has blocked any new refinery on US soil for over 30 years.
House Speaker Pelosi has promised to address the energy policy of the country, however, as we examine her solution, we see she has not addressed the issue in any comprehensive manner. What we hear from her point man, Rep. John Dingell (D) of Michigan, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070705/ts_csm/agwupdate05;_ylt=AhN.wXVbRmogGMU9IiiHDcsS.MwF is the continued pandering to the environmentalists through increasing CAFÉ standards and ethanol production in addition to the populist hype of removing tax breaks from the oil companies to drill for oil. None of these feel good measures addresses the energy independence issue much less meeting growing demand. While increasing the miles per gallon of any vehicle is a laudable exercise in conservation, this fails to address the issue that one can not save or economize their way to energy independence. Nor in combination with better CAFÉ standards http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_172220524.html 22.7 to 35 mpg, can one provide sufficient ethanol to displace enough gasoline via the existing refineries to meet the increasing demand of a GROWING population. The reason why increased ethanol supplies can not meet increased demand is due to the nature of how ethanol is combined with gasoline. It is not done after the refinery in a simple mixing process, the combining of ethanol and gasoline is integral to the refining process, therefore the maximum capacity of fuel production is limited to the existing refinery output.
Setting aside why the population is growing, and just addressing the fuel demand situation, it should have been obvious to liberal Democrats, much less environmentalists, that the increasing energy demand of a 20% rise in population must necessitate some proportional increase in vehicle mileage traveled http://www.transportation1.org/tif1report/surface.html (U.S. highway system has increased five-fold over the past 50 years, from 600 billion vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in 1956 to 3 trillion VMT in 2006.). BTS stats 1960 to 2000 http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2002/html/table_01_32.html Within the next twenty years (year 2025) the Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbsum.pl?cty=US is forecasting another 20% rise in population (350 million) if nothing changes in the growth rate. The last thing any national energy policy needs is to ignore the facts by pretending that ethanol or mileage improvements can possibly offset an increase in annual vehicle mileage. Such policies would have had some chance for success if the vehicle mileage traveled were stagnant for the last 30 years or even 20 years into the future, but they are not, so the premise fails in the face of the facts. Thus the liberal Democrat’s policy is doomed from the start resulting in an upcoming totally preventable crisis which will be heaped upon the backs of the poor and middle class. It won’t be just the poor of the US that will be negatively affected by higher fuel prices however, it will also be the poor of the rest of the world. A shortage in the US means a shortage world wide and therefore higher prices for the entire world. Mexico for example subsidizes the price of gasoline to it’s people, any price increase will be an additional drain on their meager resources as it is and create rationing which will hamper their need of economic growth, hence jobs. What we do has consequences to others, gone are the days when we foolishly just affected ourselves.
We as a nation must address the oil production and gasoline refining issue as a national security issue. Any energy policy that does not address population, the resulting increase in demand and the effects of petrodollar terrorism will result in a predictable failure. We need to dissuade the leadership of this nation to not engage in magical thinking for political purposes where one thinks some new technological development will save them from the consequences of inaction. Congress needs to remove and streamline regulations to promote new drilling and refineries, not discourage them as they have done so in the past. An increase in supply is the only rational response to an increase in demand, in the face of a rising population.
Dan Scott
Comment by dscott — July 5, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
An increase in supply is the only rational response to an increase in demand, in the face of a rising population.
#2, Shale in Canada and Colorado would go a long way towards solving this. Enviros are already starting efforts to lock it away.
Comment by TBlumer — July 5, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
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