InfinitePrep

Posts Tagged ‘economy’

OBAMA’S NEW NASA FUNDING IS VITAL TO GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND AMERICAN LEADERSHIP

BUSINESS WIRE 2-3-2010

ORGITAL SCIENCES CORPORATION STATEMENT ON NASA’S NEW DIRECTION, DULLES

Under a new five-year program for the 2011-2015 period, NASA intends to stimulate the development of advanced technologies and new business models, building the foundation for 21st Century solar system exploration, Earth climate monitoring and environmental protection, and next-generation aerospace workforce inspiration and education. By working in innovative new partnerships with U.S. industry and academic institutions, NASA will maintain America’s leadership in space while also contributing substantially to our country’s economic well-being.

IMPACT – RENEWABLE ENERGY – CLIMATE CHANGE / ENVIRONMENT / ECONOMY

ENERGY POLICY IS KEY TO SOLVE ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE ISSUES

FREEP.COM 1-24-2010

SMARTER ENERGY CAN BENEFIT STATE’S BOTTOM LINE TOO, CHESTER, FRMR DIRECTOR MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

If we truly want an economy suited for the 21st Century, Michigan must formulate strategies and mobilize government action to exploit the links between energy, environment and economic policy.

Michigan is in a period of extraordinary transition. The automobile industry is seeking to reinvent and revitalize itself, and Michigan’s economic future depends on greatly diversifying the state’s economy.

Another compelling challenge we face — as a nation and a state — is the urgent need to respond to climate change and its impact on our health, our natural resources and our way of life.

And nowhere are connections among the economy, energy and the environment more evident than when formulating strategies to reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate the effects of global warming. These are positive connections and impacts, not negative ones.

For example: The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, with funding from the Kresge Foundation,

Even if one is agnostic on climate change, these results provide a compelling economic argument for pursuing renewable energy, energy efficiency and mass transit.

Consider that in an average year approximately 90%, or about $20 billion, of Michigan’s household and business purchases of energy leaves the state. This is because Michigan imports almost all of its energy fuels from other states and countries, including 100% of the coal burned in Michigan power plants. This is a massive shift in wealth that hurts Michigan’s economy.

But what if we pursued policies that drastically reduced Michigan’s dependence on coal and replaced it with homegrown sources of energy? Over 60% of the electricity generated in Michigan is from coal-fired plants. Coal plants are the single largest emitters of mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The adverse impacts of these pollutants on air and water quality and, hence, human health, are well documented. Renewable sources of energy are virtually nonpolluting. Consequently, by reducing demand through energy efficiency and changing some of the supply over to renewable sources, Michigan saves money and our environment improves, too.

This is just one example — a significant one — of the interconnections between energy, environment and economic policy. The path forward is clear. If we choose to align our priorities for development of new technologies, we will create a unique opportunity to reduce energy costs, create jobs and income, and diversify our economy — and we might just have an impact on climate change, too

Climate Oscillations kill billions and wreck the global economy

Lester Milbrath, Director of the Research Program in Environment and Society at the State University of New York, THE FUTURIST, May 1994, p. 28.

As this scenario plays out, it is improbable that the climate system will not change at all or that it will gradually change to a new pattern and settle down, as is assumed in most current economic thinking. The most-probable climate scenario is for even more chaos. Many meteorologists and climatologists already perceive the climate system as chaotic. If humans increasingly perturb that system, we could expect it to become even more chaotic. But how chaotic will it become, what kinds of chaos might we expect, and how long will it last? No one knows the answers to those questions. From chaos theory, we do suspect that systems which become extremely chaotic may collapse or shift to a new pattern–one that may or may not be stable.  The climatic catastrophes of recent years do suggest one possible scenario of climate behavior. Frequent, unexpected climatic disasters may be interspersed into “normal” climate patterns. The resulting loss of life and property could reduce the human propensity to multiply and to increase economic throughput. Experiencing these losses may lead people to lose faith in the premise of continuity. This will retard economic growth despite the desperate efforts of governments to promote it.  Another scenario suggests that there could be an extended period, perhaps a decade or two, when there is oscillation-type chaos in the climate system. Plants will be especially vulnerable to oscillating chaos, since they are injured or die when climate is too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. And since plants make food for all other creatures, plant dieback would lead to severe declines in agricultural production. Farm animals and wildlife would die in large numbers. Many humans also would starve. Several years of climatic oscillation could kill billions of people.  The loss of the premise of continuity would also precipitate collapse of world financial markets. That collapse would lead to sharp declines in commodity markets, world trade, factory output, retail sales, research and development, tax income for governments, and education. Such nonessential activities as tourism, travel, hotel occupancy, restaurants, entertainment, and fashion would be severely affected. Billions of unemployed people would drastically reduce their consumption, and modern society’s vaunted economic system would collapse like a house of cards.d

IMPACT – IMMIGRATION REFORM – ECONOMY [1NC]

COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM BOOSTS THE ECONOMY OUT OF THE RECESSION IN THE SHORT AND LONG TERM – FAILURE TO ENACT WOULD POISON THE ALREADY TENTATIVE RECOVERY – STUDIES SHOW IT IS A NO BRAINER

INVESTMENT BUSINESS WEEKLY 1-24-2010

NEW REPORT HIGHLIGHTS ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF CIR, POSTED 1-13, IMMIGRATION POLICY CENTER

As the U.S. slowly pulls free from a deep recession, a groundbreaking new study concludes that comprehensive immigration reform would provide just the type of boost our economy needs. Today, the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Immigration Policy Center (IPC) released a joint report, Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, (posted at www.immigrationpolicy.org) which shows that legalizing the roughly 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. through comprehensive immigration reform, as well as making future flows more flexible, would grow the economy by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The stark number cuts into the credibility of claims by immigration restrictionists that immigration reform during an economic recession is implausible.

According to research by Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, founding director of the North American Integration and Development Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, creating a legalization process for unauthorized workers would, in the long term (10 years), yield $1.5 trillion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and in the short term (3 years) generate $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional tax revenue and consumer spending sufficient to support 750,000 to 900,000 jobs.

Dr. Hinojosa ran several different economic scenarios and found that enacting a comprehensive immigration reform plan which creates a legalization process for unauthorized workers and sets a flexible visa program not only raises the wage floor for all American workers, but is an economic necessity. Conversely, the deportation prescription that is offered by immigration restrictionists would poison the already anemic U.S. economy by draining $2.5 trillion in GDP over 10 years, even before factoring in the costs of deporting 12 million people and permanently sealing the border.

“These are stark and significant numbers that lawmakers should commit to memory,” said Angela M. Kelley, Vice President for Immigration Policy and Advocacy at CAP. “We have got an issue where we know we can improve the economy. It would be to their peril for lawmakers to be short-sighted and not pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation that will reverberate across the economy and help all Americans.”

“This report underscores an important opportunity for positive input into an economy that needs it,” said Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council. “The report further highlights the need for immigration reform that is focused on what’s good for the American economy and what’s good for American workers.”

As Dan Griswold, Director of Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, noted during today’s press conference, “Enforcement-only is a policy that has not only failed, but has imposed significant costs to Americans as taxpayers. If Congress and the President want to create better jobs and stimulate the economy, then comprehensive immigration reform should be very high on their agenda.”

NU – ECONOMIC RECOVERY IS STILL TERRIBLE – NEW JOBS REPORT SHOWS UNEMPLOYMENT IS STILL HIGH

FOX NEWS 1-10-2010

WHITE HOUSE ECONOMIC ADVISER, AP STORY

A top White House economic adviser said Sunday “you’ll get no argument from” her on the need to improve the miserable jobs picture.

Council of Economic Advisers chief Christina Romer said it’s devastating that some workers have been unemployed for two years and that job losses were continuing nearly a year after passage of the so-called stimulus bill.

The jobless rate remained at 10 percent in December as 660,000 people said they had left the workforce. But Romer couched the news by saying the siphoning of jobs from the market has slowed.

“In the first quarter of 2009, when we first came in, we were losing on average 691,000 jobs per month. With these new numbers in the fourth quarter, we were losing 69,000 jobs,” she said. “It’s still terrible. We’re still losing jobs, and we absolutely have to go from losing any jobs at all to adding them at a robust rate.”

U – GLOBAL ECONOMY – CHINESE IMPORTS REOVERING ALONG WITH GLOBAL ECONOMIC MOMENTUM

BLOOMBERG 1-10-2010

CHINA TRADE REBOUND AIDS GLOBAL RECOVERY, PANCKHURST ET AL

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — China’s exports surged in December and imports rose to a record in a stronger-than-forecast trade rebound that may lessen the case for governments to sustain stimulus programs this year.

Exports climbed 17.7 percent from a year earlier, the first increase in 14 months, and imports jumped 55.9 percent, the customs bureau said on its Web site yesterday. Year-on-year comparisons are affected by declines from late 2008 as the global credit crisis deepened.

China’s central bank last week guided three-month bill yields higher for the first time since August, suggesting that the government wants to rein in liquidity to limit the risks of real-estate bubbles and resurgent inflation. Stronger exports may fuel overseas calls for gains by the yuan against the dollar after policy makers halted appreciation for 17 months to help manufacturers weather slumping demand.

“A global recovery is gaining momentum and countries’ exits from stimulus may come earlier than expected, including for China,” said Wang Hu, a Shanghai-based economist at Guotai Junan Securities Co., the nation’s largest brokerage by revenue. “Soaring imports are more evidence that China’s economy may face an increasing danger of overheating.”

IMPACT – IMMIGRATION REFORM – ECONOMY – QUALS

PREFER OUR IMPACT – CONSENSUS OF STUDIES SHOWS IMMIGRATION REFORM PAYS FOR ITSELF AND IS KEY TO ECONOMIC GROWTH

FITZ ET AL 12-16-2009 – DIRECTOR IMMIGRATION POLICY CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

IMMIGRATION REFORM WILL ENHANCE ECONOMIC RECOVERY, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

Reports assessing the economic gains of legalizing the workforce are uniformly positive18:

• A 2009 Cato Institute study found that requiring immigrants without status to become

legal taxpayers will lead to substantial increases in productivity and is projected to grow

GDP $180 billion annually.19

• The reform bill passed by the Senate in 2006, which included a legalization program,

would have generated $66 billion in new income and payroll taxes over 10 years, according

to the Congressional Budget Office.20

• An assessment of alternatives to legalization by the Perryman Group in 2007 concluded

that removing the undocumented workforce from the United States would result in the

permanent loss of roughly 2.8 million jobs and a decline in gross domestic product of

$245 billion.21

• A 2005 analysis of the five-year cost to Department of Homeland Security of deporting

the undocumented population at that time was more than $200 billion.22 That figure is

closer to $300 billion today.23

A legalization program that pays for itself with application fees unequivocally delivers a

better economic return than a single-minded enforcement approach that pours billions of

dollars toward an economically counterproductive end.

IMPACT – DEFICITS DISAD – HARD LANDING

DEFICITS RISK HARD LANDING FOR US ECONOMY

INVESTORS.COM 12-14-2009

CONGRESS URGED TO CURB DEBT, NEWS AND ANALYSIS

A bipartisan group of former lawmakers and budget officials urged Congress and Pres. Obama to keep federal debt from exceeding 60% of GDP to prevent damage to the economy, according to the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform. “A hard landing — where higher deficits and debt cause investors to lose confidence in the U.S. economy and rising interest rates choke off the economic growth — is a real possibility,” the report said. Budget forecasts see the debt reaching 80% of GDP by 2019.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

But going to war does not a foreign policy make. If Americans are searching for a new Obama foreign policy, they need to look back to the closing words of Obama’s West Point speech. Those paragraphs zeroed in on the overriding imperative of restoring America’s economic strength-the very heart of America’s military and diplomatic power and economic competitiveness. Without that economic power, there will be no military and economic power, no military victories, not much of anything. This truth, one of the few truths in the foreign-policy business, is the only basis for a realistic and effective national-security policy.