CO2 tax to hit H20 prices

Senator Barnaby Joyce

Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water

Leader of The Nationals in the Senate

LNP Senator for Queensland

9 December 2011

CO2 tax to hit H20 prices

It's the end of the week. I know it's the end of the week because we just borrowed another $2.4 billion and Friday afternoon usually brings the news that we have borrowed another $2 billion.

Our gross debt is now over $223 billion, which means there is only $26 billion before we max out the nation's credit card, which shouldn't take too long at the rate we are borrowing.

We have borrowed $14 billion over the past two months, almost $200 million per day.

We have also found out today that a report from the New South Wales government's independent regulatory agency, IPART, has found that the carbon tax will cause a substantial increase in water prices in New South Wales.

This is a fascinating tax we have put on the Australian people. It doesn't matter whether you are washing your clothes or washing your car, it is going to cost you more money, and the climate will stay exactly the same regardless.

The IPART report shows that the Sydney Desalination Plant's water prices will increase by 2 per cent next year and by almost 6 per cent over the next 5 years due to the carbon tax.
Water prices have already increased by 58 per cent since the Rudd-Gillard government came to power.

They don't call desalination 'bottled electricity' for nothing. The carbon tax will increase the cost of everything that has to plug into the wall and desalinated water will be no different.

As the hopes for international action on climate change, collapse around the beaches of Durban, Australian families can rightly ask why the government is making their living costs higher than they need to be in a futile attempt to change the climate.

If the government were not so focused on Bob Brown they might actually turn their attention to the real issues that face Australian families.

OK, so we have been saying a Peoples' Bank like the ORIGINAL Commonwealth is a KEY...

OK, so we have been saying a Peoples' Bank like the ORIGINAL Commonwealth is a KEY. The original Commonwealth Bank of Australia lent at very reasonable rates from an AUSTRALIAN OWNED MONETARY SYSTEM based on the UNTAPPED RESOURCES OWNED BY THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE. It was a lynch-pin in Australia's prosperity. This much the CEC have right! 


So when I read that North Dakota is a "miracle" economy, and their state bank makes a huge contribution to their prosperity, IT'S WORTH BLOGGING ABOUT!...

Solution to the Economic Crisis? North Dakota’s Economic “Miracle”—It’s Not Oil

by Ellen Brown

Yes Magazine

North Dakota has had the nation's lowest unemployment ever since the economy tanked. What's its secret? In an article in The New York Times on August 19th titled “The North Dakota Miracle,” Catherine Rampell writes: Forget the Texas Miracle. Let’s instead take a look at North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate and the fastest job growth rate in the country. According to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, North Dakota had an unemployment rate of just 3.3 percent in July—that’s just over a third of the national rate (9.1 percent), and about a quarter of the rate of the state with the highest joblessness (Nevada, at 12.9 percent). North Dakota has had the lowest unemployment in the country (or was tied for the lowest unemployment rate in the country) every single month since July 2008. Its healthy job market is also reflected in its payroll growth numbers. . . . [Y]ear over year, its payrolls grew by 5.2 percent. Texas came in second, with an increase of 2.6 percent. Why is North Dakota doing so well? For one of the same reasons that Texas has been doing well: oil. Oil is certainly a factor, but it is not what has put North Dakota over the top. Alaska has roughly the same population as North Dakota and produces nearly twice as much oil, yet unemployment in Alaska is running at 7.7 percent. Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming have all benefited from a boom in energy prices, with Montana and Wyoming extracting much more gas than North Dakota has. The Bakken oil field stretches across Montana as well as North Dakota, with the greatest Bakken oil production coming from Elm Coulee Oil Field in Montana. Yet Montana’s unemployment rate, like Alaska’s, is 7.7% percent. A number of other mineral-rich states were initially not affected by the economic downturn, but they lost revenues with the later decline in oil prices. North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008. Its balance sheet is so strong that it recently reduced individual income taxes and property taxes by a combined $400 million, and is debating further cuts. It also has the lowest foreclosure rate and lowest credit card default rate in the country, and it has had NO bank failures in at least the last decade. If its secret isn’t oil, what is so unique about the state? North Dakota has one thing that no other state has: its own state-owned bank. Access to credit is the enabling factor that has fostered both a boom in oil and record profits from agriculture in North Dakota. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) does not compete with local banks but partners with them, helping with capital and liquidity requirements. It participates in loans, provides guarantees, and acts as a sort of mini-Fed for the state. In 2010, according to the BND’s annual report: The Bank provided Secured and Unsecured Federal Fund Lines to 95 financial institutions with combined lines of over $318 million for 2010. Federal Fund sales averaged over $13 million per day, peaking at $36 million in June. The BND also has a loan program called Flex PACE, which allows a local community to provide assistance to borrowers in areas of jobs retention, technology creation, retail, small business, and essential community services. In 2010, according to the BND annual report: The need for Flex PACE funding was substantial, growing by 62 percent to help finance essential community services as energy development spiked in western North Dakota. Commercial bank participation loans grew to 64 percent of the entire $1.022 billion portfolio. The BND’s revenues have also been a major boost to the state budget. It has contributed over $300 million in revenues over the last decade to state coffers, a substantial sum for a state with a population less than one-tenth the size of Los Angeles County. According to a study by the Center for State Innovation, from 2007 to 2009 the BND added nearly as much money to the state’s general fund as oil and gas tax revenues did (oil and gas revenues added $71 million while the Bank of North Dakota returned $60 million). Over a 15-year period, according to other data, the BND has contributed more to the state budget than oil taxes have. North Dakota’s money and banking reserves are being kept within the state and invested there. The BND’s loan portfolio shows a steady uninterrupted increase in North Dakota lending programs since 2006. According to the annual BND report: Financially, 2010 was our strongest year ever. Profits increased by nearly $4 million to $61.9 million during our seventh consecutive year of record profits. Earnings were fueled by a strong and growing deposit base, brought about by a surging energy and agricultural economy. We ended the year with the highest capital level in our history at just over $325 million. The Bank returned a healthy 19 percent ROE, which represents the state’s return on its investment. A 19 percent return on equity! How many states are getting that sort of return on their Wall Street investments? Timothy Canova is Professor of International Economic Law at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. In a June 2011 paper called “The Public Option: The Case for Parallel Public Banking Institutions,” he compares North Dakota’s financial situation to California’s. He writes of North Dakota and its state-owned bank: The state deposits its tax revenues in the Bank, which in turn ensures that a high portion of state funds are invested in the state economy. In addition, the Bank is able to remit a portion of its earnings back to the state treasury .... Thanks in part to these institutional arrangements, North Dakota is the only state that has been in continuous budget surplus since before the financial crisis and it has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. He then compares the dire situation in California: In contrast, California is the largest state economy in the nation, yet without a state-owned bank, is unable to steer hundreds of billions of dollars in state revenues into productive investment within the state. Instead, California deposits its many billions in tax revenues in large private banks which often lend the funds out-of-state, invest them in speculative trading strategies (including derivative bets against the state’s own bonds), and do not remit any of their earnings back to the state treasury. Meanwhile, California suffers from constrained private credit conditions, high unemployment levels well above the national average, and the stagnation of state and local tax receipts. The state’s only response has been to stumble from one budget crisis to another for the past three years, with each round of spending cuts further weakening its economy, tax base, and credit rating. Not all states have oil, of course (and it’s hardly a sustainable economic basis), but all could learn from the state-owned bank that allows North Dakota to capitalize on its resources to full advantage. States that deposit their revenues and invest their capital in large Wall Street banks are giving this economic opportunity away. This article was written for YES! Magazine. Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and the author of eleven books, including Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.

Ellen Brown is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research, September 2, 2011

Pentagon prepares for economic warfare

Traders at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. The US fears China's ability to press the button on its Treasury bills. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

THE scene: the war games suite of the mightiest military power in the world.

The guests were assembled in the Warfare Analysis Laboratory, surrounded by uniformed officers from the highest levels of the Pentagon and a dizzying array of screens normally used to simulate nuclear world war.

The gentlemen were called to order and the games began.

"If you imagine the war room in Dr. Strangelove, you're not far off," says participant James Rickards.

Yet this was no traditional battle game, but rather the Pentagon's first economic war game, and the authorities are loath to talk about it.

Economic war? It sounds preposterous. Except it gets less so with every dollar of debt run up by the US.

Behind the scenes, the military are worried about the market. For who owns much of this debt? China, the US's most powerful rival and threat. And that makes America vulnerable to a new kind of bloodless but ruthless war.

The group was split into five teams: America, Russia, China, Pacific Rim, and a "grey team", representing shady outfits such as terrorist organisations. They were sent into "bunker rooms" and told to use financial or economic tools - currency, debt, stocks, gold - to bring their enemies to their knees. Everything was conducted via computer, and they could be as devious and ruthless as they liked. The bankers liked.Rickards is not a soldier but a banker. He was joined in the war game by dozens of his Wall Street colleagues, flown in from Manhattan to this bunker at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland for the two-day event in 2009, when the Pentagon started to get really alarmed.

"These people would normally never come together. But there is nothing more fun than to take a Wall Street guy and tell him to be a bad guy," says Mr Rickards, a former senior executive who was involved in planning and executing the war game.

When the game was halted, the result left the military men quiet and sobered. Why did the bankers scare the soldiers? The answer lies in the way the world is now interconnected as never before.

Over the past few years, China has been buying up US government debt and is now its biggest holder. If China were to dump this debt, it would totally screw with the economy. China could, hypothetically, win any number of foreign policy objectives by making it impossible for you to pay your mortgage.

Paul Bracken is a professor and expert in private equity at the Yale School of Management who serves on government advisory committees at the US Department of Defence. He was one of the key players behind the 2009 economic war game, and the smaller versions that have been played out since.

"The atmosphere that day was one of surprise at the magnitude of the threat," he says.

"The Pentagon people were used to dealing in terms of military battles: how many ships, how many missiles. This opened up whole new strategies."

Of course, economic warfare is not new. God's plagues on the Egyptian pharaoh's crops, as reported in the Book of Exodus, were an early skirmish. Winston Churchill created a Ministry of Economic Warfare, to run as a "new instrument of war" against Hitler. Embargoes and sanctions have been targeted at dozens of countries, from South Africa to the former Soviet Union.

But this is different. The markets are now global, the holdings in each other's finances deep, and the technical ability to manipulate them instantaneous. In the 1970s the West feared that its enemies had their fingers on a nuclear button. The modern equivalent may be China's ability to press the button on US Treasury bills.

China is, Professor Bracken says, "the huge threat", but Russia, with its oil and gas, has shown no compunction in waging economic war on its neighbours, and could do so on a larger scale.

Another possibility is that major oil-producing countries could destabilise America by switching to euros instead of dollars as the currency in which oil is priced - so-called "petro-dollar warfare". Or a terrorist organisation might trigger a financial crash via some kind of shady hedge fund or computer attack.

What the economic war game showed Professor Bracken was that military and economic decision-making has to be more unified. Banks and bonds are now weapons, just as much as bombs. "That makes the military nervous, as they had always been in charge of operations. That's why they know they need to understand this," Professor Bracken says.

Mr Rickards says that, "If you're going to confront the US military, you would spend billions.But if you can do so just as effectively in financial space, and it would cost less, why not?"

Perhaps Britain felt a taste of this last year, with some stockmarket shocks that wiped millions off three British companies. BT lost pound stg. 969 million ($1.5 billion) on one afternoon in August, Next lost pound stg. 275m. Security services had to probe the possibility that it was not technical faults, as initially supposed, but a concerted attack by a nation state.

John Bassett, a fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, says the British government is just waking up to the new order.

"If those were deliberate attacks on the London stockmarket, it was highly unlikely to be a criminal gang, much more likely an economic rival," he says. "This is a ruthless competition for global economic supremacy, and the West isn't winning."

At the end of that Pentagon session, the 80-odd players returned from their bunkers and assessed the damage.

China won, without so much as reaching for a gun. And the soldiers looked at each other and wondered if it was still only a game.

source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/pentagon-prepares-for-economic-warfare/story-e6frg6so-1226118380617

U.S. dollar could 'collapse': UN - (really?)

Some time ago, I wondered if the US Dollar would collapse, sending the world into chaos. Subsequently, I came to the opinion that is unlikely for two reasons:

1. Mystery Babylon", which I believe to be the USA, is still the main player, flying the flag internationally, seemingly controlling the oceans, and being the centre of trade, when Lord YHWH judges her.
2. There has been much talk of a one world currency, with plans to implement it. Obama has been negotiating with Russia for a couple of years now, and he is very likely a front man for the NWO (judging by the 'quantitative easing packages' and other signs), who will likely want to transition to a world dollar in the most optimal manner to preserve their assets. This means the central banking system that spans from the USA, which is not owned by the USA Federal Government, but by the NWO, will probably transition to become a major part of the One World Integrated Financial System.

So, having said that, here's a recent article worth comment:

U.S. dollar could 'collapse': UN
BY PATRICK WORSNIP, REUTERS MAY 25, 2011 COMMENTS (13)

UN economists have for some time queried whether the dollar should continue to be the world’s sole reserve currency. Others have also expressed concerns about U.S. finances.

Photograph by: Nicky Loh/Reuters, Nicky Loh/Reuters

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations warned on Wednesday of a possible crisis of confidence in, and even a “collapse” of, the U.S. dollar if its value against other currencies continued to decline.

In a mid-year review of the world economy, the UN economic division said such a development, stemming from the falling value of foreign dollar holdings, would imperil the global financial system.

The report, an update of the UN “World Economic Situation and Prospects 2011” report first issued in December, noted that the dollar exchange rate against a basket of other key currencies had reached its lowest level since the 1970s.

This trend, it said, had recently been driven in part by interest rate differentials between the United States and other major economies and growing concern about the sustainability of the U.S. public debt, half of which is held by foreigners.

“As a result, further (expected) losses of the book value of the vast foreign reserve holdings could trigger a crisis of confidence in the reserve currency, which would put the entire global financial system at risk,” it said.

The 17-page report referred at another point to the “still looming risk of a collapse of the United States dollar.”

Rob Vos, a senior UN economist involved with the report, said if emerging markets “massively start selling off dollars, then you can have this risk of a slide in the dollar.

“We’re not saying the collapse is imminent, but the factors are further building up that we could quickly come to that stage if other things are not improving quickly on other fronts — like the risk of the U.S. not being able to service its obligations,” he told Reuters.

UN economists have for some time queried whether the dollar should continue to be the world’s sole reserve currency. Others have also expressed concerns about U.S. finances.

Standard & Poor’s threatened on April 18 to downgrade the United States’ prized AAA credit rating unless the Obama administration and Congress found a way to slash the yawning federal budget deficit within two years.

A downgrade would erode the status of the United States as the world’s most powerful economy and the dollar’s role as the dominant global currency.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday the U.S. government would “never default on its obligations.”

ASSET BUBBLES

Assessing the broader global economy, the UN report said recovery from the 2008 financial crisis continued to be led by China, India and Brazil, but that their growth outlook was moderating due to fears of inflation and domestic asset price bubbles.

It took a slightly more optimistic view of world growth prospects than it did six months ago, forecasting 3.3% expansion this year and 3.6% in 2012, compared with 3.1% and 3.5% respectively.

The United Nations uses a different exchange rate calculation than the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, making its global growth figures slightly lower.

It boosted its forecast for U.S. gross domestic product growth this year from 2.2% to 2.6% but kept next year’s estimate steady at 2.8%.

The report cut Japan’s growth outlook this year by more than a third to 0.7% following March’s catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant crisis. It put damage to buildings and infrastructure at about 25 trillion yen (US$305-billion) or 5% of GDP.

Despite a recent surge in oil prices, it predicted that barring major disruptions from political unrest in the Middle East, they would level off at an average $99 a barrel this year — close to the price of U.S. crude on Wednesday — and fall to an average of US$90 next year.

“Supply and demand conditions do not warrant a continued upward trend,” it said.

Food prices have also been soaring but the report said better harvests were expected to moderate them in the second half of this year.

© Thomson Reuters 2011

© Copyright (c) National Post