As IF Times

link There’s a mini ice age coming, says man who beats weather experts.

If this article is accurate, it makes you wonder about the label “expert”.  If the “experts” are generally proven wrong, why would they be called upon for advice?   It’s as if the place kicker for the New York Giants missed all of his field goal tries.  Is he an “expert” place kicker?  Why should the world listen to this lone voice, Piers Corbin, on his forecasts for weather patterns and probabilities when he is endowed with only a computer, a telescope and lots of historical data?  He is up against the accepted mainstream of meteorological thinking with unlimited resources.  I can think of one compelling one:  he’s been right.  According to the article:

“…He seems to get it right about 85 per cent of the time and serious business people – notably in farming – are starting to invest in his forecasts. In the eyes of many punters, he puts the taxpayer-funded Met Office to shame. How on earth does he do it?  He studies the Sun.  He looks at the flow of particles from the Sun, and how they interact with the upper atmosphere, especially air currents such as the jet stream, and he looks at how the Moon and other factors influence those streaming particles…”

Hmm, now there’s some frizzy haired theory, the sun exerts more influence on the earth’s climate then people driving SUV’s.  It’s amazing he hasn’t been locked up in a padded room.  Daring to provide forecasts that go against the popular groupthink scientific culture, he manages to best them all with his forecasts.  Maybe he’s a witch.  Rational people, much less scientists, should be assessing Mr. Corbin’s  methods since they seem to track reality a little better than the alarmists’ forecasts which inconveniently are the opposite of what is observed in real life.  Rational people could have come to the same conclusion of course by merely observing who was spreading the global warming fertilizer in the first place.  A lawyer cum politician cum environmental evangelist.  They could assess the braintrust supporting the apocalyptic forecasts of the GW crowd,  which includes such as the soon to be ex Governor of California, The Terminator himself, Arnold Schwarzennegger.  Recently, our hero invoked a statement in support of his interest in working as an environmental czar for the Obama administration.   He said:

“..I’m a big believer in environmental issues,” Schwarzenegger said, who added that he wanted a post where he could use his “celebrity power … knowledge and experience” to impact public policy. “I’ve traveled the world. … I’m very familiar with the world…”

This from a guy whose grocery getter is a Hummer H1 and who commutes to work by private jet.  As far as ” very familiar with the world”, I’m sure it will get the same notoriety as Sarah Palin’s alleged ” I can see Russia” comment.  Not.

I would think it behooves people in the policy making racket to pay attention to Mr. Corbin with his 85% accuracy record as opposed to the Celebrity and Political glitterati with their somewhat less impressive 0% accuracy record.  But that’s coming from a numbers guy.  If only Corbin’s forecasts weren’t such an inconvenient truth.

link The End for Rangel Appears Greatly Exaggerated – NYTimes.com.

The old cliche goes, people elect who they deserve.  Mr. Rangel, under clouds of  ethical suspicion that would have made those over then president Bill Clinton seem like rainbows, is looking likely to hang on to his congressional seat if his supporters have their way according to this article.  The 79 year old congressman who has presided over his Harlem district for forty years  is looking to extend for one more term his tenure to preserve his legacy.  !!!

Really?  In all that time, no one else has emerged to possibly be  more capable  to represent the constituency that he oversees? Think of all that has happened in the world since Mr. Rangel came to office just after the Nixon administration.  The Vietnam war aftermath, the seventies, Jimmy Carter and the Iran hostage crisis, massive interest rate hikes, Reaganomics, the Clinton era, O.J., the twin towers bombing, 9-11, the Iraq war, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, real estate collapse, Obama, banking collapse and  the currency crisis  just to name a few events.  This guy is like Forest Gump, throughout all the changes that America lived through, Charlie Rangel was the only constant. 

Meanwhile, Harlem has evolved from an enclave of poor blacks to a somewhat gentrified and cosmopolitan area of yuppie housing and mainstream living.  Even the Clinton library is there now.  The whole Harlem experience has moved essentially to other cities including Detroit and south Chicago.  The fact is, poor people can’t afford to live in New York without massive subsidies.

For whatever lapses of ethics Mr. Rangel may be accused of during his 40 year tenure, obviously, he must have delivered the goods to his district.  As noted, the poor black neighborhoods he originally represented doesn’t really exist any more.  How then is he able to hang onto his seat?  Accusations, yet to be proven of course, that he engaged in graft, took advantage of rent control programs intended for the poor, tax  and asset amnesia would sink any other politician in today’s tabloid style political climate.  Yet, somehow, Rangel seems to command the loyalty of those that would like to see him finish out his career on “his own terms”.  From what I can see, he’s pretty much had a career on his own terms for 40 years.

There is no logical explanation for this but we see elements of this in all political dynasties and that is this:  It doesn’t matter what your guy does, as long as it’s YOUR guy.  If politics was about putting the most capable people in office, the nation would be run by the Coca Cola people.  Politics is a popularity contest supported by payola and quid pro quo activities.  As long as the candidate is not found to be hiding dismembered corpses in his basement, chances are good that he will be supported especially if he happens to identify with his constituents in the simplest of ways.  People are tribal.  Blacks will elect blacks, Asians will elect Asians and Latinos will elect Latinos.  Liberals and Conservatives will pull for their man even if it happens to be Al Franken or Arnold Schwarzennegger respectively, regardless of  how unqualified they may happen to be.   In the case of Arnold, to be fair, he may have conned some liberals to vote for him based on the hollywood pedigree. We are seeing some changes to this in some ways on the conservative side with the rise of the Tea Party movement, but generally, capability and integrity are not job requirements for office.

In the early 90′s, the mayor of Washington DC, Marion Barry was arrested, convicted and went to prison for crack cocaine use and possession.  Amazingly, the voters put him back into that office in 1994.  Think of that.  Of all the possible candidates the voters could have put into the mayor’s office, the people decided that a convicted drug felon was the best choice.   Earlier this year, Ted Kennedy passed away after battling cancer.  Long worshipped by the American left, but especially in Massachusetts, he died as a hero to his peeps.  Somehow the events at Chappaquiddick were ignored in the deification of uncle Ted.

It’s no wonder that so many people try to get into office.  Once you get in, it’s practically a life entitlement as long as you keep your peeps happy.  So I would tend to agree with the premise of the linked article.  Don’t count Charlie out.

link Short-run tax hikes being used to fill gaps – USATODAY.com.

This is like short term herpes.  As if there’s a precedence in history for a short term tax.  As one of my friends said recently, as likely as a venus fly trap in a hospital.  Not many may know this, but the whole notion of income tax in the U.S. was first broached as a temporary measure in the early 1800′s.  According to the website About.com:

“…In the War of 1812, the U.S. first considered enacting an income tax, but the war ended before the tax was officially created. Yet, during the American Civil War, the first U.S. income tax was created, but this one was meant only as a temporary measure to help pay for the war. It was repealed in 1872.  By the 1890s, the U.S. government was hoping to find a way to more evenly distribute the federal tax burden and thus looked at creating a permanent income tax. However, until the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified n 1913, the federal government was forced to collect taxes based on state population. Once the 16th Amendment was passed, the U.S. government passed its first, permanent income tax law in October 1913…”

And the rest is history as they say.  Speaking of history, this website also speaks of ancient tablets found from the ancient Egyptians where not only was there written evidence of taxes, there also were writings complaining of high taxation.  So, as we can see, nothing has changed throughout history.

If the naive folk in the places listed in the article think that temporary taxes will fix whatever shortfall they have to fix, then I’m going into the bridge selling business.  What has been true for eons is that people would rather not cut back but rather borrow into the future.  Instead of taking the correct measures by cutting spending on programs, on salaries or benefits, it is always easier to gouge the taxpayer.  Costs never go down and inflation expectations are permanently wired into the system.

Instead of many numerous corrections in spending like the regular tacking of a sailboat to keep it on a steady course, the imbalances in a government system build until one day they collapse of their own weight, as per the analogy of the boat crashing on shore because a sudden drastic action is needed.  We saw this happen with GM, essentially a government run entity where entitlements were not curbed even as income was collapsing.  In the case of GM, government bailed them out…sort of.  In the case of governments, they just keep gouging taxpayers, until that crash on shore happens.

California will be the state to watch in the next year or so.  Misguided wants by the residents are grossly mismatched by taxation revenue.  California is arguably the most important economy in the U.S., home to many of the nation’s vanguard industries.  When Arnold Schwarzenegger came to office, the budget deficit was over $16 billion dollars and now, almost 7 years after being given the mandate of trying to fix that gap, the deficit is an even larger portion of total state funds from 20% then, to 25% now.  Like adolescents, the citizens want their programs, the raises for civil servants, the entitlements, but would not allow tax increases to pay for them.  Looks like the idea of temporary tax is going to be introduced there.  It’s temporary, only in effect until you die.