I wonder if the people have considered what the end result of their law will be? Soon the Indian tribes that run Casinos on their reservations will be able to purchase more and more adjacent land to their reservations and incorporate the lands. The nation will then revert back to being nearly wholly owned by the Confederacy of Native Americans, who will then use such laws pioneered by Arizona to send all fair skinned (retroactively) illegal aliens back to Europe.

It could happen, with Citizens United giving corporations unlimited spending, just think what can happen when the Native Americans start really buying lobbyists in force.

N

Nels,

Mmmmmmm! Meat sundaes....! ;-)

Well less food means more starvation, means less people. Obviously that's not the ideal solution, so what can be done to limit population expansion humanely?

I understand that one of the more successful techniques is educating women as well as giving them equality, in developing countries as the literacy and equality rate for women have gone up, birth rates have gone down.

Another issue is the amount of food (plant) supply it takes to feed livestock. Even if the world didn't go vegetarian, but just cut down the amount of meat each person ate (looking at you America), the amount of food available would increase dramatically.

But then I might have to give up Meat Sundaes... I don't know if saving the world is really worth that.

N

RIP Jack Herer -

Thom has recently started to run ads for a company called Hempest.com, which markets prodct made (obviously) from the hemp plant. About 20 years ago I read a book about the potential economic bounty of hemp's legalization and commercial use, and the absurd historical justiufications for this noble plant being illegal, called "The Emperor Has No Clothes" by a guy named Jack Herer. In the book, Herer made several claims about how the legalization and commercialization of hemp could save the US economy and break our dependence on foreign oil, and I recall that Jack had a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who could debunk any of his claims.

I paid a visit to the Hempest websitte shortly after Thom's ad this morning and saw near the bottom of their homepage that Mr. Herer had passed away just last week. I am saddened by this, and recommend his book to one and all here.

Geithner Interview Today (first 2 clips - video):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_joe

I have been trying to get information on the financial reform legislation (which may come up for a vote as early as today.) I listened to an extended interview with Tim Geithner on "Morning Joe" today (URL in my next post.) To hear Geithner, all is well and derivatives will see the light of day. However, that is misleading. A NYTimes editorial this a.m. was MUCH clearer:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/opinion/22thu1.html?ref=opinion

"After Goldman"

After the government sued Goldman Sachs for fraud, a lot of politicians vowed to finally clean up the system. In an important committee vote on Wednesday, 13 senators — including one Republican for a refreshing change — approved a measure that would go a long way toward regulating derivatives, the complex instruments at the heart of the bubble, the bust, the bailouts and the Goldman case.

It is still not tough enough to avoid another catastrophe. While the bill rightly calls for most derivatives deals — currently private contracts — to be traded on regulated exchanges, it has too many loopholes. And it doesn’t ban the sort of excessive speculation that characterized the Goldman deal.

The taxpayers are gaining, but the banks — which make a lot of money on derivatives — are still way ahead.

The bill would allow too many trades to be done off the exchanges. Regulators would be able to police them, but there would be no ongoing investor oversight. There are carve-outs for certain corporate users of derivatives and for contracts tailored to unique purposes. The bill also would allow the Treasury secretary to exempt an entire type of derivative known as foreign exchange swaps.

Corporate pension funds that invest in derivatives would be subjected to less scrutiny than is required of many other investors. The financing arms of major manufacturers would also escape full scrutiny. All of that is going in the wrong direction.

Which brings us back to Goldman. A court will have to decide if the bank committed fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission says that Goldman designed a derivative — a “synthetic collateralized debt obligation,” or C.D.O. — that would have a high chance of falling in value, at the request of a hedge fund client who wanted to bet against it. The S.E.C. charges that Goldman misled investors by not revealing the hedge fund’s role in selecting the investments. Goldman says it was not obligated to do so.

The current reforms being considered by Congress might at least have made Goldman think twice about that obligation. Both the agriculture and banking committees’ bills impose business conduct standards that would require dealers to disclose conflicts of interest.

It is not clear if the current bills would require synthetic C.D.O.’s to be exchange-traded. If they were, that would give investors a fighting chance to figure out the game. In addition to providing information about prices and volumes, exchange trading would subject derivatives to a full range of regulations, including disclosure and reporting requirements and stricter antifraud rules.

The bills also call for regulators to set adequate capital requirements for major dealers and participants so that there would be a cushion when derivative investments go bad.

What all those proposals don’t address is whether the type of derivative Goldman was selling should even be allowed to exist. The Goldman deal was nothing more than a bet on the mortgage market, in which one side was destined to win and the other to lose, without “investing” anything in the real economy. The C.D.O. did not hold actual mortgage-related bonds, but rather allowed the participants to stake a position on whether bonds owned by others would perform well, or tank. And that helped to further inflate the housing bubble.

That is not investing. It is gambling, and it is abusive. It has no place in banks that can bring down the system if they fail.

Yet none of the pending reform bills would ban abusive derivatives. Instead, regulators would be limited to gathering information about potential abuses and reporting their concerns to Congress.

The bill does say that the regulator cannot approve “gaming contracts.” But C.D.O.’s are often so complex that it may be difficult to figure out if they are, in fact, gaming or a threat to the broader economy.

Congress should ban both gaming and abusive derivatives. That would help clarify the difference between pure speculation and true hedging. It would start to restore what has been lost in the crisis: public confidence in the integrity of financial markets.

"Raise Our Taxes --- Please"

After seeing this excellent interview with PA Gov. Ed Rendell discussing tax increase proposals, I decided that I would send this URL to every member of the Minnesota legislature (video):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#36701345

Free markets are free in the same sense that reality shows are real.

How gullible does the oil industry think we are?

At the very least , they think that we are as gullible as the Banksters and the Rethuglican leadership think we are. Perhaps a bit more, but not much.

All of them rely upon Faux News, the rest of the corporate-controlled media and the memory hole to keep those who are allergic to independent thought thinking only what they approve of.

Yes, Dr, Steward , we KNOW that plants need CO2. They also need fertilizer. Horse Manure makes an EXCELLENT fertilizer, sir, and you are certainly full of it

Here's something else you have right - when the levels of atmospheric CO2 rise to the point where humans can no longer breathe, the Earth will become a MUCH greener place.

plants need CO2. They also thrive when smothered in excrement, but we need to keep that under control as well.

Is this guest for real? Schill hides behind his credentials.

Carbon resides and travels in what is known as the Carbon Cycle. Carbon cycles at various cycling intervals. Cycles of time accountants typically deal with are for example when paying wages and or salaries and or bonuses. These are usually computed as either hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly intervals of time.

Carbon cycles on a geologic scale

Geologists account for carbon that cycles from between those of thousands to millions to hundreds of millions of years. This carbon variation tends to reflect the movements of the plates as in tectonics, the science of how land masses move together and apart. Volcanoes form and explode as land masses come together and apart. Mid-ocean ridges become active and inactive. Climate patterns follow the shifts in these land masses for which reflect the ice ages and changes in sea-levels.

Geologists rely upon data such as oxygen and carbon isotopes and air bubbles preserved in ice cores from which carbon dioxide can be measured. Geologists also will utilize fossil micro fauna and flora, and pollen to extrapolate atmospheric temperature readings.

Carbon cycles on an environmental scale

Environmentalists account for carbon that cycles on time intervals for which affect human population and the species we share the planet with in generations. These data reflect expansions and contractions of biomes, industrial, agricultural, historic and economic periods and cycles. Environmentalist’s carbon data also reflects seasons, and even diurnal cycles such as how plants release carbon in the evening as dark photosynthesis and breathe in carbon during the day.

Environmentalists examine actual temperature readings from NOAA, EPA and other weather reporting data from the mid 1800s to present. Weather balloon data record carbon dioxide concentrations from famous studies such as those from Roger Revelle at Harvard and data from laboratories such as at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. Thousands of weather stations around the world track both temperature and carbon dioxide levels. Satellites monitored by NASA and other countries satellites programs also collect and monitor atmospheric gaseous concentrations and mixes.

Carbon sinks and sources simplified:

The Carbon cycle is defined as the global movement of carbon between organisms and the abiotic environment- including the atmosphere, ocean, and sedimentary rock. Below find a basic list of carbon sources and sinks as an introduction to the carbon cycle per Raven and Berg, 2006 Environment p.88 Figure 5.2. Specific guidance for accounting may be more explicit in any governing legislation.

Carbon sources /free carbon in the atmosphere

Carbon makes up about 0.038% of the atmosphere as the gas, carbon dioxide.

• Carbon in coal, oil, natural gas and wood are cycled to the atmosphere by burning, or combustion. In combustion, organic molecules are rapidly oxidized- combined with oxygen- and converted into CO2 and water, with an accompanying release of heat and light.
• Sources of such carbon combustibles are emitted by industry and agriculture, high concentration of livestock in factory farming (World Watch Institute, 2009), transportation, and of coal as in the production of electricity.
• Tectonic Activity would include gas released at plate boundaries which would include volcanic activity. Volcanic gases have been collected by courageous volcanologists. Water vapor is the main constituent of volcanic gas (70-95 percent), followed by carbon dioxide, both global warming gases (Press and Siever, 1998).

Carbon sinks /fixed carbon in the Earth

• Terrestrial and aquatic plants and trees fix carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis from the atmosphere. Aquatic organisms fix carbon dioxide dissolved in water as carbonate (C0 2-/3) and bicarbonate (HC0-3) for their tests and shells as calcium carbonate (CaCO3). This carbon may be stored for several hundred years or even longer.
• A lot of carbon is incorporated into shells of marine organisms. When they die, their shells sink to ocean floor and form thick seabed deposits. Burial and compaction from rock (limestone).
• Sedimentary rocks and fossil fuels hold almost all of Earth’s estimated 10 23 grams of carbon. For example, the soil contains an estimated 1500 x 10 15 grams of carbon. These sources can store carbon for thousands to hundreds of millions to billions of years.

References:

Press, F. and Siever, R. (1998). Understanding Earth. USA. W.H. Freeman and Company. p.119.

Goodland, R. and Anhang, J. (November/ December 2009). Livestock and Climate Change - Worldwatch Institute.

Read more at Suite101: Carbon Sinks and Sources Budget Simplified for Green Accountants http://accounting-designations.suite101.com/article.cfm/carbon-sinks-and-sources-budget-simplified-for-green-accountants#ixzz0lqWAPsgt