"Euro heist II" - Poland Confiscates Half Of Private Pension Funds To Cut Sovereign Debt Load.

"Euro heist II" - Poland Confiscates Half Of Private Pension Funds To Cut Sovereign Debt Load.HT: ZeroHedge.

While the world was glued to the developments in the Mediterranean in the past week, Poland took a page straight out of Rahm Emanuel’s playbook and in order to not let a crisis go to waste, announced quietly that it would transfer to the state – i.e., confiscate – the bulk of assets owned by the country’s private pension funds (many of them owned by such foreign firms as PIMCO parent Allianz, AXA, Generali, ING and Aviva), without offering any compensation. In effect, the state just nationalized roughly half of the private sector pension fund assets, although it had a more politically correct name for it: pension overhaul.

By way of background, Poland has a hybrid pension system: as Reuters explains, mandatory contributions are made into both the state pension vehicle, known as ZUS, and the private funds, which are collectively known by the Polish acronym OFE. Bonds make up roughly half the private funds’ portfolios, with the rest company stocks.

And while a change to state-pension funds was long awaited – an overhaul if you will – nobody expected that this would entail a literal pillage of private sector assets.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said private funds within the state-guaranteed system would have their bond holdings transferred to a state pension vehicle, but keep their equity holdings. The funds would effectively be left with only the equities portions of their assets, even this would be depleted, and there will be uncertainty about the number of new savers joining.

But why is Poland engaging in behavior that will ultimately be disastrous to future capital allocation in non-public pension funds (the type that can at least on paper generate some returns as opposed to “public” funds which are guaranteed to lose)?

 After all, this is a last ditch step which no rational person would engage in unless there were no other option. Simple: there were no other option, and the driver is the same reason the world everywhere else is broke too – too much debt.

By shifting some assets from the private funds into ZUS, the government can book those assets on the state balance sheet to offset public debt, giving it more scope to borrow and spend. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said the changes will reduce public debt by about eight percent of GDP. This in turn, he said, would allow the lowering of two thresholds that deter the government from allowing debt to raise over 50 percent, and then 55 percent, of GDP. Public debt last year stood at 52.7 percent of GDP, according to the government’s own calculations.

To summarize:

1. Government has too much debt to issue more debt
2. Government nationalizes private pension funds making their debt holdings an “asset” and commingles with other public assets
3. New confiscated assets net out sovereign debt liability, lowering the debt/GDP ratio
4. Debt/GDP drops below threshold, government can issue more sovereign debt

And of course, once Poland borrows like a drunken sailor using the new window of opportunity, and maxes out its new and improved limits, it will have no choice but to confiscate more assets, and to make its balance sheet appear better, until one day, there is nothing left in the private sector to confiscate. At that point the limit itself will have to be legislated away, and Poland will simply continue borrowing until one day there are no foreign lenders willing to take the same risk as the nation’s private pensioners. At that point, Poland, which is in the EU but still has the Zloty, can just go ahead and monetize its own debt by printing unlimited amounts of its currency.

Of course, we all know how that story ends.

The response to the confiscation was, naturally, one of shock:

The reform is “a decimation of the …(private pension fund) system to open up fiscal space for an easier life now for the government,” said Peter Attard Montalto of Nomura. “The government has an odd definition of private property given it claims this is not nationalisation.”

“This is worse than many on the markets had feared,” a manager at one of the leading pension funds, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

“The devil is in the detail and we don’t yet know a lot about the mechanism of these changes, what benchmarks will be use to evaluate our performance… (It) looks like pension funds will lose a lot of flexibility in what they can invest.”

Catastrophic consequences for fund flows aside, the Polish prime minister had a prompt canned response:

Tusk said people joining the pension system in the future would not be obliged to pay into the private part of the system. Depending on the finer points, this could mean still fewer assets in the private funds.

“The (current) system has turned out to be built in part on rising public debt and turned out to be a very costly system,” Tusk told a news conference.

“We believe that, apart from the positive consequence of this decision for public debt, pensions will also be safer.”

You see, he is from the government, and he is confiscating the pensions to make them safer. Confiscation is Safety and all that…

Polish officials have tried to reassure investors, saying the overhaul avoids the more radical options of taking both bond and equity assets away from the private funds outright.

They say the old system effectively made Polish public debt appear higher than it really is.

Well, once you nationalize private assets, the public debt will lindeed appear lower than it was before confiscation: we give them that much.

End result: “The Polish pension funds’ organisation said the changes may be unconstitutional because the government is taking private assets away from them without offering any compensation…. This may lead to the private pension systems shutting down,” said Rafal Benecki of ING Bank Slaski.”

Unconstitutional? What’s that. But whatever it is, it’s ok – after all the public pension system is still around. At least until that too is plundered. But in the meantime, all such pensions will be “safer”, guaranteed.

But best of all, in the aftermath of Cyprus, we now know what the two most recent European blueprints for preserving the myth of solvency are: bail-ins, which confiscate deposits, and pension fund “overhauls”, which confiscate, well, pension funds.

And now, back to the global recovery soap opera.

Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlement”

Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlement”.(NC).By YvesSmith.Obama’s latest housing market chicanery should come as no surprise. As we discuss below, he will use the State of the Union address to announce a mortgage “settlement” by Federal regulators, and at least some state attorneys general. It’s yet another gambit designed to generate a campaign talking point while making the underlying problem worse.
The president seems to labor under the misapprehension that crimes by members of the elite must be swept under the rug because prosecuting them would destablize the system. What he misses is that we are well past the point where coverups will work, and they may even blow up before the November elections. If nothing else, his settlement pact has a non-trivial Constitutional problem which the Republicans, if they are smart, will use to undermine the deal and discredit the Administration.
To add insult to injury, Obama is apparently going to present his belated Christmas present to the banking industry as a boon to ordinary citizens. He refused to appoint a real middle class advocate, Elizabeth Warren, to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but he’s not above stealing her talking points. The administration has finally woken up to the fact that the housing mess is almost certain to get worse before it gets better, and Obama must therefore be armed with better propaganda. The Miller-led talks have become a bit of an embarrassment and needed to be put out of their misery. So Team Obama and Federal banking regulators have agreed on terms and as we discussed last Friday, are upping the pressure on state attorneys general to fall into line. As reported by Shahien Nasiripour of the Financial Times.
The story did not outline terms, but previous leaks have indicated that the bulk of the supposed settlement would come not in actual monies paid by the banks (the cash portion has been rumored at under $5 billion) but in credits given for mortgage modifications for principal modifications. There are numerous reasons why that stinks. The biggest is that servicers will be able to count modifying first mortgages that were securitized toward the total. Since one of the cardinal rules of finance is to use other people’s money rather than your own, this provision virtually guarantees that investor-owned mortgages will be the ones to be restructured. Why is this a bad idea? The banks are NOT required to write down the second mortgages that they have on their books. This reverses the contractual hierarchy that junior lienholders take losses before senior lenders. So this deal amounts to a transfer from pension funds and other fixed income investors to the banks, at the Administration’s instigation. And media outlets have been amplifying Obama’s efforts to take credit for gravity. For instance, the Administration is touting the fall in foreclosures as an indicator of success when their policies have ranged from do nothing to disasters like HAMP. The fall in foreclosures is actually a sign of failure, as banks are attenuating the process more and more, in some cases due to their inability to come up with necessary documentation, in others out of a desire to wring even more fees out of investors (when a borrower can’t pay, the bank’s fees come first out of the eventual sale of the house).
Either a Gingrich nomination or Romney getting too dented during Republican primary fights increase the odds of what heretofore seemed impossible: an Obama win in November. So if the Republicans were smart, they’d take advantage of a serious weakness in this deal: that it violates the 5th Amendment takings clause. As I urged last week, please call your state attorney general and tell them you think taking from your pension to enrich banks for abusing homeowners is a lousy idea and they should therefore refuse to sign on to the settlement. You can find their phone numbers here. Please call today if you haven’t already. Thanks!Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 24. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 24. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 24. Here. (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan. Today 6.9 in America (Atka)More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 134.Source : Here .

                                                                      

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• TSA Airport Screeners Unionize Under Trumka.(TheBlaze).Washington — Airport screeners around the county have chosen the nation’s largest federal employee union to represent them in collective bargaining talks with the government.The American Federation of Government Employees won a runoff vote to represent 44,000 workers at the Transportation Security Administration.Federal officials tallying the votes say AFGE received 8,903 votes, while National Treasury Employees Union got 8,447 votes. The runoff was held after neither union received more than 50 percent of votes during the first election earlier this year.The vote came after TSA head John Pistole agreed in February to grant screeners limited collective bargaining rights for the first time since the agency was formed a decade ago.The AFGE is a branch of the AFL-CIO.The AFL-CIO’s boss Richard Trumka is one of the most frequent visitors to the White House.Hmmmmm........'Stormtroopers' of the US unite?Read the full story here.

• “How do you get Barack to believe he’s in charge?”(Mail and Guardian).You had to forgive the cheeky question. The person asking it, popular radio personality Anele Mdoda, had been waiting in ridiculously high heels in one spot for over an hour for the world’s favourite first lady to arrive for a photo opportunity, along with 74 other young African women chosen by their US embassies.Michelle Obama, glowing with enthusiasm, immediately burst into laughter.“A good man is happy with a strong woman,” she said, before launching into a girly chat about the type of men we should let into our lives.“That’s why I fell in love with Barack. I met him way before he was president and he was just so comfortable with himself and he accepted me with all my … stuff.”Any other star-struck comments were met with: “I’m so normal. My husband teases me all the time, ‘Stop being so normal,’ he says.”Hmmmm.......So she's 'damaging' his image?Read the full story here.

• US - Study: $1400 Tax Hike Per Household Needed Every Year For Next 30 Years To Pay For Government Workers Pensions.(Cnbc).U.S. state and local governments will need to raise taxes by $1,398 per household every year for the next 30 years if they are to fully fund their pension systems, a study released on Wednesday said.The study, co-authored by Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester, both of whom are finance professors, argues that states will have to cut services or raise taxes to make up funding gaps if promises made to municipal employees are to be honored.Pension funding in U.S. cities and states has deteriorated in the wake of the 2007-2009 economic recession as investment earnings dropped, and some states, such as New Jersey and Illinois, skipped or reduced required payments.The issue has sparked heated debates, from the streets of Wisconsin’s capital, Madison, where thousands demonstrated over public employees’ rights to bargain, to New Jersey, where lawmakers are expected to give final approval this week to a plan that will scale back benefits for public sector workers.Wall Street rating agencies and investors in the $2.9 trillion U.S. municipal bond market are increasingly focusing on unfunded pension liabilities as they weigh the credit-worthiness of state and local government debt.Hmmmm.....A.k.a.....There's no money for the gov pensions.Read the full story here.

• Sen. Paul Calls TSA Official ‘Clueless’.(BigGovernment).Most Americans Agree with Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) that citizen’s right to travel is being violated by the federal government every day. Searching of toddlers, infants and the elderly is a waste of resources and a concrete example of the federal government harassing American travellers. Sen. Paul questioned Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) John Pistole in a Senate hearing of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. Pistole’s answers to Sen. Paul’s questions should be of concern to those who love freedom and want reasonable policies implemented by the federal government to thwart aviation terrorism.

Paul said to Pistole:

You’re missing the boat on terrorism because you’re doing these invasive searches on six-year old girls. Same week that this happened I got a call from another neighbor of mine in Bowling Green, a little boy had a broken foot and crutches. They didn’t want to go through all the screenings, so they took the crutches off and the cast and he wanted to hobble through on his broken foot. His dad was helping him. TSA said “back away, back away.” Then he had to go through the special search because he previously had a cast on, even though the cast went through the belt. When the dad comes close they say “back away, back away.” “If you don’t back away you won’t fly.” This kind of gets back to this whole idea of what are willing to do, what are we willing to give up as a country. In your interview with ABC News, you said “I see flying as a privilege.” There are those of us who see otherwise. The Supreme Court concluded in Saenz vs. Roe in 1999 says that although the word travel is not found in the text in the constitution, yet the constitutional right to travel from one state to another is firmly embedded in our jurisprudence. Justice Stewart went on to say in Shapiro vs. Thompson that the right to travel is so important that it is assertable against private interference as well as governmental action. A virtually unconditional constitutional right guaranteed by the Constitution to us all. This isn’t to say we don’t believe in safety procedures. But I think I feel less safe when you’re doing these invasive exams on a six-year old.The stories of average Americans being harassed with unreasonable searches has expanded over the past few years and it does not seem as if the TSA is getting the message that they are wasting resources when they search people who clearly do not pose a threat to the flying public.TSA Administrator Pistole defended the pat downs of six year old little girls and implied that this little girl could be a suicide bomber pursuant to “risk based security assessments.”Sen. Paul argued that the TSA is acting “clueless” and in a politically correct manner in conducting screening.It makes me think you’re clueless, if you think she’s going to attack our country and you’re not doing your research on the people who want to attack our country. It absolutely must involve a risk assessment of those who are traveling. And the fact that she’s being patted down and I don’t feel comfortable really with your response that we are no longer doing random pat-downs. I think you ought to get rid of the random pat-downs. The American public is unhappy with them, they’re unhappy with the invasiveness of them. The Internet is full of jokes about the invasiveness of the pat-down searches and we ought to just consider, is this what we’re willing to do. The other thing is while we’re doing that there are examples of where we’ve had let-downs. When Faisal Shahzad got on the plane, the alleged Times Square bomber, he was on a watch list. Everybody said, “it was the airline that let us down.” Well he had to go through TSA screening. There were 10 hours, we ought to be able to react. Is the TSA looking at flight manifests? Doing background research of people getting on and off the planes? Are we targeting or looking at those who might attack us?The federal government needs to do a better job of finding the bad guys before they show up at the airport to fly a plane. They need to stop with the politically correct harassing screening that are enraging so many travellers.TSA lost the idea of common sense? Most Americans would say “Yes.”Read the full story here.

• What The Obama Administration Won’t Tell You About Solar Power.(BigPeace).On Friday, Secretary of the Interior Salazar praised a new solar project in California, expected to be the largest in the world, as a major milestone in fulfilling President Obama’s promise to expand renewable energy.[i] The first phase of the project, to be completed in 2013, is being supported by a U.S. Department of Energy $2.1 billion loan guarantee. The 1,000-megawatt Blythe Solar Power Project in Riverside County, California claims to be able to power between 300,000 and 750,000 homes and create 1,000 temporary jobs and about 200 permanent jobs. The truth is that solar power alone will dependably serve very few homes because it is too unreliable but will cost up to 5 times as much as the cheapest form of electrical generation. Consumers, businesses, and the taxpayer will suffer.

Comparative Capacity Factors

Of course, Secretary Salazar does not tell the public that this solar plant will provide only a small fraction of the power that a 1,000 megawatt fossil fuel or nuclear plant would provide. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a new solar thermal plant has an average capacity factor of only 18 percent, which compares to a new natural gas combined cycle plant at 87 percent, a new coal-fired plant at 85 percent and a new nuclear plant at 90 percent.According to the EIA, a plant’s capacity factor is the electrical energy it produces compared to the electrical energy that could have been produced if the plant operated at continuous full power during the same period of time. Thus, using EIA’s capacity factors, a 1,000 megawatt solar thermal plant’s annual production is expected to be 1.6 million megawatt hours, which compares to a 1,000 megawatt coal fired plant, whose annual production is expected to be 7.4 million megawatt hours. In other words, the solar plant’s annual production is expected to be 370 percent lower than the coal-fired plant, 380 percent lower than the natural gas-fired plant, and 400 percent lower than the nuclear plant.

Comparative Generating Costs

Not only is the annual production less but the cost of the solar plant is much higher. According to the EIA’s analysis of the cost of new generating plants which begin producing power in 2016, the projected capital cost of a solar thermal power plant excluding finance charges is $4,692 per kilowatt compared to $2,844 per kilowatt for a dual-unit coal-fired plant and $978 per kilowatt for a natural-gas combined cycle plant.So, the cost for a 1,000 megawatt solar plant would be $4.7 billion dollars, a coal-fired plant would be $2.8 billion, and a natural gas combined cycle plant would be just under $1 billion.Of course, the capital component is just one part of the total generating cost. According to EIA, the annualized cost of generating a kilowatt hour of electricity from each of these plants is:

Solar thermal, 31.2 cents per kilowatt hour,

Coal, 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour,

Natural gas combined cycle, 6.2 cents per kilowatt hour, and

Nuclear, 11.4 cents per kilowatt hour.

The annualized cost includes the capital component with financing charges (similar to one’s mortgage payment); the operation and maintenance cost; the fuel cost, if applicable; and the transmission cost. It also takes into account the capacity factors of the plants, which is one of the reasons that the solar plant is so much more costly on an annualized basis of generation. Its annualized cost is 5 times as much as the gas plant, over 3 times as much as the coal plant, and 2.7 times as much as the nuclear plant, even though there is no fuel component associated with solar plants. It should be noted that EIA’s annualized cost for a coal plant is increased relative to the other plants by including a 3 percentage point increase in its financing charge, which is equivalent to an emissions fee of $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide. Also, as noted above, all figures provided by EIA are for new plants, and do not reflect the operating costs of current generating facilities, which are quite different.

Conclusion

Solar generating plants have a place as a starter energy source in remote places that do not have access to an electricity grid. Past that, this technology remains radically inefficient and uneconomic. Officials of the Obama Administration mislead the public regarding renewable energy, and solar energy in particular, by touting jobs and power generation without comparison to other technologies. Such frankness would naturally raise questions about why taxpayers and ratepayers are put at such risk.It is not surprising that the Obama Administration’s promise to provide solar energy is moving at an extremely slow pace. Even quick solar projects (e.g. adding roof top solar panels and a solar water heater to the White House) are very behind schedule.“The White House will lead by example,” United States Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said during remarks at the GreenGov Symposium on Oct. 5, 2010. “I’m pleased to announce that by the end of this spring, there will be solar panels that convert sunlight to energy and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House.” But this project now has a completion date of September 2011 or later.Hmmmm.......On the other hand if you get to close to the Sun......Read the full story here.

• U.S. Postal Service to Stop Paying Into Worker Pension Fund.(Bloomberg).The U.S. Postal Service, facing insolvency without approval to delay a $5.5 billion payment for worker health benefits, will suspend contributions to an employee retirement account to save $800 million this year. The Postal Service will stop paying employer contributions to the defined-benefit Federal Employees Retirement System, which covers about 85 percent of career postal workers, it said today in an e-mailed statement. The $115 million payment, made every other week, will stop on June 24, the statement said. Suspending payments to the retirement account will help “conserve cash and preserve liquidity,” the statement said. The agency estimates it has overpaid by $6.9 billion and has asked Congress to pass legislation to return that money. Congress must “make bold, quick and substantive reforms,” said Art Sackler, executive director of the Washington-based Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, which represents corporate mail customers. “The USPS is hanging by a thread.” The agency and U.S. Office of Personnel Management will ask the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to analyze the decision, said David Partenheimer, a Postal Service spokesman. “Regardless of the outcome of the Office of Legal Counsel review, the Postal Service believes there will be no impact on employees,” Partenheimer said in an e-mail. Congress “must act now” to correct pension inequities, and the American Postal Service Workers Union “will take every step necessary” to protect retirement benefits, President Cliff Guffey said in a statement. The postal union, the world’s largest, said it represents 220,000 workers and retirees. The Postal Service has 563,402 career employees and 469,401 retirees, Partenheimer said. Postal Service Inspector General David Williams said in January 2010 that the agency had been overcharged for its pension obligations. The Postal Service had overpaid by $75 billion, and if that was returned, it would create a surplus that could be transferred to a health-benefits fund, he found. The service wants the authority to reduce pre-payment of health benefits for retirees and has said it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due Sept. 30 for health benefits for future retirees. It also wants to end Saturday delivery. The Postal Service reported a loss of $8.5 billion in its 2010 fiscal year. It also reported a widening second-quarter loss, to $2.6 billion, on declining volumes of first-class mail.The service will continue to transmit employee contributions to the pension fund and will make payments to the Thrift Savings Plan, a defined-contribution federal retirement plan, Chief Human Resources Officer Anthony Vegliante said in the statement.Hmmmm......."CHANGE".Read the full story here.

• The Obama administration will release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.(Politico).The Obama administration will release 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to offset oil supply disruptions in the Middle East, the Energy Department announced Thursday morning.Other International Energy Agency countries will release an additional 30 million barrels.“We are taking this action in response to the ongoing loss of crude oil due to supply disruptions in Libya and other countries and their impact on the global economic recovery,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “As we move forward, we will continue to monitor the situation and stand ready to take additional steps if necessary.”Unrest in Libya means about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day are not entering the market, and the administration is worried about meeting demand in July and August. Earlier this month, OPEC countries failed to reach an accord to raise oil production targets.As of Wednesday, Americans paid an average of $3.61 for a gallon of regular gasoline, according to AAA, down from a high of nearly $4 in mid-May.Oil prices fell in early trading Thursday morning. U.S. prices were down over $4 per barrel to $90.80.The U.S. petroleum reserves were last tapped in 2005 to address supply issues following Hurricane Katrina.Hmmmm......We use around 18.5 million barrels a day.That's ..Wait WOW two days worth!Releasing oil from the SPR when there is not a disruption in supply would be nothing short of catastrophic,” said Brian Kelly of Brian Kelly Capital. “It would indicate panic within the administration over the state of the economy, but more importantly it would take the markets less than a second to realize the US will need to fill up the tanks again.”“Oil would soar,” added Kelly.Read the full 'story' here.

• Obama's "Outreach to Muslims "in motion -  US Mission In Iraq ‘Haram’ After 2011.(BigPeace).One of the strangest (unique?) national spectacles ever is that of the US apparently begging Iraq ro allow US troops to remain in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for withdrawal.This seems to be a naked ploy by the Obama re-election campaign to prevent the country from unraveling completely during the 2012 campaign, strenuously assisted by Iraq hawks of the neocon persuasion to prevent the country from unraveling completely ever — even if that means we have to stay there in perpetuity. But this epic CYA is not going over well with local “religious authorities” according to a kind of poll of Sunni and Shiite leaders reportedly conducted by Moqtada al Sadr.Additionally, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency, there’s also a fatwa against US troops — I mean, “infidel occupiers” — remaining past the 2011 deadline.Senior Iraqi Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Kazzem al-Hosseini al-Haeri condemned the attempts made by Washington to prolong its military deployment in Iraq, and issued a Fatwa (religious decree) against the presence of the US forces in the country after the end of 2011.“The extended mission of the infidel occupiers in Iraq even for one single day after the mentioned date (as cited in the security agreement) is haram (religiously forbidden),” the Grand Ayatollah declared in his decree.Hmmmm.......How's that 'outreach' working Mr President?Read the full story here.

• It’s An Obama World… Maryland Is First State to Require Students to Pass Junk Science Test Before Graduating.(GatewayPundit).It used to be that the mission of the Department of Energy is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges. But that was before Obama. Now it’s all about indoctrination and junk science. Barack Obama’s radical (green) Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. So, like a good socialist, Chu proposed indoctrinating the nation’s youth on global warming junk science. And he’s not shy about it.P/Oed Patriot reported on Chu’s new indoctrination program complete with instructions and lesson plans and quizzes:This wasn’t a joke…because Yesterday, Maryland was the first state to require students to pass a green test before graduating.The kids can’t read or write but at least they can pass an enviro-Marxism test.The PJ Tatler reported: Well, the least Free State — literally — is outdoing itself in the idiocy department. In an historic vote today, the Maryland State Board of Education provided specific guidance to all public schools to require that each student be environmentally literate before he or she graduates from high school. The vote cements Maryland as the first state in the country to approve a graduation requirement in environmental literacy, a credit to Governor O’Malley, to board members, and to Dr. Nancy Grasmick, State Superintendent of Schools.In other words, despite the growing evidence of fraud within the global warming/climate change debate, Maryland schools will, by law, force feed enviro-propaganda in the classroom. And your kid will swallow it whole, or not graduate.Hmmmm.........When can we expect the 'little green book' fromdear leader?Read and see the full story here.