Posts about Stop Cap and Trade as of August 3, 2009

From MoveOn: Last week a special interest lobbying firm with ties to dirty energy companies was caught sending forged letters to a Democratic congressman’s office – urging him to oppose clean energy legislation. The letters claimed to be from a Hispanic non-profit called Creciendo Juntos and the local chapter of the NAACP. The only problem? Neither group had ever seen the letters, much less sent them. Faking letters from ethnic groups to oppose progressive legislation? It’s like Karl Rove is back running the show.

Upbeat headlines have been everywhere in recent weeks, and they all seem to point to a single conclusion: The U.S. economy is in the early stages of a very rapid recovery.In fact, when you peruse the news it’s difficult to come to any other conclusion. For instance:A number of key earnings reports have been much better than expected, and company executives buttressed those profit figures with positive comments about the next 18 months.The trading operations of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Zero Hedge Whitney Tilson continues investigating High Frequency Trading From his Sunday letter to clients: 1) An interesting comment from a friend: The reason these firms make so much more money in fixed income is because the market making and prop trader is the same person. The distressed desk flow traders (the area that I know best) at the big firms have balance sheets up to a couple billion per group and they have all the information about who is buying and who is selling .

As posted to CleanTechBlog.com Despite all the optimistic talk about green jobs in the advanced energy economy of the future, many manufacturers from the industrial heartland are deathly afraid of the potential passage of climate change legislation, concerned that cap-and-trade will increase their electricity costs and thereby make their operations less profitable. A poster child of the heavy industry here in the Midwest is The Timken Company of Canton.

To get the economy back on track, will President Barack Obama have to break his pledge not to raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans? In a “This Week” exclusive, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told me, “We’re going to have to do what’s necessary.”Geithner was clear that he believes a key component of economic recovery is deficit reduction. When I gave him several opportunities to rule out a middle class tax hike, he wouldn’t do it.I”m actually not even a tiny bit surprised.

West Virginia – Economist sees negatives of cap-and-trade West Virginia University economist Russell Sobel sees myriad negatives coming from the proposed cap-and-trade bill ardently pushed by President Obama, touching every consumer in the United States. … Sobel pointed to the debate among scientists about global warming itself — whether industry is the culprit, or whether it is naturally occurring in the cyclic nature of weather.

Local Historian Adam Schwartz (in the baseball cap) begins a history tour of Northwest Bushwick in front Life Café on Flushing Avenue. — Photos by Diego Cupolo From humble Dutch settlers to the roaring fires of the 1970s, Adam Schwartz has been fascinated by Bushwick’s turbulent history ever since he started teaching at a local school. He is best known for creating the Up From Flames exhibit in 2007, which meticulously described the abandonment and revival of the neighborhood, and also gives historical walking tours from time to time.