Maybe CO2 is not causing melting ice caps on its own.

Melting ice is usually what comes to mind when someone says the phrase "global warming". We draw a conclusion, from our experience in the world, that warm air causes ice to melt. As children we saw this time and time again in our own experiments with ice cubes taken from the freezer. So, as adults, we therefore draw the same conclusions and we don't consider anything else a possibility?

Right now there is an epic battle of minds over whether or not warm air, caused by changes in CO2 in the atmosphere, is the cause of drastic changes in the landscapes at the Earths poles. Nobody can actually come up with any proof that the air on our planet has warmed by more than 2 degrees. Scientists can find some evidence of global warming but none of them has been able to find enough evidence of a quantity high enough to say with absolute certainty that it is the cause of diminishing artic ice sheets.

Up until this point it is a rare occurrence for anyone in the news media to suggest that lower humidity, or dryer air, is the cause of the abrupt disappearance of so much ice. With so much global deforestation it is hard to understand why humidity isn't an effect that scientists include in their arguments on the subject.

At 385 parts per million, rising in this century from only 300 ppm, CO2 makes up 0.385% of our air. Scientists claim that this rise from 0.300% to 0.385% is enough to cause multiple percentage point changes in temperature. While that may be possible, what sort of scientific principle accounts for a 0.085% increase in the share of CO2 in our air causing 2-5% changes in Earth temperature? A hidden contributing factor is obviously missing from that argument.

We already know that rain forests are the lungs of the earth. We know that vegetative tundra can store massive amounts of water and air humidity is higher in places where you are close the the ocean or where there is inland vegetation.

Air currents that feed moisture to the artic poles travels over land sometimes before it falls in the form of snow. Continents change the moisture content in the air when the ocean air moves over them. Before air reaches the south pole it may pick up or lose some of its humidity as it passes over barren stretches of cannibalized earth. It could be that diminishing ice caps are due to a smaller amount of snow falling each year and not because of warming temperature at all.

I don't know what the real answers are but I hope that scientists and the news media take a more through and broad view of the nature of global warming instead of focusing on one of its aspects. Since when did environmentalists practically abandon their fight against deforestation and turn instead to oil and CO2? The truth is more complex and involves many other factors and we shouldn't ignore them.

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Only 20% of the FEDs income returns to the US Treasury.

I was listening to an AM radio talk show the other day and a guy phoned in and asked the host if he knew whether or not the Federal Reserve banks paid taxes on their profits. The talk show host didn't know, even with the help of a Oregon US representative on the phone.

I became very curious. There is 50+ Trillion dollars of monetized debt in our US economic system. At a 5% interest rate (which I will use in my argument as the average rate of interest that FED banks charge to their customers) that would account for around 2.5 trillion of interest income on issued debt. That is a conservative number because you still need to add T-Bill interest profits, subtract the insignificant 6% divendend income that federal reserve shareholders receive, and then add extra profits that FED banks earn from transaction fees.

Off the top of my head, according to the 2008 US Treasury balance sheet, located on page 5 at http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts1108.pdf , the Government only received about 500 billion in excess interest profits from the treasury in 2008. So, where did the other 2 Trillion of interest go? Should we believe that the banking system requires 2 trillion in operating expenses each year?

With the Federal Reserve banking system having more than 2.5 Trillion a year in profit, how is it even possible that there could be a single bank failure? It doesn't seem possible when we know that they are swimming in 2.5 trillion of profits on interest. It would seem that a not-for-profit corporation such as the Federal Reserve system could easily pay off their liabilities before the excess profits go back to the government. Not so in this case because evidently the tradition is to take additional bailout funds from the government after they pocket the remaining 80% of their interest income. You can't tell me that 2 trillion dollars goes to operating expenses! That would be enough to give 40 MILLION americans a $50,000 a year job!

Can anyone explain this. Its fine if you want to trust the Federal Reserves "word" that the entirety of its profits go back to the Treasury but its obvious they are pocketing FAR more than their good share of the profits. Yes, this is a socialist idea I have here but it is clear from reading the consitution that the founding fathers MEANT for the monetary system to be in the "hands of the people" first and foremost and then profits to the people should be secondary to that. In this case the people have no say at all.

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Tags: Business | Portland | banking | US Economy | Tech & Biz

Instructions to socialize the U.S. monetary system.

Let us imagine the financial system worked differently. If the power to print paper money were given to the states then the federal government could be able to finance expenditures through borrowing from the states, who print the money. This would be ideal in many ways.

1. It would empower the state governor to have control over financing aspects of bills passed by his respective senators. State senators would be obligated to bargain with their state governor for financing and it would tighten their relationship. The state governor would be responsible for maintaining the stability of the printed money from its state. If a state, such as California, needed to create money to finance state expenditures it could borrow from another states treasury or buy bonds to the federal government to use as reserve in printing more of its own money.

2. The Federal government would no longer be able to raise money except from borrowing. Gone would be the single banking system that runs an unchecked monopoly that hides what happens behind the curtain. The federal government would have to convince congress to buy its bonds or raise the federal tax in order to generate huge financing. Massive concensus would be needed for such things. No longer would our country be controlled by imperialists. Instead, democracy would rule everything because each state would have to dig into its pockets and show its responsibility to a cause.

3. States would compete with each other in the money market. Every state would want its money to be the money of choice for people to hoard and save. States who had problems and deflated the value of their money would have to improve the value of their money in order to convince the people of the nation to use its money in trade. The Federal Reserve Bank could then be delegated to manage the state to state trading of money, like a stock exchange, and keeping track of state exchange rates.

4. Let each state set and control its own interest rates and loan fees.

This would be a much improved system that will be much more stable. The great boom bust cycles in the economy would be gone because when a few states have financial troubles the other states can pick up the slack.

Just an idea that everyone should think about.

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Instructions for reforming the US monetary system.

These are instructions for reforming the Federal Reserve. I am inspired from the proposed bill by Dennis Kucinich at http://monetary.org .

1. Convert all existing debt, which is based on the 10% reserve requirement system, directly into hard currency. Banks will then be holding hard cash in reserve for your mortgage instead of just a mortgage document representing the debt based money. New loans no longer inflate the money supply.

2. Convert the Federal Reserve into a corporation that only manages currency trade between the states. It will be composed of a congress of 50 representatives, 12 judges/zones, and 1 chairman. This is a legislative, judicial, and executive checks and balances arrangement just like the constitution would have liked.

3. Take away the power for the federal government to print money except for precious metal coinage. Retain the US Mint.

4. Require federal banks have 100% reserve ratio for loans. These banks are less profitable than state banks. The federal banks can loan money to government agencies but they are required to have 100% reserve on deposit. This means federal banks earn the interest rate times 1 on their reserve deposits.

5. Require that state banks have 100% reserve on long term loans but only 50% reserve ratio for short term loans only. This promotes saving and quick paybacks. This allows a bank to loan out $2000 for each $1000 T-Bill it has on deposit. This means federal banks earn the interest rate times 2 on their reserve deposits and are more profitable than federal banks. This gives incentive for states to create and control money, but not too much to cause too much of a problem. Make it a law that the reserve ratio can be raised but never lowered below 50%.

6. Give states back the sole power to print their own coin and money. Let the states compete against each other nationally to be currency of choice in retaining its long term value. Corrupt states will inflate their money and people will not choose to use their money.

7. Stop regulating interest rates federally. No more discount window. No more federal funds rates. States compete with each other by setting their own interest rates.

8. Allow private lenders to buy federal loan insurance to cover their customers in case of emergency.

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