The Morning Roar: IMF Urges Higher Taxes To Fight Climate Change, FL Cops No-Knock Raid Wrong Home, and Crony Ex-Im Bank Up for Reauthorization
I thought time was supposed to pass more quickly as people age, but this week has taken forever. However...at last...your Friday Morning Roar! IMF Wants Higher Energy Taxes to Fight "Climate Change"The IMF is once again meddling in the world's affairs, but this time they aren't directly influencing currency values or anything else of immediate impact. Instead they've taken a soft approach, by putting pressure on countries to alter their environmental plans in order to circumvent economic instability. Of course, they pay no mind to the fact that climate science is very much unsettled and at current no one can possibly predict the effects of climate change; especially the domino effect it may or may not have on the economic landscape.These views are expressed in a new book, as Yahoo/Reuters reports:
For the first time, the IMF laid out exactly what it views as appropriate taxes on coal, natural gas, gasoline and diesel in 156 countries to factor in the fuels' overall costs, which include carbon dioxide emissions, air pollution, congestion and traffic accidents.
Under its chief, Christine Lagarde, the IMF has delved into the impact of climate change, arguing that tackling the fund's core mission of economic instability is impossible without also addressing environmental damage.
She said higher energy taxes are the most efficient and simple way of dealing with environmental harm and would allow governments to stop relying on a "patchwork" of other uncoordinated policies to deal with climate change, such as subsidies for renewable energy.
I am beyond sick of economic policy being influenced by unproven (and disproven) crony "science" in the midst of an 18 year cooling period, when no one really knows what the hell is going on. If "climate change" (since the climateers nixed "global warming" after it stopped..) exists, so be it, but I'd actually like climate models that accurately predict temperature and weather impacts to exist before any decisions are made. Especially before we start taxing people to put more money in the pockets of governments and crony capitalists to waste, while raising our own cost of living.Coincidentally, Marc Clair spoke with Dr. Patrick Moore on yesterday's episode of the Lions of Liberty Podcast. Moore is a co-founder of Greenpeace who left the organization and has become an outspoken critic of the hysteria surrounding global warming and climate change. They also discuss how he sees the future of energy unfolding during the conversation.Florida Cops No-Knock Raid the Wrong HouseFlorida seems to always have the best worst stories coming out of it, and yesterday morning another such story leapt into the news cycle. Officers in Madison County, FL, invaded a home in the middle of the night looking for a drug dealer. They didn't find him. Why? Because it was the wrong house, of course! Police realized this well after they stormed in with flashlights and guns drawn, and after they handcuffed the children. From WCTV:
"I just kept hearing something, like a loud noise. I felt as if I was just dreaming," said mother Laretta McCaskill. "Then, once I woke up, I'd seen a flashing light and a gun pointed to my head, just cops yelling, 'hold your hands up, hold your hands up! Put your hands up!'"According to the McCaskill family, the Madison County Sheriff's Office knocked down their door, entered their home and handcuffed their 16-year-old nephew at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning."They told me, turn around. Turn around, turn around," said Terrance Coleman, the nephew of the McCaskill's. "And put my hands behind my back. So, he had snatched me off the bed and put me in the living room. So, I came in here and there were guns pointed and me and my cousin. I just feel like they had misplaced me with somebody else."
This ended with the police embarrassed and apologetic to the family for the mistake, however what they should be ashamed of is the despicable tactics that they employ during these raids. This could have had a far different outcome. What if the 16 year old they cuffed started fighting back? What if the parent emerged from the bedroom with a gun to defend her children from black-masked invaders storming their house at 5am? An innocent man, woman or child could be dead, or police officers could be dead. This type of action has to be stopped.Marc also discussed the prevalence of no-knock raids during his conversation with John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute.Congress Leaning Towards Re-Authorizing Crony Capitalist Institution, The Export-Import BankThe Ex-Im Bank, known widely for being a secretive, shielded tool of crony capitalism is set to go dark as of the end of September, ending an 80 year run as the plaything of corporations and the political officers they hold dear. However, as one would guess, politicians are crying that this can't be allowed to happen. Even those who have previously spoken against it - such as Paul Ryan, who labeled the bank as a crony institution - are now backtracking and talking about retooling and altering the bank's charter in order to let it be re-authorized. This would be "double-plus ungood," to borrow some language from 1984. The Heritage Foundation's Diane Katz has an article up that I would recommend on this topic - The Export–Import Bank: A Government Outfit Mired in Mismanagement. Some excerpts:
Advocates of the Export–Import Bank (Ex–Im) are lobbying Congress for reauthorization by claiming that its taxpayer-subsidized financing is a safe—and lucrative—investment. But even a mountain of rhetoric cannot bury the facts: The bank is beset by mismanagement, dysfunction, and risk, all of which have been documented for years by Ex–Im’s own inspector general and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The problems are the inevitable result of government assuming a function far beyond its proper purview and one that rightly belongs to private business alone.The bank’s current authorization is set to expire on September 30. Ex–Im provides loans and loan guarantees as well as capital and credit insurance for U.S. exports. The financing is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government, which means taxpayers are on the hook for losses that bank reserves fail to cover.Ex–Im’s books understate the risk on many of the loans borne by taxpayers. That is because the bank calculates its future revenue from loan repayments based on interest rates tied to Treasury securities.[4]But unlike private banks, which follow much stricter accounting rules, Ex–Im does not adjust the amount of anticipated revenue for changes in the market that could actually reduce future repayments.In reality, the bank is little more than a conduit for corporate welfare beset by unreliable risk management, inefficiency, and cronyism. As a government creature interfering in business, it can hardly be otherwise.
Now that you're done reading that, email your Congressman demanding that he or she vote against re-authorizing this tax-eating den of crony capitalism.Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
