Since it is a holiday and since most vital northern energy issues are taking another day of rest, we bring you links to issues directly and indirectly related to energy…that we normally wouldn't feature due to other priority stories, issues and editorials. -dh
Public Employee Union Day
A lot has changed for organized labor since Labor Day was federally recognized 120 years ago.
Obama's low-income, community lending shakedown reaches $128 billion
Bank of America and other institutions get busted for engaging in risky low-income lending, and naturally, their penalty is to engage in even more of it.
It's about the money, not the climate
Taxing energy use means taxing "greenhouse gas" emissions; primarily carbon dioxide (CO2) so that every ton of it added to the atmosphere by a power plant and any other commercial activity becomes a source of income for the nation.
Investors.com: Obama's delusional view of the economy
Is it morning in America?
Public Employee Union Day
By Rick Manning
Labor Day is the traditional last day of summer, often celebrated by final trips to the shore and followed by public pool closings and other signs that the world is battening down the hatches for colder weather.
However what most don't realize is that the day itself was originally created by organized labor to call attention to the contributions of workers. A public relations stunt designed to provide labor unions a focal point in their never ending battle with management.
A lot has changed for organized labor since Labor Day was federally recognized 120 years ago.
The then burgeoning movement has gained massive political power and influence across the century, only to see it decline precipitously to a point where today only 6.7 percent of the private sector workforce belong to labor unions. In fact, there are currently more union members who are public employees than in the private sector.
This transition of labor union membership from private sector to public employee dominated has massive implications for the future.
Obama's low-income, community lending shakedown reaches $128 billion
By Robert Romano
$128 billion and counting.
That is Investor's Business Daily's latest tally of settlements the Obama Justice Department has extracted from the U.S. banking industry in connection with the 2008 financial crisis, as Bank of America agreed to another $17 billion in payouts over losses stemming from its 2009 acquisition of Countrywide.
Included is $5 billion as a penalty paid to the federal government itself, $300 million will be paid to the state of New York, $300 million to California, $200 million to Illinois, $75 million to Maryland, $45 to Delaware, and $23 million to Kentucky,according to the Justice Department.
Another $7 billion will go to debt forgiveness, mortgage principal cramdowns, and, of course, more low-income lending. And then, after four years, whatever is not lent into the financial abyss by Bank of America directly will be given to community organizer groups so they can do it.
You know, the ones that in part contributed to the financial crisis by coercing low-income, Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans from financial institutions engaged in mergers allowed under the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial modernization law.
The groups include the Interest on Lawyers' Trust Account, NeighborWorks of America, La Raza, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, Operation Hope, and the Mutual Housing Association of New York, an ACORN off-shoot.
So, Bank of America and other institutions get busted for engaging in risky low-income lending, and naturally, their penalty is to engage in even more of it. Similar settlements have been reached with Citibank and JP Morgan Chase, the Investor's Business Daily editorial notes, with more to come from Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.
This is the same type of stupidity that helped contribute to the mortgage crisis in the first place.
It's about the money, not the climate
By Alan Caruba
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the Irish poet and dramatist, wrote "Pray don't talk to me about the weather. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else."
These days, when some world leader or politician speaks of the climate — the weather is what is happening right now wherever you are — they are not talking about sunshine or rain. They are talking about a devilishly obscene way of raising money by claiming that it is humans that are threatening the climate with everything they do, from turning on the lights to driving anywhere.
That's why "global warming" was invented in the late 1980s as an immense threat to the Earth and to mankind. Never mind that Earth has routinely passed through warmer and cooler cycles for billions of years; much of which occurred before mankind emerged. And never mind that the Earth has been a distinct cooling cycle for the past seventeen years and likely to stay in it for a while. If the history of ice ages is any guide, we could literally be on the cusp of a new one.
If, however, a government can tax the use of energy, it stands to make a lot of money. That is why carbon taxes have been introduced in some nations and why the nearly useless "clean energy" options of wind and solar have been introduced even though they both require the backup of traditional coal, natural gas and nuclear energy plants because they cannot produce electricity if the wind isn't blowing and the sun is obscured by clouds.
ALG Editor's Note: In the following featured editorial from Investor's Business Daily, Obama's delusions of the strength of the U.S. economy abound:
Obama's delusional view of the economy
Economy: In a speech this week, President Obama showed he's just as detached about the economy as he is about foreign affairs, offering an upbeat economic assessment that would make even Pollyanna cringe.
In a single paragraph in his speech to the American Legion on Tuesday, Obama rattled off some of his alleged domestic achievements. More jobs, booming industries, more kids graduating.
Morning in America!
But like most things Obama says that aren't flat untruths, these claims are wildly misleading. For example, the president says his policies rescued the country from what could have been another Great Depression and as a result we're now "stronger at home."
But as IBD pointed out recently, by several measures the economy is worse off than it was when the recovery started back in June 2009. Among them: median household incomes are down, poverty is up, Social Security is weaker, the national debt is far larger.
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