Re: California's eco-Marxists hard at work
b*o*n*z*o
By Emanuella Grinberg,CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* State says regulations will save consumers $1 billion a year in
energy costs
* Standards mandate that televisions consume 33 percent less
electricity by 2011
* Regulations cover liquid-crystal display, plasma high-definition
TVs smaller than 58 inches
* Retail, trade groups denounce regulations, claim they limit
consumer freedom
(CNN) -- The California Energy Commission voted unanimously Wednesday
to become the first state to impose energy efficiency standards for
televisions. The agency estimates the move will save consumers $1
billion a year in energy costs.
The new standards, which will take effect in January 2011, prevent the
sale of energy-guzzling televisions with a screen size 58 inches or
smaller, mandating that new models consume 33 percent less electricity
by 2011 and 49 percent less electricity by 2013.
The new rules cover liquid-crystal display and plasma high-definition
TVs, old-fashioned cathode ray tube and rear-projection sets, but
consumers won't be required to buy new televisions.
"The real winners of these new TV energy efficiencies are California
consumers, who will be saving billions of dollars and conserving
energy while preserving their choice to buy any size or type of TV,"
Energy Commission Chairman Karen Douglas said in a statement.
As televisions have grown in size, residential energy consumption
attributed to televisions has increased from 3 to 4 percent in the
1990s to 8 to 10 percent in 2008.
It is expected to reach 18 percent by 2023, according to the
commission. The standards are expected to reduce energy consumption,
thereby lowering energy bills. It's also expected to help avoid the
construction of a new power plant and reduce carbon dioxide gas
emissions, the commission said.
Some retail groups and trade associations denounced the regulations,
claiming they needlessly limit consumer freedom and may result in the
loss of retail jobs and sales tax revenue.
"Manufacturers are already making energy-efficient models, so imposing
regulations is absolutely unnecessary, " said Jason Oxman, senior vice-
president of industry affairs for the Consumer Electronics
Association, which represents companies within the consumer technology
industry.
A study released by CEA in April responding to California's proposal
estimated that $50 million in state sales tax would be lost as a
result of some models being unavailable in stores, driving consumers
to buy televisions online and out-of-state.
"You have regulators dictating what kinds of TVs people can buy in
California, but they can still buy them online or go across the border
to Nevada and buy them," he said.
The commission acknowledged that more than 1,000 TV models on the
market already meet the 2011 standards, at no greater cost than less-
efficient sets. But the commission's study said there is no evidence
that efficiency standards would send consumers across the border in
search of models that will run up their energy bills.
b*o*n*z*o
Bring on the treason trials!
Who Killed California's Economy?
7 Jul 2009
There are five suspects, from the governor to the constituents themselves.
Right now California's economy is moribund, and the prospects for a quick
turnaround are not good. Unable to pay its bills, the state is issuing IOUs;
its once strong credit rating has collapsed. The state that once boasted the
seventh-largest gross domestic product in the world is looking less like a
celebrated global innovator and more like a fiscal basket case along the
lines of Argentina or Latvia.
It took some amazing incompetence to toss this best-endowed of places down
into the dustbin of history. Yet conventional wisdom views the crisis
largely as a legacy of Proposition 13, which in effect capped only taxes.
This lets too many malefactors off the hook. I covered the Proposition 13
campaign for the Washington Post and examined its aftermath up close. It
passed because California was running huge surpluses at the time, even as
soaring property taxes were driving people from their homes.
Admittedly it was a crude instrument, but by limiting those property taxes
Proposition 13 managed to save people's houses. To the surprise of many
prognosticators, the state government did not go out of business. It has
continued to expand faster than either its income or population. Between
2003 and 2007, spending grew 31%, compared with a 5% population increase.
Today the overall tax burden as percent of state income, according to the
Tax Foundation, has risen to the sixth-highest in the nation.
The media and political pundits refuse to see this gap between the state's
budget and its ability to pay as an essential issue. It is. (This is not to
say structural reform is not needed. I would support, for example, reforming
some of the unintended ill-effects of Proposition 13 that weakened local
government and left control of the budget to Sacramento.)
But the fundamental problem remains. California's economy--once wondrously
diverse with aerospace, high-tech, agriculture and international trade--has
run aground. Burdened by taxes and ever-growing regulation, the state is
routinely rated by executives as having among the worst business climates in
the nation. No surprise, then, that California's jobs engine has sputtered,
and it may be heading toward 15% unemployment.
So if we are to assign blame, let's not start with the poor, old anti-tax
activist Howard Jarvis (who helped pass Proposition 13 and passed away over
20 years ago), but with the bigger culprits behind California's fall. Here
are five contenders:
1. Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Terminator came to power with the support of much of the middle class
and business community. But since taking office, he's resembled not the
single-minded character for which he's famous but rather someone with
multiple personalities.
First, he played the governator, a tough guy ready to blow up the
dysfunctional structure of government. He picked a street fight against all
the powerful liberal interest groups. But the meathead lacked his hero
Ronald Reagan's communication skills and political focus. Defeated in a
series of initiative battles, he was left bleeding the streets by those who
he had once labeled "girlie men."
Next Arnold quickly discovered his feminine side, becoming a kinder,
ultra-green terminator. He waxed poetic about California's special mission
as the earth's guardian. While the housing bubble was filling the state
coffers, he believed the delusions of his chief financial adviser, San
Francisco investment banker David Crane, that California represented "ground
zero for creative destruction."
Yet over the past few years there's been more destruction than creation.
Employment in high-tech fields has stagnated (See related story, "Best
Cities For Technology Jobs") while there have been huge setbacks in the
construction, manufacturing, warehousing and agricultural sectors.
Driven away by strict regulations, businesses take their jobs outside
California even in relatively good times. Indeed, according to a recent
Milken Institute report, between 2000 and 2007 California lost nearly
400,000 manufacturing jobs. All that time, industrial employment was growing
in major competitive rivals like Texas and Arizona.
With the state reeling, Arnold has decided, once again, to try out a new
part. Now he's posturing as the strong man who stands up to dominant liberal
interests. But few on the left, few on the right or few in the middle take
him seriously anymore. He may still earn acclaim from Manhattan media
offices or Barack Obama's EPA, but in his home state he looks more an
over-sized lame duck, quacking meaninglessly for the cameras.
2. The Public Sector
Who needs an economy when you have fat pensions and almost unlimited
political power? That's the mentality of California's 356,000 workers and
their unions, who make up the best-organized, best-funded and most powerful
interest group in the state.
State government continued to expand in size even when anyone with a
room-temperature IQ knew California was headed for a massive financial
meltdown. Scattered layoffs and the short-term salary givebacks now being
considered won't cure the core problem: an overgenerous retirement system.
The unfunded liabilities for these employees' generous pensions are now
estimated at over $200 billion.
The people who preside over these pensions represent the apex of this labor
aristocracy. This year two of the biggest public pension funds, CalPERS and
CalSTERS, handed out six-figure bonuses to its top executives even though
they had lost workers billions of dollars.
Almost no one dares suggest trimming the pension funds, particularly
Democrats who are often pawns of the public unions. Some reforms on the
table, like gutting the two-thirds majority required to pass the budget,
would effectively hand these unions keys to the treasury.
3. The Environment
Obama holds up California's environmental policy as a model for the nation.
May God protect the rest of the country. California's environmental
activists once did an enviable job protecting our coasts and mountains,
expanding public lands and working to improve water and air resources. But
now, like sailors who have taken possession of a distillery, they have
gotten drunk on power and now rampage through every part of the economy.
In California today, everyone who makes a buck in the private sector--from
developers and manufacturers to energy producers and farmers--cringes in
fear of draconian regulations in the name of protecting the environment. The
activists don't much care, since they get their money from trust-funders and
their nonprofits. The losers are California's middle and working classes,
the people who drive trucks, who work in factories and warehouses or who
have white-collar jobs tied to these industries.
Historically, many of these environmentally unfriendly jobs have been
sources of upward mobility for Latino immigrants. Latinos also make up the
vast majority of workers in the rich Central Valley. Large swaths of this
area are being de-developed back to desert--due less to a mild drought than
to regulations designed to save obscure fish species in the state's delta.
Over 450,000 acres have already been allowed to go fallow. Nearly 30,000
agriculture jobs--held mostly by Latinos--were lost in the month of May
alone. Unemployment, which is at a 17% rate across the Valley, reaches
upward of 40% in some towns such as Mendota.
4. The Business Community
This insanity has been enabled by a lack of strong opposition to it. One
potential source--California's business leadership--has become progressively
more feeble over the past generation. Some members of the business elite,
like those who work in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, tend to be too
self-referential and complacent to care about the bigger issues. Others have
either given up or are afraid to oppose the dominant forces of the
environmental activists and the public sector.
Theoretically, according to business consultant Larry Kosmont, business
should be able to make a strong case, particularly with the growing Latino
caucus in the legislature. "You have all these job losses in Latino
districts represented by Latino legislators who don't realize what they are
doing to their own people," he says. "They have forgotten there's an economy
to think about."
But so far California's business executives have failed to adopt a strategy
to make this case to the public. Nor can they count on the largely clueless
Republicans for support, since GOP members are often too narrowly identified
as anti-tax and anti-immigration zealots to make much of a case with the
mainstream voter. "The business community is so afraid they are keeping
their heads down," observes Ross DeVol, director of regional economics at
the Milken Institute. "I feel they if they keep this up much longer, they
won't have heads."
5. Californians
At some point Californians--the ones paying the bills and getting little in
return--need to rouse themselves. The problem could be demographic. Over the
past few years much of our middle class has fled the state, including a
growing number to "dust bowl" states like Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas from
which so many Californians trace their roots.
The last hope lies with those of us still enamored with California. We have
allowed ourselves to be ruled by a motley alliance of self-righteous
zealots, fools and cowards; now we must do something. Some think the
solution is reining in citizens' power by using the jury pool to staff a
state convention, as proposed by the Bay Area Council, or finding ways to
undermine the initiative system, which would remove critical checks on
legislative power.
We should, however, be very cautious about handing more power to the state's
leaders. With our acquiescence, they have led this most blessed state toward
utter ruin. Structural reforms alone, however necessary, won't turn around
the economy's fundamental problems and help California reclaim its role as a
productive driver of the American dream.
Reader Comments
After experiencing employee litigation in California, my family's business
had to close and all the employees lost good jobs with health insurance. The
culture in California is oblivious to the economy....
Warmest Regards
B0n oz
"It is a remarkable fact that despite the worldwide expenditure of perhaps
US$50 billion since 1990, and the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists
worldwide, no human climate signal has yet been detected that is distinct
from natural variation."
Bob Carter, Research Professor of Geology, James Cook University, Townsville