EPA Whistleblower Criticizes Global Warming Science and Policy in New Peer-Reviewed Study

Study Shows Claims of Catastrophic Warming Are Overwhelmingly Contradicted By Real-Word Data
Competitive Enterprise Institute

By Christine Hall

April 01, 2011

Washington, D.C., April 1, 2011 – The scientific hypotheses underlying global warming alarmism are overwhelmingly contradicted by real-world data, and for that reason economic studies on the alleged benefits of controlling greenhouse gas emissions are baseless.  That’s the finding of a new peer-reviewed report by a former EPA whistleblower.

Dr. Alan Carlin, now retired, was a career environmental economist at EPA when CEI broke the story of his negative report on the agency’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases in June, 2009.  Dr. Carlin’s supervisor had ordered him to keep quiet about the report and to stop working on global warming issues.  EPA’s attempt to silence Dr. Carlin became a highly-publicized embarrassment to the agency, given Administrator Lisa Jackson’s supposed commitment to transparency.

Dr. Carlin’s new study, A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change, is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.  It finds that fossil fuel use has little impact on atmospheric CO2 levels.  Moreover, the claim that atmospheric CO2 has a strong positive feedback effect on temperature is contradicted on several grounds, ranging from low atmospheric sensitivity to volcanic eruptions, to the lack of ocean heating and the absence of a predicted tropical “hot spot.”

However, most economic analyses of greenhouse gas emission controls, such as those being imposed by EPA, have been conducted with no consideration of the questionable nature of the underlying science.  For that reason, according to Dr. Carlin, the actual “economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less” than what is claimed in those reports.

Sam Kazman, CEI General Counsel, stated, “One of the major criticisms of Dr. Carlin’s EPA report was that it was not peer-reviewed, even though peer-review was neither customary for internal agency assessments, nor was it possible due to the time constraints imposed on Dr. Carlin by the agency.  For that reason, we are glad to see this expanded version of Dr. Carlin’s report now appear as a peer-reviewed study.”

Read the full report: A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change

See also the CEI OnPoint, “Clearing the Air on the EPA's False Regulatory Benefit-Cost Estimates and Its Anti-Carbon Agenda” by Garrett A. Vaughn

Enterprise Institute's Fred Smith: Strip EPA Before It Kills Economy

Newsmax.com

Friday, 01 Apr 2011

By Henry J. Reske and Matthew Belvedere

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an out-of-control operation that imperils America’s future as it crusades to regulate every aspect of life, from light bulbs to washing machines, Competitive Enterprise Institute President Fred Smith tells Newsmax.TV.

“The first thing that needs to be done is to strip the EPA of its ability to destroy America’s energy future and therefore America’s economic future,” said Smith, who founded the nonprofit public policy group in 1984.

The EPA is “hell-bent” on regulating CO2, Smith said during a Newsmax interview at a recent dinner in Washington, D.C., adding that allowing the EPA to regulate every use of energy in the country is a massive expansion of government authority “much bigger than Obamacare, which in its own way is every bit as destructive.”

Story continues below video.



“The EPA is a rogue organization,” he said. “It is totally out of control. It’s trying to basically micromanage everything from light bulbs, to the air conditioners we sell, to the washing machines, to our lives. I mean probably our very lives because there are too many of us; they want less of us on our planet.”

Smith’s Competitive Enterprise Institute promotes free enterprise and limited government and deals in a wide range of policy issues including energy, environment, and business and finance. The group also focuses on regulatory agencies, Smith said.

“Regulation is the tool of death to any smaller firm and entrepreneurial firms are always small,” he said. “You stomp out the seeds of tomorrow and you have no plants for tomorrow.”

As to efforts to reduce government spending, Smith said, “Republicans and Democrats and America has to recognize that when you have got a $1.5 trillion deficit and you’re worried about cutting the budget by $60 or $70 billion, you’re a way from being serious about the issue.”

“There is sort of a mock show going on. We haven’t even talked about entitlements, we haven’t talked about the military budget, how many wars can American fight without declarations of war and so on . . . All of that together means America is nonsustainable. It must stop; it will stop. What Congress had to realize is if it doesn’t move quickly, and the administration doesn’t move quickly that crash could be disastrous to the stability of our economy.”

Radioactive Water From Crippled Nuclear Plant Leaking Into Pacific, Japan Officials Say

FOXNews.com

Published April 02, 2011

Associated Press

April 1: Workers for the company experimentally spray adhesive synthetic resin over the ground at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okumamachi, northeastern Japan. TEPCO expects the resin spraying to prevent dust exposed to radiation materials from spreading out of the premises. (AP/TEPCO)

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan –  Japan's prime minister surveyed the damage in a town gutted by a massive tsunami, as officials said Saturday that highly radioactive water was leaking into the sea from the nuclear plant stricken by the disaster.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex has been spewing radioactivity since March 11, when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing wave knocked out power, disabling cooling systems and allowing radiation to seep out of the overheating reactors.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan went to the plant and flew over the tsunami-damaged coast soon after the wave hit, but Saturday was the first time he set foot in one of the pulverized towns.

Dressed in the blue work clothes that have become almost a uniform for officials, Kan stopped in Rikuzentakata, where the town hall is one of the few buildings still standing. All its windows are blown out and a tangle of metal and other debris is piled in front of it.

The prime minister bowed his head for a minute of silence in front of the building. He met with the town's mayor, whose 38-year-old wife was swept away in the wave and is still missing. Officials fear about 25,000 people may have been killed, many of whose bodies have not been found.

Read the entire article

Plosser, Lacker: Inflation May Prompt Fed to Raise Rates in 2011



Federal Reserve



Moneynews.com

April 1, 2011

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser and Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker said Friday the central bank might raise interest rates before the end of the year in response to a growing economy and rising inflation.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if we need to act before the end of the year,” Lacker said today in a CNBC television interview. “Inflation is the bigger risk this year. That is what you have to keep your eye on.”

Meanwhile, Plosser said an increase in growth or inflation could require the Fed to begin withdrawing record monetary stimulus and possibly raise its main interest rate by the end of this year.

“Signs that inflation expectations are beginning to rise or that growth rates are accelerating significantly would suggest that it is time to begin taking our foot off the accelerator and start heading for the exit ramp,” Plosser said today in a speech in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

“It’s certainly a possibility” that the Fed will need to raise rates before the end of 2011, Plosser told reporters after the speech. “In my mind it’s definitely on the table but it will depend on how things play out over the next few months.”

As Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the Federal Open Market Committee near the completion of a $600 billion bond buying program, some central bankers are focusing on the strategy and timing for shrinking the Fed’s record $2.63 trillion balance sheet and eventually raising interest rates above the zero to 0.25 percent range that has been in place since December 2008.

“We should not be too sanguine in believing that such a time is a long way off or that the process will only be gradual,” he said. “A stronger rebound in the economy or inflation than some now expect could require policy actions to be taken sooner and more aggressively than many observers seem to be anticipating.”

At the FOMC’s last meeting on March 15, Plosser, 62, joined the rest of the committee in unanimously reaffirming plans to buy Treasuries while saying the recovery is gaining strength and that the effects of higher energy prices will be “transitory.”
Read the entire article

17 National Debt Statistics Which Prove That We Have Sold Our Children And Grandchildren Into Perpetual Debt Slavery

The Economic Collapse

March 30, 2011

What we have done to future generations over the past 30 years is absolutely criminal.  30 years ago the U.S. national debt was a bit under one trillion dollars, and at that time it was considered a huge national crisis.  Today, the national debt is 14 times larger and the years ahead look absolutely apocalyptic at this point.  We have literally sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery. 

We have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and our children and our grandchildren will be burdened with it for the rest of their lives.  All of our politicians keep talking about how it is vitally important that we do something about all of this debt "soon", but they just can't seem to stop wildly spending our money.  They keep telling us that now is not the time for deficit reduction because it would harm "the economic recovery", but the "right time" for deficit reduction never seems to come along. 

The national debt statistics in this article are meant to shock you.  Hopefully they will shock you enough to actually take action.  Up to this point, the vast majority of Americans have been extremely apathetic about the horrific crime that we are committing against future generations.

How would you feel if you found out one day that your parents had run up a million dollars in debt that now you were obligated to pay off?

Would you be absolutely furious?

Of course you would be, and rightly so.

So how do you think future generations will feel about us?

We were once the wealthiest nation on the planet, but we have taken that great inheritance and we have squandered it.

Now we are handing our children and our grandchildren the largest debt the world has ever seen.
How in the world can we do that?

How can we consign our descendants to perpetual debt slavery and still feel good about ourselves?
The America that we have all been enjoying so much today is going to be wiped out by all of this debt.
We have literally stolen the future.

We just had to keep spending more and more and more and more.
The greed of this generation will be remembered for a very, very long time.
Read the entire article

Webster Tarpley: Al Qaeda does US dirty work in Libya

RT
March 31, 2011

It’s been nearly two weeks since the US entered Libya and there is still no clear indication on who the rebels really are. Webster Tarpley, an investigative journalist says the US is supporting al-Qaeda, and racists on the ground. The world should ask America, “What are you doing arming and promoting al-Qaeda fighters in Libya?” he said.

Going Broke: Treasury Down to $58.6B in Cash, $130.5B Borrowing Authority



Then House Minority Leader John Boehner (R.-Ohio) and President Barack Obama on Jan. 29, 2010. (Associated Press photo)


CNSNews.com
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
By Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) - Imagine that you had an average monthly income of about $170 balanced against average monthly expenses of about $940--and that you were more than $14,000 in debt.
Then imagine that as of today, you had only $58.60 in cash left in your bank account and $130.50 left on your line of credit.

Now multiply these numbers by 1 billion and you will have the up-to-date financial situation of the U.S. government.

According to the Daily Treasury Statement released by the U.S. Treasury Department today at 4:00 p.m., the Treasury had $58.6 billion in cash in its accounts as of the close of business on Tuesday. That was down from $190.6 billion at the beginning of March and $309.8 billion at the beginning of this fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2010.

In the first five months of this fiscal year (Oct.-Feb.), the federal government averaged $169.6 billion per month in revenue. (During these months, the Treasury brought in a cumulative total of $845.3 billion—including all moneys from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, estate taxes and other taxes.)

In the same five months that it was averaging this $169.6 billion in revenue, the federal government was averaging $943.4 billion in monthly spending. (During those months, the Treasury actually spent $4.717 trillion—including, for example, $2.492 trillion to pay off the holders of Treasury securities that had matured, $245.7 billion in Social Security benefits, $212.8 billion in Medicare benefits, $158.4 billion to pay defense contractors, $113.0 billion for Medicaid benefits, $111.6 billion for Department of Education programs, $94.3 billion in interest on debt, $73.4 billion in salaries for federal workers, and $26.7 billion in insurance benefits for federal workers.)
Read the entire article

Radiation Traces Found in U.S. Milk

Wall Street Journal

By STEPHEN POWER

ASIA NEWS

MARCH 31, 2011

The U.S. government said Wednesday that traces of radiation have been found in milk in Washington state, but said the amounts are far too low to trigger any public-health concern.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government is working to bring the current nuclear crisis to a close without compromising the health of the Japanese people.

The Environmental Protection Agency said a March 25 sample of milk produced in the Spokane, Wash., area contained a 0.8 pico curies per literlevel of iodine-131, which it said was less than one five-thousandth of the safety safety guideline set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The EPA said it increased monitoring after radiation leaked from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It expects more such findings in coming days, but in amounts "far below levels of public-health concern, including for infants and children."

Iodine-131 has a half-life of about eight days, meaning levels should fade quickly. "These findings are a minuscule amount compared to what people experience every day," the agency said.

For example, a person would be exposed to low levels of radiation on a round trip cross country flight, watching television, and even from construction materials," Patricia Hansen, an FDA senior scientist, said in a written statement distributed by the EPA late Wednesday.
Read the entire article

In Your Face: CNN Segment on Libya Entitled “New World Order”

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
March 30, 2011
The clip features the usual NWO suspects, including Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003; former U.S. rep Jane Harman, soon to be the boss of the globalist training center, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; the neocon Robert Kagan, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a PNAC co-founder, and the neocon and former CIA director under Clinton, James Woolsey, who is a self-described “Joe Lieberman Democrat” (meaning he advocates bombing small and defenseless Muslim countries) who is also a PNAC supporter and former member of the CIA-infested Freedom House (an Orwellian term – it should be called the “Color Revolution House”).

Gold Prices Rising: Perpetual War = perpetual debt among Nations

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!
Mark Matheny
March 28, 2011



Peter Schiff  of Euro Pacific Capital appeared on CNBC March 25, 2011 stating that gold prices are likely to reach $5,000 an ounce, and may do so in the course of the next ten years.

One of the reasons for the continual rise in the price of gold is due to the policies of the Fed called quantitative easing. In The Creature From Jekyll Island, G Edward Griffin explains that without the ability to create fiat money, most wars would not exist, simply because countries would not have the means to finance them. Fiat currencies give the opportunity for a flexible money supply, and therefore a way by the central banks to continually keep countries in debt through perpetual war.

Of course, the printing of money then drives up the price of gold ( not that gold is actually rising, but that the dollar is decreasing in value).

The United States has conflicts going on in several countries at this time, i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya.

The globalists through the financial institutions they control utilize war as a way to fill their coffers, and control nations. G Edward Griffin explains this superbly in The Creature From Jekyll Island pg 230:

War is the ultimate discipline to any government. If it can successfully meet the challenge of war, it will survive. If it cannot, it will perish. All else is secondary. The sanctity of its laws, the prosperity of its citizens, and the solvency of its treasury will be quickly sacrificed by any government in its primal act of self survival.

The United States is definitely in economic trouble, and as a result our government has definitely descecrated the sanctity of our Constitution, jeopardized the prosperity of its citizens here, (mostly the middle class sector), and has quickly dissolved the solvency of our Treasury - all for the sake of Safety and security. The war on Terror has been the mechanism by which the globalists have achieved their grand goal of reducing the superiority of the once Great United States.

All that is necessary, therefore, to insure that a government will maintain or expand its debt is to involve it in war or the threat of war. The greater the threat and the more destructive the war, the greater the need for debt.

This is more than likely the reason for the United States' role in policing the world, and the reason for the Vietnam, Korean, Gulf, Aghanistan "wars", and so on. They are the wars that cause the destruction, while the rumors of war constantly told to us on the Media are used with the same effect. Congress is then terrified into giving more money toward "homeland safety" measures further indebting us to the banks who are printing the money ( or digitizing it now - technological tyranny at its best).

To involve a country in war or the threat of war, it will be necessary for it to have enemies with credible military might. If such enemies exist, all the better. If they exist but lack military strength, it will be necessary to provide them the money to build their war machine. If an enemy does not exist at all, then it will be necessary to create one by financing the rise of a hostile regime.

During the cold war era, Russia was an enemy with credible military might. Now that the cold war is over, the globalists have have created hostlie regimes and terrorists groups such as Al Qeada, and the Taliban in order to continue war and increase debt among the nations.

The ultimate obstacle is a government which declines to finance its wars through debt. Although this seldom happens, when it does, it will be necessary to encourage internal political opposition, insurrection, or revolution to replace that government with one that is more compliant to our will. The assassination of heads of state could play an important role in this process.

During the civil war, President Lincoln issued greenbacks to his troops in order to avoid accruing debt from the Central  Bankers, and it is surmised that this was at least in part the reason for his assassination. He did not want to give the bankers interest when he knew he could have Congress print money (even though fiat paper money is unconstitutional).

And further G Edward Griffin states:

No Nation can be allowed to remain militarily stronger than its adversaries, for that could lead to peace and a reduction of debt. To accomplish this balance of power, it may be necessary to finance both sides of the conflict. Unless one of the combatants is hostile to our interests and, therefore, must be destroyed, neither side should be allowed a decsive victory or defeat. While we must always proclaim the virtues of peace, the unspoken objective is perpetual war.

The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and several other countries are not meant to be won or lost, but continually in force, all the while breaking the very fiber of the United States. Al Qeada, the Taliban, as well as The muslim Brotherhood among others, are financed by the very enemy they fight against. They are used to perpetuate debt in order to submit nations to a coming world government, and to further feed the globalists pockets,( as if they don't have enough already).

Peter Schiff is correct. Gold prices will certainly rise as long as the Fed prints fiat currency, and Central banks finance wars at our expense.

Russia, China Accuse West of Exceeding UN Resolution, Making Libyan Crisis Worse

CNSNews.com
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
By Patrick Goodenough

 

 

(CNSNews.com) - Having chosen neither to endorse nor block the Security Council resolution authorizing military intervention in Libya, Russia and China are continuing to snipe from the sidelines, voicing growing frustration over a mission they say has overstepped its mandate.

With NATO having assumed command of both enforcing the no-fly zone and the additional “civilian protection mission” – attacking Muammar Gaddafi’s forces on the ground – the operation is threatening a new rift between NATO and Moscow, which has long viewed the transatlantic alliance with suspicion.

Russia and NATO members were to meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss Libya and, according to Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, “to confirm the limits that the U.N. Security Council placed on the participants of the conflict.”
Read the entire article

Angry Trump Fires Back: Here’s My Official Birth Certificate — Where’s Yours?

Newsmax.com
March 29, 2011

Billionaire real estate developer and rising GOP 2012 prospect Donald Trump is firing back at mainstream media reports that the birth document he provided exclusively to Newsmax on Monday was invalid.

Donald Trump

Trump has provided Newsmax a signed, dated Certificate of Birth from the City of New York’s Department of Health.

The new birth certificate states that Trump was born in the borough of Queens on June 14, 1946. It is signed by the mayor, the acting registrar of records, and the commissioner of health.
Trump said that once he realized the document he provided Newsmax on Monday was not an official birth certificate, it only took him a couple of hours to clear up the matter and locate the official document.

“Some in the media were challenging my birth certificate,” Trump told Newsmax Tuesday morning in an email. “So I solved the problem in a couple hours: here is my official Department of Health Birth Certificate.



Read more on Newsmax.com: Angry Trump Fires Back: Here’s My Official Birth Certificate — Where’s Yours?

Will Libya Kill Momentum For Defense Budget Discipline?

Thinkprogress.org
March 29, 2011

Carrie Budoff Brown argues, persuasively, that the limited humanitarian intervention in Libya with kinetic elements will severely hamper the previously emerging consensus that the defense budget needed some trimming. She quotes Doug Holtz-Eakin engaging in a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy:

“It is just plain vanilla that it will make it harder to cut defense in the near term,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist with close ties to congressional Republicans. “We’re going to have to fund more of this than you realize.”

Basically DHE is saying here that thanks to Obama’s decision to go to war, the previous tensions that had been building up inside the conservative coalition on this point are now easing and the whole right-of-center establishment will get behind the idea that the Pentagon shouldn’t be cut.
This is one reason why I think left-of-center hawks have been way to blithe about dismissing the fiscal concerns surrounding this mission. It’s true that nothing about claiming that you’re going to establish a no-fly zone in Libya and then instead offering tactical air support to rebel groups forces you to slash spending on global public health. But the mission in Libya is a shot in the arm for the politics of wasteful defense spending, and unduly high equilibrium levels of defense spending encourage further cost-ineffective “humanitarian” military adventures.

Canada-U.S. Deep Integration Agenda Continues Unabated

Dana Gabriel
Infowars.com
March 29, 2011

Canada and the U.S recently issued a joint threat and risk assessment as part of ongoing efforts to further enhance security on the northern border. This initiative supports a declaration by the leaders which will work towards facilitating the movement of travel and trade between the two countries. The Canadian government has announced that they are seeking online public consultation on the security perimeter arrangement. Meanwhile, the country has been thrust into an election with the defeat of the ruling Conservative party in a non-confidence vote. During the campaign, sovereignty concerns associated with the proposed trade and security deal could become a hot-button issue.


Barack Obama and Stephen Harper. White House photo by Pete Souza.


On March 10 of this year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Canada’s Public Safety Minister Vic Toews unveiled a Joint Border Threat and Risk Assessment. The report focuses on national security, criminal enterprises, migration, agriculture and health threats to the border. A press release described how the joint initiative, “is a part of a shared vision for border security that Secretary Napolitano and Minister Toews outlined during meetings held throughout 2010, and reflects their mutual commitment to working together to safeguard both nations’ vital assets, networks, infrastructure and citizens.” The assessment addresses common threats to the border such as, “terrorism and transnational crime articulated by President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in February. Their historic declaration – ‘Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness’ – sets forth how the United States and Canada will manage our shared homeland and economic security.”
Read the entire article

Radiation detected in Massachusetts rainwater as Fukushima crisis worsens

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
March 28, 2011

The Fukushima crisis continues to worsen by the day, with nuclear experts around the world finally realizing and admitting we’ve all been lied to. “I think maybe the situation is much more serious than we were led to believe,” said Najmedin Meshkati of the University of Southern California, in a Reuters report (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/27/japan-idUSL3E7ER06020110327). That same article revealed that recent radiation readings at Fukushima show “contamination 100,000 times normal in water at reactor No. 2 and 1,850 times normal in the nearby sea.”



Massachusetts rainwater has also been found to be contaminated with low levels of radiation from Fukushima, indicating just how widespread the radioactive fallout has become. It’s not just the West Coast of North America that’s vulnerable, in other words: even the East Coast could receive dangerous levels of fallout if Fukushima suffers a larger release of radioactive material into the air.
Rolling blackouts are now continuing throughout Japan due to the drop in power production from Fukushima diminishing Japan’s electricity generating capacity (http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/81346.html). The only reason Japan isn’t experiencing widespread power blackouts right now is because so many factories were damaged or swept away from the tsunami itself. Once a serious rebuilding effort gets underway, Japan is going to find itself critically short of electrical power.
The radiation leaking from Reactor No. 2 is now measured at 1,000 millisieverts an hour — more than enough to cause someone’s hair to fall out from a single exposure event. Radiation sickness can begin at just 100 millisieverts. The extremely high levels of radiation are, in fact, making it nearly impossible for workers to continue working at the reactor. “You’d have a lot of difficulty putting anyone in there,” said Richard Wakeford, a radiation epidemiology expert at the Dalton Nuclear Institute in Manchester. “They’re finding quite high levels of radiation fields, which is impeding their progress dealing with the situation.” (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-27/radiation-danger-stalls-efforts-to-repair-damaged-japan-reactors.html)
Taiwan looking to ditch nuclear power?

The worsening Fukushima situation is also starting to spook nearby nations such as Taiwan, which also depends on nuclear power. The DPP opposition party there announced today that it wanted to see nuclear power phased out by 2025. Taiwan is a relatively small island nation, and a Fukushima-like catastrophe would leave most of the island residents with nowhere to go. And like Japan, Taiwan is also vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis (as well as hurricanes).

China’s ghost cities and shopping malls – 14 million empty housing units in the U.S. while China may have up to 64 million empty apartments. GDP is only as good as the quality behind the financial numbers. China real estate bubble.

MyBudget360.com

The Census released data showing that 14 million housing units in the U.S. are categorized as being vacant.  As startling as this figure appears on the surface, China has an estimated 64 million empty apartment units.  As we enter a perpetual cycle of global financial bubbles, the largest ongoing bubble in the world at the moment is likely to be in Chinese real estate. 

China has grown from having a GDP of $1 trillion in 1999 to well over $5 trillion today making it the second largest economy in the world.  Yet as we will examine in this article simply having a large GDP does not necessarily mean a robust economy.  Many Americans thought home values would remain elevated but once reality took over prices came crashing down in dramatic fashion putting household balance sheets into a tailspin that we have yet to recover from. 

China in order to keep up with growth demands from their central government and investment demand is building at a pace where many areas including entire cities remain largely empty.
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No, the Amount of Radiation Released from the Japanese Nuclear Reactors is NOT "Safe"

Just as with the Gulf oil spill - where BP, government spokesmen and mainstream talking heads spewed happy talk about how "benign" the dispersants were and how all the oil had disappeared - there is now an avalanche of statements that the radiation is at "safe" doses for everyone outside of the immediate vicinity of Fukushima.

For example, Japanese government call-in advice lines are telling people to simply rinse off any produce covered with radioactive dust.






Ann Coulter claims that radiation is good for you
It is not very confidence-inspiring that:
Or that the EPA has pulled 8 of its 18 radiation monitors in California, Oregon and Washington because (by implication) they are giving readings which seem too high.
What Levels of Radiation Are Being Released?
So what levels of radiation are being released at Fukushima?
New Scientist reports that the radioactive fallout from Japan is approaching Chernobyl levels:

Japan's damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima has been emitting radioactive iodine and caesium at levels approaching those seen in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Austrian researchers have used a worldwide network of radiation detectors – designed to spot clandestine nuclear bomb tests – to show that iodine-131 is being released at daily levels 73 per cent of those seen after the 1986 disaster. The daily amount of caesium-137 released from Fukushima Daiichi is around 60 per cent of the amount released from Chernobyl.

Tyler Durden points out that - when you consider the fact that the amount of Caesium-137 released at Fukushima in the first 3-4 days of the crisis amounted to 50% that released by Chernobyl over 10 days - the real run rate of the radiation released at Fukushima is now about 120-150% the figure released by the Chernobyl explosion.
There are other signs of high levels radiation. See this and this. And it is important to remember that the amount of radioactive fuel at Fukushima dwarfs Chernobyl.
Read the entire article