China Surpasses US in Energy Consumption, While The Malthusian Crackpots of The Obama Regime Fiddle with Cap and Trade

Webster G. Tarpley
TARPLEY.net
July 22, 2010

Harry Reid says he is dropping the insane cap and trade carbon tax legislation, but beware of an attempt to pass this favorite bill of rich elitists and Malthusian fanatics. The attempt to bootleg cap and trade into law may come during the November-December lame duck session, with the votes of 30-40 dead souls, not of Gogol but of defeated Democrats. Politicians who have lost their seats willbe looking to Wall Street for jobs or to Obama for patronage, and they will vote for anything.
In the meantime, the world’s first Renewable Energy Ministerial Conference took place in Washington earlier this week. This was the usual Malthusian litany of gimmicks — solar, wind, batteries, and the like. This conference of 24 nations admitted that the world needed 500 new power plants, but decided they should not be built; only windmills and solar cells should be considered, in their grotesque view. This means there will be no development, and only genocide, for Africa and south Asia. The conference was attended by “stakeholders,” in reality, rent seekers. The problem with their wind and solar gadgets is that they are uneconomical and require onerous government subsidies unless the price of oil rises far above the current level. (Maybe the idea of an attack on Iran and the closing of Hormuz, which would get oil to $500 per barrel, was discussed during the closed session of the first day — like the Bilderbergers at Saltsjobaden in 1973, when they discussed a 400% increase in the oil price, which arrived soon after.) The big news at the conference was that, for the first time ever, China has surpassed the United States in energy consumption. Ten years ago China consumed half the US total, and now they are ahead by 4% as of 2009. This signals the looming energy decadence and the thermodynamic decline of the US.

China is also about to surpass the US in manufacturing, with the US losing the top spot it has occupied since passing Britain in this department in the 1890s. The Chinese will build 1,000 gigawatts of electric generating capacity by 2025, an amount equal to the current total US production. This includes 21 modern nuclear plants; the US is still building none. A rational US government would respond to this emergency by commencing the construction of 100 ultra-modern HTR reactors to replace the aging US reactors. But the US delegation was led by Energy Secretary Cho, who has embraced the crackpot idea of painting roads and roofs white to promote cooling. Such schemes are no substitute for US energy modernization after 30-plus years of stagnation and decay.

Obama’s energy czarina Carol Browner, an expert profiteer and lobbyist, was also on hand. The insane ban on offshore drilling is an example of her handiwork. Nor should we forget Obama science adviser John Holdren, a quackademic and charlatan whose tenure in this post is a national scandal. These Malthusian bureaucrats hate real energy production, and want the price of energy to be as high as possible. As long as these sociopaths run US energy policy, it can be assumed that the US will continue to fall behind China, since without modern energy production there can be no recovery from the current depression.

Mal·thu·sian [mal-thoo-zhuhn, -zee-uhn]
–adjective
1.
of or pertaining to the theories of T. R. Malthus, which state that population tends to increase faster, at a geometrical ratio, than the means of subsistence, which increases at an arithmetical ratio, and that this will result in an inadequate supply of the goods supporting life unless war, famine, or disease reduces the population or the increase of population is checked.

–noun
2.
a follower of Malthus.

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Sen. John Kerry side steps MA State Tax on Boats by docking new boat in RI

BOSTON — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family’s new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to the cash-strapped Bay State.

If the “Isabel” were kept at the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee’s summer vacation home on Nantucket, or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes.

Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something of a nautical tax haven.

Kerry spokesman David Wade said Friday the boat is being kept at Newport Shipyard not to evade taxes, but “for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes.”

Wade noted the vessel was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine and purchased in the state. It was built in New Zealand by Friendship Yachts.

A Department of Revenue spokesman said Kerry would be liable for Massachusetts taxes if he berthed the boat in the Bay State within six months of its purchase. If the “Isabel” were brought to Massachusetts after that period, the state would have to decide if it wanted to pursue the taxes.

Massachusetts, like most other states, has been grappling with plunging tax revenues. Last year’s budget decifict was $600 million, and officials are bracing for a $1 billion deficit this year.

The 76-foot sloop has two cabins, a pilot house fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage, according to the Boston Herald, which first reported its Rhode Island berthing. It derives its moniker from the middle name of Kerry’s mother and the name his wife, Teresa Heinz, planned to give a daughter. Instead, she had three sons. Coast Guard registration records show the vessel is owned by Great Point LLC, a limited liability corporation based in Pittsburgh, Heinz’s longtime home. The millionaire heiress to the Heinz ketchup fortune is a philanthropist and environmentalist.

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