I have readers who question my skepticism of government action to ameliorate climate change. Unbelievable, eh?

The reason I’ve arrived here is that more and more misdirected business decisions are taking funds from worthwhile endeavors and being used to line the pockets of lobbyists or their bosses.

“The fine dust that man constantly puts into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning could screen out so much sunlight that the average temperature could drop by six degrees.” Dr. S.I. Rasool of NASA and Columbia University went on to predict in 1971… “Such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”

An ice age is indeed a terrifying prospect. While raising a garden in northwestern Montana, we had a killing frost in July and August. I’ve had a tiny taste of it.

We have had cold periods in human history igniting hellacious disasters of famine, disease, war, and even widespread cannibalism. The predictions of warming are welcome in comparison, even one published on Propublica that was sent to me by a friend several years ago. That prediction included the southern states as being uninhabitable. A population shift northward would find open country and vast expanses of land previously underutilized because of a short growing season. A potential escape from a climate disaster is within reason.

“A population shift” should stand out as a solution if there is significant warming. Like my dad said, “Fly across this country and you will see the folly of thinking a few little exhaust pipes can change the weather.” Take a second and compare a balance sheet; change the weather or move. Even while ignoring cost, as is the norm with many of these highfalutin goals (mostly political campaign promises), are not attainable.

To justify these plainly feeble attempts NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) routinely “adjusts” past data using complex statistical models. A look at those adjustments over the past 100 years shows the earlier years adjusted downward and more recent years adjusted up in order to fabricate a warming trend.

Evidence of human-caused global warming is still circumstantial and data show warmer periods during times when human influences could not be a factor.

In order to avoid a civil dialog about climate change, some proponents say “he doesn’t believe in global warming” or “he’s a denier” trying to associate climate skepticism with religious heretics or a holocaust denier for crying out loud.

It is about time we ask who benefits from the reaction to the global warming theory. If you hate big business it is time to join the “deniers.” Climate change is the epitome of big business exploiting mass hysteria through stealth totalitarianism. It is not kind and generous, it is sociopathic greed.

Have you seen the photo of the one million French people protesting Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform? It is pretty darned breathtaking. If you were in the middle of it, a snack and a bathroom break would be a long struggle. Trade unions are urging even more strikes, far be it that they urge more work to make up for the shortfall in funding of these retirement plans.

We have the same problem here with Social Security and the can gets kicked down the road. We all think we deserve our Social Security. We paid into it. Unfortunately, when it was designed the number of retirees was tiny compared to the number of taxpayers. Like the deceptive computer models for coming famine or climate disaster, there was no allowance made for adjustments to changing future conditions.

Tragically, the retirement funding scheme that could have worked was in place already. But some politician thought he could get reelected if part of the process was taken from us and given to the government.

People all over the world have saved for their retirement. Others have their whole adult life ahead of them and only need to borrow some cash to make their dreams come true. A more direct way to connect savers with borrowers would be through borrowers selling stock and savers buying shares. The system exists.

The idea that savings must be managed or redistributed by government is flawed as evidenced by the waste within the Department of Defense.

The Pentagon failed its fifth audit, not accounting for $220 billion in government property furnished to contractors just last week. In November of 2022 the DOD could not prove expenditures for 61% of its $3.5 trillion in assets. I ask, is the U.S. government to be trusted with our “investments?” If we invest in a private company and it commits fraud we have recourse through the courts. It doesn’t work that way with government. As my dad said years ago when the Farmers Home Administration reneged on our house project, “You can’t fight city hall.”

Anyone who has diversified savings has seen the comparably miserable return on investment offered by Social Security.

The U.S. government is paying interest on the garganchuan debt we owe. Interest rates have risen and so has the cost to our government. But they keep on spending.

The most equitable way to fund retirement is to connect savers with borrowers so the borrowers can pay interest to use cash earned by savers over the years. The closer the connection we can make between them, the less waste and more cash available for each.

It is no surprise that French unions are urging strikes. Unions are like government; force is their language. Fair exchange makes them feel cheated.

A strange thing happened today. Dan Neil wrote about a car powered by an internal combustion engine. He reviews a car most weeks for the weekend Wall Street Journal. Ever since he was embarrassed to discover that what he thought was the best car ever was made by German cheaters, he’s over-corrected and found religion in electric cars. As in most single vehicle accidents over-correcting is often worse than no correcting at all.

Volkswagen cheated on emissions tests. It cost them $30 billion and they pledged to go EV to be popular again.

We can debate the 97% of all climate related scientists’ opinions until we are blue in the face but total transition to EVs is not debatable unless aliens land and rescind logic. The electrical grid nationally would have to be replaced. Africa would have to experience a huge population explosion to increase the supply of child miners because cobalt and other battery materials won’t just come when called, like our dog. By the way, do you know about the child miners? Better not look.

That’s just the small stuff. Look at an aerial photo of a lithium mine. I’ll bet you never thought of New York’s Central Park as untamed wilderness before. If you did, you could call a lithium mine a roadless, wilderness paradise. But that’s okay. You don’t live there. That seems to be a huge problem with advocates of “green” this or that. They don’t live there.

I was at an appointment with my surgeon and (being a California kid, 72, and still a kid, haha) asked him if that was his Porsche in the parking lot. With a twinkle in his eye he said, “I have a Tesla.” At a more recent meeting I mentioned the Tesla again and he said, “It drives me, I don’t drive it.” He lives in Des Moines and works in Clarion and he says it is a great stress reliever to sit back and let his car drive him around.

I can’t imagine the stress of cutting peoples’ legs off and gluing new joints in there. There is not one second where I am jealous of his wealth or don’t admire his skill.

Another one I admire is Akio Toyoda, the CEO of Toyota, who thinks adoption of electrified vehicles will not happen as quickly as the totalitarian politicians wish. To say Toyoda knows more about vehicles than any politician is the understatement of the year. It is so sad that he risks being branded some sort of heretic at the altar of wacko science. It makes it all the more admirable that he goes out on that staunch limb.

When Tesla began, I pretty much hated Elon Musk. The guy, I don’t know, but any company that depends on government subsidies… well, you know me. Tesla’s subsidies have run out and they are still there. Only the rich can afford one. So what? Musk has proven his worth recently in the Twitter files. The presidency was bought, not won, in the election.

The protection afforded by constitutional restraints should make the purchased presidency not matter at all. But those restraints no longer exist. It’s Wild West Days where the powerful take whatever they want. Note today’s headline: “The White House to Ask Congress to Approve F-16s for Turkey.” General Smedley Butler must be looking down from his heavenly perch saying, “Wow, it’s the racket on steroids.”

U.S. Marine Corps Major General, Smedley Butler earned the Congressional Medal of Honor twice. He saw up close how private interests finagle their way to huge profits “reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

The racket of war is not so much different from the war on individual freedom being waged by the “green” crazies. The fragile lives in the desert in the path of solar farms, the bats and birds flying into wind farms, and the abused children in the Congo are unnecessary casualties.

We’ve long heard about voting restrictions like voter ID as being “a threat to our democracy.” Today is the anniversary of the January 6th Capitol riots, “a threat to our democracy” like no other. The Capitol being the home of Congress would make it the cathedral of U.S.democracy, where the will of the (majority of the) people is codified.

I learned about the word “codified” regarding Roe v Wade possibly being made into a law or code rather than a judicial proclamation, in order to protect it from the whims of an unelected body like a court or government agency.

Ever since Nixon expanded the power of the federal government through unelected rule-making agencies like the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), Congress has appeared to be unnecessary. Maybe the reason “our democracy” is so fervently defended is to keep two fronts active in the war against individual rights.

The distinction between a republic and a democracy is not addressed in the Constitution. Democracy is not mentioned at all. Maybe the Founders never imagined that theft could be codified and thus legal in their new collection of states. British Common Law from which our system is modeled, was intended to protect individuals from the aggression of their fellow citizens even if those fellow citizens represent a majority.

We hear “a right to healthcare,” “a right to an education” as if those things would not involve violating the rights of someone to finance them. It’s like a civic lobotomy, removing the part of the truth that’s standing in the way of the stuff we want for free.

It took a few years and many mistakes and successes that brought the Founders to write what they did in guiding our young country. They knew early on that when thievery is accepted practice there will be resentment and envy leading to social disturbance.

I think it’s pretty sick to say healthcare or education are so important that the state should be authorized to steal to provide them. If that’s the case then where do we draw the line? When we all are equally destitute? If we bring down a tiny minority of rich people to make them equal with a huge majority of the not so rich, that doesn’t just detract from the wealth of the rich, it eliminates everyone’s future benefits that could have been realized from their ambitions.

It is the wealthy, who earned their wealth through superior skill who provide the human and financial capital for innovation and progress that makes life better for all of us. That is an important fact overlooked by the democracy advocates who seem to think the voting booth is the source of all progress. No! When the rich, skilled, and ambitious are bled dry we will all suffer.

A statistic that isn’t counted is how often one of these exceptional people decide their tax bill has stifled their desire to go on. Rather than research a wonder drug or cleaner energy they buy a yacht or new mansion. It happens. There is no way to know what the rest of us are missing as a result of these penalties imposed by democracy.

Democracy is not freedom, it’s freedom to steal.