Smart Meters

Rumor has it that Georgia Power and other utilities across the U.S. are quietly replacing your electric meter with “smart meters”.  A smart meter is a wifi for your appliances.  Each appliance has a wireless transmitter that relays use data back to the smart meter. From there the data is transmitted to relays and back to the utility.  The utility keeps the data from your home and uses it to figure out your bill, set rates and anything else it wants to do.  Because the smart grid is the internet for your appliances, signals can come back and shut off each appliance and lower or raise your thermostat.

Opponents have reported that the smart meter has been known to catch fire.  They also don’t like the idea of not being in control of their thermostat or electric power, internet, phone, radio or TV.  They don’t want snooping in their house.  Some have successfully prevented their utility from installing a smart meter.

All the wireless devices we have running in our homes emit electromagnetic radiation.  After we add cordless phones, cell phones and wifi internet to outside microwave towers and then add a smart meter as a second wifi connected to all appliances, we have saturated our homes in electromagnetic radiation.  Some homeowners are getting sick and others who were already sick are getting worse.

Physicians are warning pregnant patients to remove these radio frequency devices from their bedrooms to prevent neurological damage to their babies.  They are treating patients for neurological conditions by removing the RF and patients are improving.  Certainly folks who are experiencing symptoms without relief should look at removing RF, at least from their bedrooms. See the following link for the video:

Dr Dietrich Klinghardt’s video explains his experience with Smart Meters & EMR -- The 

Health Crisis of Our Time + new Study http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_wxM6IAF1I <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_wxM6IAF1I&feature=player_embedded> &feature=player_embedded#!

 
Patrick Wood’s vodeo identified the “smart meter” as an idea that had its roots in Technocracy in 1934 at Columbia University. Watch this highly researched and shocking explanation of SMART Meters and how they fit into "Technocracy" to totally control people. Patrick Wood explains at the 2011 Eagle Forum Conference in Santa Rosa, CA.

Smart Meters Video http://vimeo.com/28247826

This reminded me of one of my earlier posts:

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Politically Correct Cars

These will all be overpriced electric cars with a 100 mile limit between charging. By the time the government has these available, cap & trade will be in effect. By then, it will cost you $30 each night to charge it for the next day. I guess we showed those Arabs a thing or two ! These electric cars will have a government controlled GPS system. If the government doesn’t like where you’re going, it will drive you to wherever the government wants you to go. Also, if you tune your radio to a conservative talk radio show, it will shut off your electric motor.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Agenda 21 for Bikers

Georgia Department of Bikers & Walkers

Georgia DOT adopts Complete Streets policy Posted on September 26, 2012 by Stefanie Seskin

September 20, 2012 marked a significant day for the Complete Streets movement: the day the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) adopted a Complete Streets policy.

That policy is the product of years of work done by the state’s Complete Streets supporters, including Georgia Bikes, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, the Atlanta Regional Commission, the cities of Atlanta, Decatur, and Roswell; several transit agencies, and leaders within GDOT. Gerald Ross, GDOT’s Chief Engineer, coordinated a policy task force and collaborated with several stakeholder groups. The comprehensive final policy calls for the Department to “routinely incorporate bicycle, pedestrian, and transit (user and transit vehicle) accommodations into transportation infrastructure projects as a means for improving mobility, access, and safety for the traveling public.”

Last Thursday morning the Georgia State Transportation Board, GDOT’s governing body, unanimously adopted a resolution in support of the the agency’s policy. An official unveiling of the new policy will occur during the Georgia-Lina Bike Summit on October 20, 2012 in Augusta.

The GDOT policy is a remarkable achievement for many reasons. Between 2000 and 2009, over 1500 people died on Georgia roadways while walking. By committing to Complete Streets, the Department will be able to prevent many of these deaths.

Considerations for public transportation are a major component of the policy, something only a handful of other state Complete Streets policies can claim. Special emphasis is given to the need for transit users to be able to safely and conveniently cross roadways to access bus stops and train stations, as well as development of safe streets for people who walk or bicycle to these transit facilities.

Though Georgia’s Complete Streets policy will be incorporated in the State’s Design Policy Manual, the policy itself does not identify tangible steps for implementation action. With such strong support from high-level leadership within GDOT, we expect as much care to go into the policy’s implementation as did its development.  Look up:

§  Georgia DOT’s Complete Streets policy

§  Georgia State Transportation Board Complete Streets resolution

§  Georgia Bikes: “Advocacy works! GDOT adopts Complete Streets policy”

This entry was posted in Complete Streets Coalition, Complete Streets News, Complete Streets Policy, Complete Streets State Policy, Georgia and tagged Complete Streets Policy, Georgia DOT, State Departments of Transportation. Bookmark thepermalink.

Source: smartgrowthamerica.org

Comments:

It’s another sequel to Night of the Living T-SPLOST. While promising congestion relief, our RINOs are delivering more empty bike lanes and sidewalks and lanes for empty buses while MARTA looks at $500 million a year deficits.  Complete Streets adds bike lanes and sidewalks and concrete bike paths through your back yard at 4 times the cost of just fixing the roads. Sharpen your pitchforks, get out your torches and visit your city council or county commission.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Obamaphone

Your Universal Service Fee at Work

By Rosslyn Smith

That Universal Service Fee we pay as part of our phone bill each month has helped double the number of "free Obamaphones" in the hands of people in Ohio since last year to more than 1 million.  While the mainstream media has ignored this story, the Ohio press is covering it.  Maybe interest in the You Tube rant of the now infamous Obamaphone Lady, now at 2.2 million views in three days, will help get out the story of how this program skyrocketed in a key swing state.   Then there is the issue of  the dubious ethics of having private businesses both actively promote a government welfare program and name it after an elected figure in their marketing materials

From the Dayton Ohio Daily News.

The program in Ohio cost $26.9 million in the first quarter of 2012, the most recent data available, versus $15.6 million in the same timeframe in 2011. Compared to the first quarter of 2011, the number of people in the program nearly doubled to more than a million.

Growth could cost everyone who owns a phone. The program is funded through the "Universal Service Fund" charge on phone bills - usually a dollar or two per bill - and the amount of the fee is determined by the cost of this and other programs.

A growth of $100 million in this program could result in an increased fee of a few cents on the average bill, according to officials from the agency that administers the program. The total cost of the program nationwide was $1.5 billion in 2011, up from $1.1 billion in 2010.

Growth in the program is fed by the 2008 decision to extend it to prepaid cellphone companies, which get up to $10 every month that someone is subscribed. The number of cellphone companies offering the service in Ohio grew from four in 2011 to nine currently, with seven more awaiting approval from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

The left is freaking out over this.  In addition to maintaining it is racist to show a black person making a fool of herself they are screaming to high heaven that the program began under Ronald Reagan. That is true, but they fail to note that in the 1980s it was proposed as a very limited program to provide land line service to those who could show both financial need and a reason they needed a phone, such as medical conditions that would require them to call emergency services.  As is common, once in place the program expended until by 2008 some 7.1 million were enrolled.  Then in  2008 it was revised to include cell phones and actively marketed by cell phone providers to people on a variety of government assistance program regardless of need. Today 12.5 million free phone accounts exist.

It's the active marketing of this program by cell phone providers that is most problematical.  In The Shady Ethics of 'The Obama Phone' Timothy Dalrymple writes:

Imagine, for instance, that it were the government itself that advertised the phones as Obama phones, starting in 2009. This would be, at the very least, deeply misleading.  It would be taking credit for a program begun under predecessors.  It would be similar to President Bush in his first term, if he had come to office after Clinton initiated a program that gave free cars to welfare recipients, seeking electoral advantage by advertising them as "Bush cars."

But clearly (?) that's not the case here, right?  A visit to FreeGovernmentCellPhones.net - which calls itself "a small publishing company and the authority on the U.S. government's Lifeline Assistance program as it applies to mobile phones" - decries the "false rumor" of Obama Phones, which it calls an "incorrect term" because the cell phone program began several months before Obama's election.  Case closed.

Or maybe not.  Visit ObamaPhone.net and here's what you see (I suspect they'll make changes soon, if they haven't already, so I took a screenshot):

It gets even more interesting.

When you click the link at ObamaPhone.net to apply for a free cell phone, you're redirected to...wait for it... Free GovernmentCellPhones.net.  That's right.  The same website that decried the "false rumor" and "incorrect term" of The Obama Phone Program has another website, surely desired to attract search engine traffic, that advertises The Obama Phone Program.  Nice.

UPDATE: The website has already been changed!  Visit Obamaphone.net now, and you'll get something like a blog with no pictures of Obama, as though they're in the process of dismantling the site.  But surely there's nothing to see here, folks!  Let's talk about Mitt Romney's tax forms!

That the administration did this isn't surprising, It's long been the Chicago way to put the mayor's name on everything from the Welcome sign at the city limits to the trucks that pick up the garbage.  I think they'd change the name of the airport with each administration if they could.  What is surprising is the complete lack of interest not only in why at least one key state is now awash with taxpayer paid cellphones but who paid for the extensive web marketing of this program.  As Dalrymple notes: Who funds the companies like

FreeGovernmentCellPhones.net and ObamaPhone.net?

Did they begin calling it "the Obama Phone" before or after the rumors of Obama phones began to spread through email?  Do they have a profit-share arrangement with the wireless telecoms that receive money (albeit indirectly) from the government to distribute free cell phones?  Are they paid by the federal government to help spread the word about the free cell phone service program?

These websites are hard to penetrate, so I don't know the answer, but it's a juicy question: Is the Obama administration effectively paying a company to advertise the free cell phones as Obama Phones?  Or was the administration aware of the practice, and have they done anything to stop it?  I'm sure the mainstream media are hard on the case, investigating the Obama administration in that relentless way they do.

Just how extensively has this program been marketed?  Here is how one multimillionaire Democrat Senate from a swing state reports how she became a critic of the program. 

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., received a mailed solicitation last year informing her she was eligible for a phone, leading her to question the program.

"I am troubled by the expansive potential for the program to be abused," McCaskill wrote the FCC in December. No kidding.

Source: American Thinker, September 30, 2012,  Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/your_universal_service_fee_at_work.html#ixzz27yGsZLYM

The Fair Tax Humbug

You may hear more from Republicans about the fair tax; it’s a sales tax that is supposed to replace the income tax.  I don’t think it’s a good idea to add it to the other taxes until we do a few other things. Otherwise, it would take on a life of its own.  In any event, it’s way too early to consider it. 

Our priorities should be to take the restrictions off coal, allow for drilling oil and natural gas everywhere, repeal the endangered species act, double water production and put all land into production.  We need to earn our way out of this economic hole.  We need to produce and sell everything that is in demand including coal, oil, gas, food, water, timber and minerals.  Giving all federal land to the states would result in closing the Interior Department.  States should use revenue from the sale of land for roads and bridges.

We also need to close the border, send illegal immigrants home and suspend legal immigration until our real unemployment is under 4%. Our current real unemployment is about 20%.

Before we even talk about a “fair tax”, I would first like for us to repeal the 16^th Amendment in its entirety and close the Federal Reserve, then cut back federal government responsibilities to comply with the Constitution and Amendments (as written) , then replace the revenue with a combination of tariffs and a sales tax. This would end the income tax and close the IRS.  Closing the Federal Reserve would end inflation and allow interest rates to be set by the market.  That would allow citizens to set up their own retirement funds and apply their own market forces on investment options. The dollar would begin to recover and become sound money.

States, counties and cities will need to absorb functions from the federal government and will need to make room by getting out of everything that can be done by the private sector. 

Closing the Federal Reserve will allow interest rates to be set by the market.  Workers should be able to open retirement accounts and expect enough earnings to build a retirement account without the wealth eating inflation they experienced with the Fed. Social Security should be privatized some time after the Fed closing. All Defined benefit (Pension) plans should be replaced by Defined contribution plans.

The federal government would not be allowed to collect taxes that it doles back to the states or anybody else. These governments would need to be cleaned up. I would ensure that each level of government is audited and scandal-free.  Legislative Bills should be “single issue”; no pile-on Omnibus Bills or horse trading would be allowed.  The Governors and President would have line-item veto power. There should be term limits on all elected jobs. With state, county and city governments receiving the bulk of our taxes, we need to have real campaign finance and government practices reform. 

I would only allow registered voters to contribute to candidates who would be on their ballot.  That would take special interest money out of the electoral process.  Special interest groups can have free speech on their own websites or by running their own ads for their own causes and positions on issues.

Selecting candidates would be completely different. We wouldn’t need all Sales Guys.  We should actually elect people who know something and do their homework.  

U.N. Agenda 21 implementation in the U.S. would cease. Government would sell its land to U.S. citizens to put into production.  95% of all land in the U.S. would be privately owned by individual citizens or U.S. corporations.  Foreigners could lease land.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Establishment Republicans’ Rhetoric over Substance

Dear Informed  Citizen,

It's not even October and the Republican establishment is abandoning the candidate they forced on the rest of us.           

I'm so tired of the tired rhetoric this time of year but nothing is quite as infuriating as tired hacks like Lindsey Graham crapping all over the Romney campaign in the middle of a difficult stretch.  I have my issues with the Romney campaign but I'm a team player and he's the candidate.  My issue with the Romney campaign is it's complete lack of Tea Party/ Liberty campaign professionals on staff.

If you look at establishment candidates who are beating back Tea Party challenges successfully they are guys like Orrin Hatch and sadly Mitch McConnell. The way that they are keeping their political careers is by embracing the Tea Party in a serious way.  Mitch McConnell recently hired Jesse Benton to run his reelection campaign in Kentucky.  For those unfamiliar Jesse Benton ran the Ron and Rand  Paul campaigns. I had hoped to assist a Tea Party primary against McConnell but with the support of Senator Paul and Benton and a more than $6 million war chest it would be a waste of time. 

I'm am so sick and tired of people like Dick Morris scolding us for losing Senate seats in 2010.  It wasn't the Tea Party that abandoned the establishment, it was the establishment that abandoned our fairly elected candidates.  Examples include Nevada Republican political powerhouse Bill Raggio endorsing against Sharron Angle and all the "Republicans" who supported the shameful stunt pulled by Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. The truth of the matter is that for all the noise you hear about Ron Paul and Tea Party people abandoning the party it's nothing but projection from the hacks in the Republican establishment who go further than not supporting our candidates when we win and actively sabotage our candidates. I heard a clip of Rush talking today about how these are the same people who forced Romney on us with the incessant claim that he was the "electable" candidate. The backstabbing idiots are the ones who are going to reelect Barack Obama and that is a tragic turn for liberty in this country. 

This recent move by the Republican establishment makes me question the logic of my loyalty.  Perhaps being associated with the scumbags who are panicking over a private fundraising video is not the best route forward.  Remember the video of Obama describing more than half the country as bitter people clinging to their bibles and guns, it totally prevented him from being President you drama queens.  I'm far past being jaded with politics but we have mission and it's going to take much more impressive people than Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and Lindsey Graham to slow us down! Romney/Ryan 2012 !  The fight goes on,

Dustin Stockton

Source: The Stockton Breakdown, September 24, 2012 info@dustinstockton.com

Comments:

The split in the Republican Party is real.  The youtube of Boehner reading the teleprompter to announce the vote on the rules change at the Tampa convention says it all. “Establishment” republicans have supported every RINO candidate before and after Ronald Reagan.  They still don’t know how he slipped through. Over time we’ve seen the emergence of Constitutional Conservatives within and outside the Republican Party. That is us.  Our groups are working together to attempt to save our economy through the ballot box. For now, we must ensure that Romney is elected; we have no other options.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

 

EPA – 15% ethanol & 4 gal. Minimum

EPA's four-gallon minimum mandate by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) - 09/17/12

The latest mandate handed down from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is so ridiculous, even I was shocked. The EPA has now mandated how much gasoline you must buy at certain gas stations. Say hello to the Obama Administration’s four gallon minimum.

This unprecedented EPA overreach applies when filling up at a gas station that provides both E15 and E10, gasoline with 15 or 10 percent of ethanol, respectively, from the same hose.

At the insistence of the ethanol industry, the Obama Administration is pushing E15 into the marketplace, regardless of the serious concerns about the fuel’s impact on drivers. From its inception, E15 is a study in the consequences of government interference in the marketplace. The EPA’s decision to set a minimum purchase requirement is just the most recent example.

If this seems too far-fetched to be true, here is what the EPA recently wrote in a letter to the American Motorcyclist Association:

"EPA requires that retail stations that own or operate blender pumps either dispense E15 from a dedicated hose and nozzle if able or, in the case of E15 and E10 being dispensed from the same hose, require that at least four gallons of fuel be purchased to prevent vehicles and engines with smaller fuel tanks from being exposed to gasoline-ethanol blended fuels containing greater than 10 volume percent ethanol."

The EPA approved E15 for sale in the U.S. using a partial waiver, meaning it is only approved for some vehicles on the road— cars 2001 and later.

Most of our gasoline contains only 10 percent ethanol. Increasing the ethanol content will harm older vehicles and it is downright dangerous for small engines like those found in boats, lawnmowers, or motorcycles. E15 is like metal in a microwave for a small engine.

The Obama Administration’s attempt to solve the serious concern of misfueling is more government regulation. By requiring a minimum purchase of four gallons of E10 gas, the Administration hopes to dilute the amounts of E15 undoubtedly left in the shared hose and prevent the fuel from ruining small engines or endangering Americans using these devices.

This type of government meddling is completely contradictory to our free market principles, and it is a dangerous precedent to set.

If the government has the power to mandate a minimum amount of gas we can buy, what else can they mandate?

The EPA’s first-ever mandated purchase requirement appears to have been conceived outside the normal regulatory process, making this unprecedented government overreach even more offensive.

Americans deserve to know how a federal agency has the power to do this. I have requested that the EPA explain their authority for this mandate.

Additionally, the very effectiveness of this heavy-handed regulation is questionable.

Many motorcyclists may be stumped when attempting to fill up their bike that doesn’t even have the capacity to hold four gallons.

Other Americans will try unsuccessfully to fill up a one or two gallon fuel can with E10 to take it home and use in their outboard boat engine or lawnmower. Even worse, what will happen when they take the fuel home, tainted with E15, and overheat their snow blower?

In Wisconsin, where we get an average of four feet of snow per year, imagine the frustration of ruining an expensive snow blower only to find that the E15 unequivocally voided the warranty. 

This unprecedented, ill-conceived mandate is an example of the worst kind of government interference. It both squashes the free market and will inevitably fail to help those it claims to protect. However, the Obama Administration does successfully do one thing: highlight the E15 partial waiver as completely unworkable.

Source:  The Hill’s Congress Blog by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) - 09/17/12

Sensenbrenner, a Republican, represents the fifth congressional district in Wisconsin.

Comments:

There is no man-made climate change or global warming.  There is no need to restrict carbon emissions.  Carbon is not a pollutant.  Our planet is big enough to take care of itself and it will be centuries before we finally figure out how our planet does this. The EPA doesn’t need the U.N.’s permission to take carbon off the kill list.  So why are we still putting ethanol in our gasoline at all ?  Why haven’t we removed ethanol from our gasoline completely ?  Why are we going up to 15% ?

Norb Leahy,  Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

Subsidized Housing Scam

Suburban Augusta, Martinez GA

The Bounty Trace to Magnolia Trace  by Al Gray

The fury in and surrounding the Columbia County Commission Chambers on December 6, 2011 sizzled and seethed. Citizens packed the room and the overflow could have surrounded the building. An incongruous and unwelcome subsidized housing development, to be known as Magnolia Trace, was coming to their midst. The county commission had invited the intruder in. The Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) was funding it. The only notice had been the real estate closing and starting of the building permit process. Revelations that the project's limited partner, Affordable Equity Partners (AEP) of Columbia, Missouri, had – through subsidiaries, related entities, and PAC’s - liberally provided campaign donations to Georgia’s governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the house and local state legislators added to the combustible mix. Capping it off later was the discovery that the county attorney also had worn the hat of closing attorney for the developers.

Inside, the commission chairman, three commissioners, and that county attorney were stoic, but their white faces and knuckles spoke fear.  Their position was one of relative comfort juxtaposed to the District Three commissioner, a man inopportunely appointed to the offending Department of Community Affairs board (albeit after DCA had approved the tax credit funding to AEP) and who had voted for the county’s resolution to endorse the project. His business had been picketed, his phone ceaselessly chattered, a local talk radio show with 60,000 listeners was hostile, and real pressure was on. He was beet red and seemed to be near break down.

An epic meeting ensued that concluded an hour and a half later with the commission engaging an outside attorney charged with seeing whether there were avenues to void the deal.  It was a fig leaf and seen that way. The project was too carefully planned and orchestrated for citizens to have a realistic chance of canceling it. After all, Affordable Equity Partners boasts of its long history of doing tax credit projects in multiple states and its role in encouraging states to provide the tax credits.  From the company website: "By forging strong relationships with key government entities, AEP ensures a secure and favorable investment environment for our investor partners." 

Who Done It?

The first stage in the development and investment process for a Low Income Housing Tax Credit project is said by AEP to be this: “A developer of an affordable property will admit AEP as its limited partner.." This portrays the circumstance of a group of local property developers gaining control of land, then engaging the AEP companies to structure the deal as a LIHTC financing. Who are the principals behind Magnolia Trace? They are hidden by the LLP structure, so that remains a mystery.

The birth pangs for this project came when an AEP entity named Peach Way Holdings LLC obtained an option on March 24, 2010 to purchase the land. Later the option would be exercised by Magnolia Trace LLP. Immediately the process began to submit an application to DCA for tax credits used to finance the project. Peach Way Holdings was the first entity publicly involved out of an AEP interconnected stable of companies who are very adept at carving out a lucrative niche.

Extraordinarily High Costs Meet a Stunning Reversal

The Magnolia Trace project was so astonishingly lucrative that the DCA staff initially refused to approve the application on December 14, 2010 (click link to view document) based on that fact and a host of other financial criteria. “Total development costs for this project are over $10 million dollars which translates into almost $141.24 (author used round numbers) per square foot. A similar project had total development costs of only $7,561,982. This translates to almost $2.5 million more of total development costs.”, DCA wrote. Despite having slammed the numbers as entirely too high and the applicant being barred from updating or modifying anything upon appeal, DCA  approved the credits for MagnoliaTrace in a letter dated March 14, 2011 (click link to view approval document) .Incredibly the approval notification letter has a DCA documents date stamp of January 7, 2011, 66 days before the document was dated!

A need to call upon AEP's “strong relationships” within government to gain approval before December 31, 2010 lay in the expiration of a key contract with Peach Way Financial Services. The vaunted "genuine advocacy for both developers and investors" worked wonders to speed approval, evidenced by what looks like an obvious post dating episode, over a period interrupted by Christmas and New Years.

Who might Magnolia Trace LLP/Affordable Equity Partners have called upon for help in this time of emergency? Lt. Governor Casey Cagle's campaign got $882.50 from AEP going back to 2008.Sister company Capital Health Management Inc. gave Cagle another $10, 453.50.Capital Health Management in October 2006 had given $40,000 out of the $40,500 total of The Fund for Georgia's Future (Filer # NC2006000414 ) who gave Cagle another $10,000 that same month.Capital Health Management in 2008 gave a whopping $100,000 to The Fund for Georgia's Future, who dispersed it to a raft of legislators. and the Republican Party.  

Capital Health had also given the campaigns of Speaker David Ralston $5,000, Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers $5,500 and Nathan Deal $6,300. Another PAC that AEP contributes to, albeit not as the dominant contributor, is the Committee for Affordable Workforce Housing (GAHC-PAC – Filer NC2008000070). This PAC gave another $6,100 to the Deal campaign in September 2010, $1000 to Ralston in December 2010, $5,973 for Deal in December 2011,  and $3,000 for Cagle in March, 2012.Nearly $200,000 in campaign funds wins friends. In this case did it reverse a project rejection and move a date?

A Masked Partner?

The DCA application process requires disclosure of all related and controlled entities. Peach Way Financial Services, LLC , the Development Consultant, seems to fall within this category, as William A. Markel, Executive Vice President of AEP, is listed as Peach Way's Agent for its business registration with the Georgia Secretary of State with the listed mailing address in Missouri coinciding with AEP’s office address. However, in the tax credit application filed with DCA, Peach Way Financial, the project Developer Consultant, was listed with an Atlanta address and was reported to  “not have an identity of interest with any other entity in this chart.”  *(Click here to view Magnolia Trace parties document). It is noted that the “identity of interest” question applied to each and every entity in the chart.

A side note is that Peach Way Financial Services, LLC  is shown to have filed its business registration with the Secretary of State for 2011, when the application process remained in play, but is reported to be in a state of noncompliance for 2012. According to its contract, Peach Way Financial Services gets fee payments in 2012 from Magnolia Trace.

“Inefficient financial structure”

Before Magnolia Trace LLP's sudden change in fortune, DCA had written this about the project: “.... the financial structure is not an effective or efficient use of DCA resources.” What might be the reason that the “financial structure is not an effective use…?” Could it be that multiple layers of AEP affiliated companies produced the $2.5 million more in costs cited by DCA?

Arguably the largest money tree in the AEP stable is that the tax credit financing process allows “AEP’s ability to insert an experienced affiliate into every step of the tax credit process provides added security to AEP’s investors." With Magnolia Trace, Peach Way Holdings secured the land option. Magnolia Trace LLP became the owner.  MACO Development Company, LLC is the Developer. AEP itself is the State and Federal Limited Partner. MACO Properties, LLC is the Managing Partner. Peach Way Financial Services LLC is the Development consultant. Fairway Construction Co. Inc. is the General Contractor. Fairway Management is the management company. All are related and most stood to gain fees, directly or indirectly.

How much  of the $2.5 million excess cost that DCA objected to might be found in having so many AEP companies involved? The land acquisition and construction 'costs' totaled $6,986,826, or a whopping $100 per square foot. The total development  'costs' of $10,152,634 were $145.45 per square foot. Of the roughly $3.2 million difference, fees, overhead, and profit of the AEP stable of companies were about $2.1 million, or 66%.

A Lot More than A Trace of Money

Once a subdivision is complete, the AEP companies begin to draw management fees from leasing operations. Magnolia Trace will join 17 previous AEP company developments in Georgia. Projected management fees to be generated from the Martinez complex are estimated at $1,160,885.

The approved tax credits were $1,065,849. If the DCA's figures and objections from December 2010 are correct, the excess of tax credits over the norms would be about 25% or more than $250,000.

Magical Words to an Auditor's Ears

The application contained the language “Certification of Actual Cost” and the authorizing provisions in Chapter 42 of the tax code preserve the rights and capabilities of audit before the tax credits are issued. This could prove providential in protecting state and federal tax revenues, as there are new homes for sale in similar neighborhoods for sales prices in the low $70's per square foot. Upon audit can the $145 per square foot price supplied by the AEP companies be sustained? The larger question is whether anyone will ever be allowed to audit this transaction.

Summary

Citizens of suburban, Republican Martinez, Georgia got an unwelcome subsidized housing project courtesy of unknown developers. If there is solace in this story it is that Martinez county commissioner Trey Allen got the Department of Community Affairs to reform its policy so that future locales will be notified beforehand of low income projects. The politicians got nearly $200,000 of campaign donations. The AEP stable of companies look to have secured a backdated approval of a project that DCA deemed excessive on the way to winning more than $1.5 million in development fees, $1.1 million in tax credits, and $1.1 million in management fees. Along the way, one entity looks to have been undisclosed as a related party and has fallen into noncompliance with Georgia's business registration unit.

The identities of the parties who launched this controversial project will be hidden behind opaque partnership structures, while a cash-strapped state government sees its revenues drained, not only by very lucrative tax give-aways, but also by layered on costs that the state agency found to be excessive. Can this really be government by and for the people?***

Source: City Stink.net Augusta, Written by Al Gray, Evans, GA,  Friday, September 21, 2012

Comments:

Beware of HUD, suburban subsidized housing, private/public partnerships, crony deals and out-of-state campaign contributions coming soon to your city council and county commission.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

 

US Sinks to 18th Place

U.S. Economic Freedom Plummets to 18th Place Globally, Study Shows by Alex Newman

Due in large part to an explosion of government spending and less secure property rights, the United States plunged to its lowest ever ranking on the Economic Freedom of the World report, dropping from second place out of 144 nations in 2000 to a humiliating 18th in this year's annual survey. The global average scores, meanwhile, actually increased slightly.  

The study, conducted by the respected Canada-based Fraser Institute, measures more than 40 different variables related to economic freedom. Thoseare divided into five broad categories: size of government, legal system and security of property rights, access to sound money, freedom to tradeinternationally, and regulation of credit, labor, and business.

"The United States, like many nations, embraced heavy-handed regulation and extensive over-spending in response to the global recession and debt crises," observed Fred McMahon, Fraser Institute vice-president of international policy research. "Consequently, its level of economic freedom has dropped." And it is getting worse, fast.

According to the survey, the United States scored 6.43 out of 10 in terms of the size of government - slightly lower than Syria, ruled by socialist tyrant Bashir al-Assad. The steepest decline was in the protection of private property rights, which analysts attributed   to increasing reliance on eminent domain, the expansion of the terror and drug wars, as well as an uncertain business environment sparked by lawless government bailouts and breeched contracts. Overall the United States scored 7.69 out of 10

"I think we think of the underlying causes of our decline in legal system and property rights, the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, the war on terror, and things related to the rule of law - things like TARP and the bailouts - have all contributed to the decline of scores in areas
one and two,"explained one of the report's authors, Beloit College economics Professor Joshua Hall. "We need people to understand our long term living standards depend upon getting back to that economic freedom that we enjoyed just a decade ago." Despite the increasingly unstable U.S. dollar being inflated away by wild Federal Reserve currency printing, America performed fairly well in the "sound money" category on the index - at least for this report.

 

However, experts warned that when inflation begins to accelerate thanks to the Fed's ongoing "quantitative easing" policies, U.S. economic freedom scores will plummet much further.

Compared to just last year, American economic freedom - once considered the global gold standard - plunged 10 spots. The dramatic decline appears to be accelerating, too, as all levels of government continue to borrow and spend their citizens into oblivion while dumping increasing amounts of economy-destroying regulations on the populace.    

"It is a travesty that our country is spiraling away from the principles that have made us an economic beacon for the world," said Americans for Prosperity chief Tim Phillips, adding that the United States has essentially lost a full decade worth of growth. "This report shows what many fiscal conservatives have known all along, that our long-term growth is being threatened because big-government economic policies have grown the size of government, increased regulation and are now reducing our economic freedom and future prosperity."

At the top of this year's global rankings were Hong Kong in first place, followed by Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Bahrain, Mauritius, Finland, and Chile at number 10. Also finishing above the United States were welfare states like Finland and Denmark, as well as countries ruled by strongmen like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Estonia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, came in at 14 as it speeds down the road toward a freer market. 

On the other end of the spectrum were nations like socialist Hugo Chavez's crumbling Venezuela, Zimbabwe, which is ruled by Marxist despot Robert Mugabe, Myanmar, Congo, and Angola - some of the poorest places on earth.

Communist dystopias like Cuba and North Korea were not included on the list, but presumably those dictatorships would have also ranked at or very close to the bottom of the barrel.

Among the larger economies, Communist China came in at 107, Brazil at 105, India at 111, Japan at 20, Germany in 31st place, and Russia at 95. The United Kingdom tied for 12th with Ireland, both placing well above the United States. Overall, the global average rose slightly to 6.83 out of 10 for the most recent year available, up from 6.79 the previous year – the lowest level in close to three decades. 

Countless studies have shown that economic freedom in closely linked to prosperity, as evidenced by comparing leading indicators of well-being - health, income, growth, employment, stability, literacy, infant mortality, and more - with government respect for the free-market system.

Unsurprisingly, rich countries generally have far more economic freedom than poorer ones. See Korea.   "Sadly, citizens living in the bottom-ranked countries face a significantly lower quality of life since they lose the benefits that come from growth spurred on by economic freedom and suffer reduced prosperity," the Fraser Institute's McMahon explained after releasing the report. Even poor people in freer countries are often far better off than average citizens living under economically oppressive regimes. 

While the Fraser Institute's study shows the most significant plunge, other respected surveys have also shown the U.S. economy in an accelerating tailspin compared to the rest of the world. The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, for example,

showed America sinking for a fourth consecutive year - dropping from ninth to tenth place and solidifying its designation as "mostly free" earned in 2009, down from "free" the year before that.

"Restoring the U.S. economy to the status of a 'free' economy will require significant policy changes to reduce the size of government, overhaul the tax system, and transform costly entitlement programs," the Heritage study's authors explained. "By boosting growth in the private sector, such freedom-enhancing policies are the best hope for bringing down high unemployment rates and reducing public debt to manageable levels." 

In terms of competitiveness, the U.S. economy is doing poorly as well. According to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index, the United States dropped to seventh place behind Sweden, Finland, Germany, and other countries due largely to exploding government debt and deficits. Liberty-minded Switzerland took the top spot from America in 2009 and has remained in first place ever since.

"The United States needs to drastically shrink the size and scope of the government in our economy in order to reclaim a spot among the freest countries in the world," noted Suffolk University economics Professor Benjamin Powell, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute. "Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be on the agenda of either presidential candidate. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise since it was the big government branch of both political parties that decreased our freedoms over the past dozen years."

While the economic freedom and the prosperity it entails continue to evaporate in the United States, more than a few governments have apparently started to learn the lesson: liberty works, big government does not. For centuries, the U.S. Constitution has restrained the coercive power of the federal government, contributing to the creation of the most prosperous society the world has ever known. But according to economists and experts worldwide, if the U.S. government does not reverse course soon, the consequences for the American people and indeed the world will be tragic. 

Source:<http://thenewamerican.com/economy/economics/itemlist/user/68-alexnewman> Written by Alex Newman Friday, 21 September 2012 09:46 <http://thenewamerican.com/economy/economics/item/12925-us-economic-freedom-plummets-to-18th-place-globally-study-shows>

Study Source <http://www.freetheworld.com/release.html> Economic Freedom of the World report, dropping from second place out of 144 nations in 2000 to a humiliating 18th in this year's annual survey

Comments:

The study says we need to decrease the size and scope of government, restore our property rights (ban UN Agenda 21), remove unnecessary regulations and stop printing money. Who are you going to vote for ?

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader