Supervisors’ Discussion: the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and Prop 84 funds

On 7/23/13 the Sierra Nevada Conservancy made a presentation to the Amador County Board of Supervisors. I made the following public comment:

"We are all forced to make decisions within constrained “black boxes” that we did not create and often don’t like.  Therefore, I do not oppose applications for Prop 84 funds. If money is available we should take it. However, I have read the Prop 84 grant history, the material from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and their allied organizations and wish to make several comments.

All of these documents and projects are to protect watershed, but there is not one mention that watersheds are threatened because the water remains in the overgrown forest canopy and evaporates before it can reach the ground. There is also no mention of reducing overgrown forests through increased logging, which would produce profits rather than subsidy. The Sierra Nevada Conservancy values forests for carbon capture, accepting the fraud of CO2 induced climate change. Today that increased carbon is making deserts bloom around the world. Also the Sierra Nevada Conservancy initiates, encourages and supports efforts that improve, among other things, the social well being of the Sierra Nevada Region.  This is a radically new concept of government responsibility and I wonder about its origin and purpose. There is also troubling god like desires to micro manage nature and other areas of endeavor partly expressed in the inordinate expenditures for studies. The website of the Central Sierra Resource Conservation & Development Area informed me that the ancestry of 46% of the white population of this area is of English, German and Irish origin. That may make a great freshman Sociology term paper, but it seems hard to justify as an expense of over indebted government.

None of what I’ve said is meant to abrogate, among the many millions of dollars and hundred plus projects, the value of some projects such as firebreaks. But can’t existing parts of government do this? How many agencies do we need? Many of the Prop 84 monies have been appropriated to other parts of government such as UC Berkeley, the US Forest Service and to state parks which we know have hidden funds elsewhere.  This process where one government entity appropriates money to another government entity can only lead to government by connivers.  I much prefer the transparent process where the actual appropriations to education, or parks, or forests or whatever are discussed openly. This process also funds unelected bodies like the Association of Bay Area Governments which appears to be usurping local governmental authority with its One Bay Area Plan. Also funded, and among the various stakeholders, are ideological advocacy groups.

Prop 84 has devoted a huge amount of funds to land trusts and easements of various sorts. All these schemes have taken land from private ownership and preclude future subdivision and private ownership. This reverts to the aristocratic land tenure system of the Middle Ages. I find little difference between the omnipotent aristocrats of the past and the replacement omnipotent bureaucrats of today.

The entire American dream of land ownership is being assaulted. The Mokelumne/Amador/Calaveras Integrated Regional Water Management Plan Update, Community Outreach Plan contains appropriate wording protecting economically disadvantaged individuals from changes their plan may create. And while certainly there are some individuals to old or disabled to care for themselves, the vast majority of low income people are best served by plans that make economic growth the priority.”

Copyright 2013 © by Mark Bennett.

Who Is This Man?

He’s a registered Democrat who campaigned for and voted for Obama. His business partner is black. His high school girlfriend and prom date was black. When funding ran out for a local program mentoring black youth he continued working with them. He organized assistance for a local homeless black man who was assaulted by a white man.  He is part black and his black relatives once lived with him.

This man is George Zimmerman, a “racist white Hispanic” according to many in the media and government.  Certainly truth can’t be allowed to interfere with a political agenda, can it?

Copyright 2013, Mark L. Bennett

Beneath the Radar

Most of what I have written has discussed well known local and national issues. This time I will look at two developments presently “beneath the radar”.  First is Statement No. 67 issued by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (appropriately referred to by the acronym GASB).  This does not change how pension funds calculate their finances or obligations, but it does change how they publicly report their financial situation.  So within the next year or so, while nothing significant will have changed with pension stability, the media will alarm the public based solely on the changed reporting requirements. 

This will sow more distrust and provide another excuse for more government regulations with proposals for higher taxes for public pensions. Businesses will be asked to delay investments and/or reduce dividends to make greater pension contributions. It will also require more people sitting at desks crunching numbers instead of doing productive work that builds a future. Score another one for those destroying the United States.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, The Environmental Protection Agency and countless other regulatory agencies have for many years now engaged in what is essentially an extortion scheme. They charge a company with wrongdoing and then have that company pay the agency money without legally admitting any wrongdoing. Companies such as Facebook, Merck, Goldman Sachs and others have been involved. Some consider this efficient government since the money helps support the agency without additional tax monies. Of course, it also helps them to expand with minimal outside approval. Federal and state agencies received $1.92 billion from HSBC, the former Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp, for agreeing not to indict them for money transfers which included Mexican drug cartels and the Iranian government.

But the agencies’ prosecution of corporate wrong doing looks good in the media and the public seems to accept that they are doing their job.  And while some cases are probably simple extortion, many clearly are not.  But without an admission or legal ruling of guilt, it is extremely difficult for an ordinary person or group of ordinary people to sue and collect damages if they have been injured.  You would have to prove, for example, that a pharmaceutical company lied about a drug that disabled you rather than be

able to just sue based upon the regulatory agency’s court sanctioned legal finding of guilt. No matter what the merits of your case your adversary can file appeals until long after your death. Cynical Charles Dickens said “People are born into the case and people die into the case,” in Bleak House, his novel about the legal system.

While I am opposed to legislating from the bench, I am pleased to hear dissension from several judges. In one instance U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan called the $298 million arrangement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Barclays Bank, which included dropping of charges for trading with hostile foreign powers, a “sweetheart deal”.  Going a bit further, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff refused to approve a payment of $285 million for likely securities fraud from Citibank to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and demanded a trial with a conclusion of guilt or innocence.  Both the SEC and Citibank said that Judge Rakoff made a “clear error of law”. But Rakoff’s decision has brought forth support which spans the political spectrum from small business conservatives to left wing Senator Bernie Sanders.

The new SEC head, Mary Jo White, said that she would like more admissions of guilt. Attorney General Eric Holder stated that the Department of Justice would pursue more cases and that making billons and then paying fines in the millions is hardly a disincentive to crime. Time will tell if anything changes the status quo.  Will they decide if these laws are to protect we the people or just to enrich government?

How long can we endure the government in itself, by itself and for itself?

Copyright 2013, Mark L. Bennett

More Obama Atrocities

Some of my readers have informed me that my prior commentary about Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was too technical. So this commentary will skip the mechanics and discuss only the outcomes of Obama’s planned limits on retirement account savings.  Its complexity is mind numbing, expensive and with perhaps impossible requirements. It appears analogous to the concept of vague laws that are unenforceable within democratic traditions. Therefore it may entrap citizens and will contribute to the why bother to achieve attitude prevalent among so many young people today.

People’s retirement savings will be vastly reduced. While it is being sold as a tax the rich scheme with its 3.4 million dollar retirement savings cap, a closer look reveals that it could set limits as low as $131,000. Private invested capital within our economy would be vastly reduced.  This leads to lower standards of living, more government borrowing and more dependence upon government. But it does satisfy the lust of the hate the rich crowd while producing relatively meaningless amounts of additional government revenue. 

Over the past few decades all Presidents and all Congresses have done the opposite of Obama. They have produced legislation to make it easier to save for retirement because it is good for the economy, good for the individuals involved and represents the will of the people. Obama, however, “hears a different drummer”.

Obama wanted credit for his appointment of Sonia Sotomayer as the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. However, Benjamin Cardozo was the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. But truth is never an impediment to Obama. He just changed history like past dictators who erased people from photos and the lapdog media, including government funded PBS, complied. They claimed that he was Portuguese and therefore not Hispanic.  Anyone familiar with that historical period knows that his ancestors fled the Spanish Inquisition to Portugal and then on to the New World as alleged Portuguese. Besides, Mr.Cardozo has a politically incorrect background, his family was wealthy with Revolutionary War heroes among his ancestors.

Is this pattern of Obama’s actions, along with Obamacare and his other programs, becoming clear yet? But Obama’s lucky being black, that makes him harder to confuse with Joseph Stalin. 

Copyright 2013, Mark L. Bennett