Who Needs Jobs Anyway?

Suppose I told you of an economic plan that would add $600 billion every year to the world economy, $200 billion of which would come directly into the US economy. In 10 year speak, that’s more than $2 trillion into the US economy... about 2.5 times the amount of the Obama stimulus, and this money would grow out of the economy rather than being borrowed so it could be pumped in. Sounds like something anyone would jump on, right? Yeah, good luck with that.

The agreement in question is the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,” a sort of free trade agreement with Japan which would open up the service sector of both countries to free trade as well as doing some things for agriculture.

The Japanese want it. America wants it. Even Team Obama want it... probably because they need to start producing jobs unless he wants to be known as The Unemployment President. So why isn’t it happening?

Well, Obama has never made trade agreements a priority. In fact, like all the import parts of his job, they bore him. But now he’s working diligently (or at least his people are), and they’ve come up with several deals or potential deals. Several of these are estimated to be at least as valuable as the TTIP.

BUT there is a problem. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi (the new darling of the fringe... think about that for a moment), don’t want any stinkin’ trade agreements. And to keep that from happening, Reid has denied Obama “fast-track” authority to negotiate these deals. The fast-track authority lets the President submit these treaties to the Congress in a yes/no fashion with no amendments. Without that authority, no one will sign on the dotted line with us because they would be making all kinds of politically unpopular compromises only to have us say, “Gee, that’s great, now we need to run this through Congress and see what the retard from Arkansas wants to add.” Only a fool would negotiate with anyone who doesn’t have the authority to stand behind their promises.

So because of Harry Reid, several billion dollars that could be added to the economy are missing. Of course, this is nothing new. The Democrats have always been protectionist because their party is about protecting inefficiency rather than fixing it. Heck, with things like Obamacare they’ve even crossed over into the business of actively promoting inefficiency.

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Law of the Sea Treaty Dead Again

We’ve spoken before about Big Business not being conservative. Here’s more proof, along with some very good news. The Law of the Sea Treaty is dead. Good for America.

Why This Is A Dangerous Treaty

I first became aware of the Law of the Sea Treaty when it was conceived during the Reagan years in 1982, and it seemed like a horrible idea at the time. The idea was that the world’s oceans contain a vast amount of mineral wealth, but because only the rich world has the resources to exploit it, a treaty should be passed to divide this wealth equally among all countries.

The way the treaty works is it divides the ocean floor into zones. Internal waters (like a bay) and up to 12 miles from shore are considered territorial water and are treated as if they are dry land. A country’s sovereignty is complete within that zone (the old zone was three miles). The next 12 miles are considered a continuous zone. Within that zone, countries may impose laws related to customs, taxation, immigration and pollution, but cannot stop navigation. The next 200 miles are considered an exclusive economic zone. Here the state has some rights, but foreign countries may lay pipe or cable and navigate freely. Beyond that are international waters.

This may sound harmless, but that’s not all the treaty does. The treaty includes 320 articles and is over 200 pages long. It establishes a complex regulatory regime that applies to almost every commercial and government activity related to the oceans. This includes the regulation of shipping, the regulation of drug interdiction, and even the regulation of manufacturing conducted in coastal waterways. Moreover, it gives the U.N. unprecedented taxing and permitting authority over international waters. Essentially, this is a U.N. takeover of oceans.

Through these regulatory schemes, the U.N. could impose things like the Kyoto Protocol (on global warming) through the back door, could forced U.S. citizens to pay energy taxes to other nations, and the U.N. could claim the power to regulate U.S. military actions.

Ronald Reagan refused to sign this treaty for similar reasons. The extension of the territorial limit from 3 miles to 12 miles meant U.S. submarines and intelligence ships could be put in danger. He felt the regulatory scheme would stop undersea mining as permits to mine require an application fee of $250,000 ($500,000 at the time), plus the corporation must pay an annual fee of $1 millions to the U.N.’s International Seabed Authority, plus they would need to pay up to 7% of profits, plus they would need to share mining and navigational technology. Moreover, the decision on whether or not to grant such a license would belong to the Seabed Authority, which is controlled by Third World countries. This would give them veto power over all such activities. Reagan believed this was set up to discourage deep sea mining to protect the mining industries on land, which tend to operate in Third World countries. He also objected that the mandatory dispute resolution procedures bound Americans to the decisions of foreign judges and harmed American sovereignty.

Clinton tried to pass this treaty and essentially failed, as did Bush II and Obama. John Kerry has been pushing this in the Senate.

Why It’s Dead

Since two-thirds of the Senate must support a treaty before it can become law, it only takes 24 Senators to stop a treaty. Thirty-four Republicans have now come out in opposition to the Law of the Sea Treaty, which means it’s effectively dead. The charge was led by Tea Party conservative Jim DeMint, who was joined by GOP liberal Rob Portman of Ohio, conservative Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, cow-tipper Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, and 29 other Republicans. John “my friends” McCain was on the wrong side, as always. Since the treaty cannot get the two-thirds vote it needs, it’s dead, Jim. . . for now.

Who Supports It And Why

Naturally, only Democrats (and McCain) supported this thing, right? Actually, no. The American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce both supported it. API is Big Oil’s lobbying arm and the Chamber of Commerce is Big Business’s lobbying arm. How could they possibly support this, you ask? Doesn’t the loss of sovereignty, the risk to the US Military, the imposition of international taxes mean anything them?

Well. . . no. Their only concern is profit. And by getting all these minerals safely regulated by an international tribunal, they can then go about making money by extracting them. What about the taxes and fees? Well, that’s really your problem, not theirs, because corporations don’t pay taxes. . . their customers pay taxes.

If you ever needed a more clear example of how little the United States of America and you mean to these companies, this is it. They will happily sell you and your rights to a United Nations tribunal dominated by corrupt Third-World governments just so they can make sure they get the monopoly rights on these minerals. Think about that the next time some oil company or some mineral company or any other multinational company comes to you and says they need some law to help them.

These people are not our friends.


P.S. Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site.

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Copenhagen Treaty Collapses

It is ironic that the very week NBC has decided to insert environmentalist propaganda into its programming, their lord and savior, the Obamassiah, has decided to terminate the Copenhagen Treaty with extreme tardiness. So much for environmental dreams.

For those who don’t remember, the Copenhagen Treaty is intended to replace the Kyoto Treat, which expires in 2012. Kyoto is the utopian treaty created by the rabid enviro-socialists at the United Nations with the intent of crippling first world economies to stop “anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” Translated, that means that they want to shackle Western economies to stop evil man from interfering with the environment. Why only Western economies? You know the reason.

In any event, Kyoto was a nightmarish treaty that no rational American wanted to see signed. Which is not to say it wasn’t popular. The third worlders all signed up with glee, because they had to do nothing under the treaty except open bank accounts and wait for Western guilt money to start flowing. The Western Europeans signed up for it because they are led by retarded baboons who despise their own people. American leftists wanted us to sign up for it because they had visions of recreating the paradise that was East German dancing in their heads. . . see if you want a wall between us and Mexico then!

But our politicians knew better. . . they refused. Evil Bush right? Not so fast. Evil Clinton was the first to refuse to send it to the Senate. And polar bears died. After evil Clinton left office, evil Bush too refused to submit it to the Senate. And while he was much pilloried by the Democrats for making the world hate us by keeping us out of their economic suicide club, evil Obama too refused to submit the Treaty to the Senate when he took over.

But evil Obama did something quite clever. He told his less-than-bright supporters that he wanted to submit it to the Senate, but with Kyoto expiring in 2012 and soon to be replaced by Kyoto, it just made more sense to forget about Kyoto and to instead focus on getting Copenhagen signed. They bought it.

Yet, something was rotten in Copenhagen, as we pointed out in THIS October 20 article that you all should have read. . . it will be on the test. Based on comments made by Obama’s chief negotiator, we warned you that it looked like Copenhagen wasn’t going to happen. Not only did Obama demand more cuts from the third worlders than they were expecting -- (and they were not happy about it, let me tell you! It’s one thing to join a suicide club as an observer, it’s another to be expected to participate!) -- but the Westerners were grumbling that they didn’t like the idea that they had to pay the third worlders in exchange for their participation.

We also noted that Obama has refused to agree to the limits the treaty proponents wanted on emissions. And this made everyone sad.

Well, this weekend, our dire prediction came true. Copenhagen went down in non-fossil-fuel flames when a group of Asian world leaders (and Obama) agreed that the Copenhagen Treaty could wait until 2010. . . or even later.

Said U.S. negotiator Michael Froman:

"I don't think the negotiations have proceeded in such a way that many of the leaders thought it was likely that we were going to achieve a final agreement in Copenhagen. . . There was an assessment by the leaders that it was unrealistic to expect a full, international legally binding agreement to be negotiated between now and when Copenhagen starts in 22 days."

Le French, however, weren’t buying it. They blame Obama. Whined French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo: “The problem is the United States, there’s no doubt about that. It’s the world’s number one power, the biggest emitter, the biggest per capita emitter and it’s saying, ‘I’d like to but I can’t.’ That’s the issue.” Sacre bleu! Sounds like somebody wants to smack Obama with his purse!

Of course, I don’t know what the French are crying about. If they really want to shut down their economy, they can start without us.

In the end, Obama’s historic unemployment rate has convinced him that now is not the time to mess around with leftist thinking. Obama has managed to lose or not save an additional 5.2 million jobs beyond those Bush already managed to not save. And unemployment hasn’t peaked yet. So, apparently, sometimes, saving the world can wait.

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Copenhagen: Danger Will Robinson. . .

Many of you have probably heard us mention the Copenhagen Treaty in passing. This week, the Copenhagen Treaty took center stage when Margaret Thatcher’s former science advisor, Lord Christopher Monchton, warned us that the United States was about to hand over its sovereignty to a world government. Let’s discuss. . .


What Monchton Said

On Wednesday night at an event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute, Lord Monchton warned that Obama intended to sign something called the Copenhagen Treaty in December of this year. This 200 page treaty, according to Monchton, would create a “world government” which would draft environmental regulations, which each signatory to the treaty would be required to enforce. This “government” also would oversee the transfer of wealth from the West to third world countries, to satisfy something called a “climate debt” based on the idea that the West has caused more pollution than the rest of the world.

Monchton then stated that if Obama signs the treaty, it will take precedence over the Constitution, and that the United States could not withdraw from the treaty without the agreement of all other treaty signatories.

Is he right? Not quite, though there is reason to be concerned.


What Is The Copenhagen Treaty?

Between December 7-18, 2009, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark for the purposes of completing a treaty (the Copenhagen Treaty) that will replace the Kyoto Treaty, which expires in 2012.

The Kyoto Treaty (actually the Kyoto Protocol) is an environmental treaty negotiated through the United Nations, which aims to achieve “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” In other words, the treaty aims to force countries to cut their “greenhouse gas emissions” to levels that will not affect the climate. The term “anthropogenic inference” is bureau-speak for “human activity.”

Kyoto was adopted in December 1997 and took effect in February 2005. As of October 2009, 184 countries have signed and ratified the treaty. However, Kyoto does not apply equally. Under Kyoto, only 37 industrialized countries must make cuts -- they must reduce various “greenhouse gases” by 5% from their 1990 levels. These gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, hydroflurocarbons, and perfluorocarbons.

The remaining countries are not required to cut their emissions at all. These are the so-called “developing countries.” This includes both China and India, even though both are heavy polluters. Indeed, as of August 2008, China is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. India is third, just behind the United States.

It was because the developing countries were not included that the United States government never ratified Kyoto. On November 12, 1998, Vice President Algore symbolically signed the protocol, even though he acknowledged that the protocol would not be acted upon by the United States until the developing nations were required to participate. And indeed, the Clinton Administration never submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification.

The Bush Administration also refused to submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification.

Many environmentalists thought Obama would submit the treaty to the Senate, but he too has refused. In April 2009, Obama said that “it doesn’t make sense for the United States to sign the Kyoto Protocol because it is about to end.”

The Copenhagen Treaty is an attempt to replace the Kyoto Treaty when it expires in 2012. Obama has not committed to signing that treaty yet.


What Does The Copenhagen Treaty Do?

Does the Copenhagen Treaty do what Monchton states? Unfortunately, I can’t tell you because there does not appear to be any draft of the Copenhagen Treaty available for the public to read. Thus, I have no way to confirm whether or not Monchton is correct in his assertion that the treaty includes the word “government” -- not to mention that negotiations on the treaty are not complete.

Indeed, the Treaty is 200 pages long, and at least 2000 of its parts are in dispute. From comments made by Obama’s chief negotiator, Todd Stern, there are at least two major issues that may result in the total failure of the Copenhagen conference: (1) Obama wants China, India, Brazil, South Africa and other developing nations to cut their own emissions, which is not going over too well with those countries, and (2) negotiations have been deadlocked for months about who will pay to help developing countries go low-carbon (estimated cost: $100 billion a year). The developing nations want the West to pay for this, the West has refused.

We also know that Obama has refused to agree to the limits wanted by treaty proponents. At the G8 conference in July, the G8 industrial nations agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, which they hoped would limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. This is actually less restrictive than the Kyoto Treaty. Thus, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said this was not enough. Nevertheless, this appears to be what Obama is proposing for Copenhagen. (Big business has also signed on to this level of cuts and is actively pushing for adoption of laws that would apply these limits to their smaller competitors.)

Beyond that, there is not much that can be said of the treaty at this time.


So Should We Be Worried?

Of course we should be worried. We should never trust treaties or legislation that is not made available for the public to read. Also, the third world has a history of using these treaties to get goodies from guilt-ridden western diplomats. Further, the environmental/socialist movement has a long history now of using these treaties as attacks on capitalism and as attempts to steal national sovereignty. Likewise, big business has a long history of using such regulations to tie the hands of their smaller competitors.

Yet, there is no reason to panic just yet.

Obama can sign this thing in blood if he wants to, but that doesn’t make it law. Before any treaty can become legally binding under United States law, the treaty must be submitted to the Senate for ratification. When (if) that happens, we will get a chance to see the treaty and assess it -- at which point we can make a rational assessment of the treaty and Obama’s negotiating skills, and we can challenge what needs to be challenged. Shadowboxing against something we cannot read or see is counter-productive.

Also, it’s not at all clear that a treaty can hand over significant legislative control to a foreign body. While it is true that a treaty, once ratified, becomes the same as United States law, it still must comply with the requirements of the Constitution. In other words, a treaty could not be used to do anything that the government could not do on its own -- though this may be small conciliation if it still allows significant legislation to be made. Though, that brings up the next question: can Congress cede its legislative duties to a foreign body? This is unlikely because of the clear responsibilities set out by the Constitution -- though I am unaware of this issue having been resolved before (probably because no one has tried to do this before).

Finally, on Lord Monchton’s point about the United States being trapped once it signs, it should be pointed out that “international law” is based on a false premise -- that it is enforceable. The reality is that international law is voluntary. Those who teach international law will cringe at that, but they are deluding themselves. Treaties are voluntary agreements. Sure they can claim to have “binding effect” and there is a whole pile of confused “law” which you can use to interpret those treaties and the such. . . blah blah blah, but the truth is that there is no organization out there that enforces those agreements. No international sheriff is going to come padlock the doors to the United States. Thus, these agreements are not “binding” or “enforceable” in any real sense of those words. And if the United States chooses to renounce the treaty or to simply ignore it, there is no force that will make the United States live up to the treaty.


Conclusion

So in the end, we should thank Lord Monchton for raising this issue and we should be wary of what is going on in Copenhagen. But at the same time, that is all we should do. The ball is in Obama’s court. If and when he gets a treaty completed and signed, then we should examine it closely and blast him for his failures. In the meantime, keep your powder dry.

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