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Corporate Statements/ Policies

Corporate Statement on Anthropogenic Global Warming: Adopted November 30 2009

Noting:

(1) The admission [1] by the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit that it discarded raw data that went into its climate models: an action that is totally inconsistent with the most basic principles of scientific research, namely the ability of other scientists to assess the data and reproduce the results.
(2) A credible allegation (published by Kimberly Strassel, Wall Street Journal) [2] of academic dishonesty and scientific misconduct at the Environmental Protection Agency, specifically the agency's suppression of research that does not support the political agenda of cap and trade,
(3) An open statement by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) that the real purpose of cap and trade is to enrich New York's investment banks and similar entities by creating a market for carbon credits, [3] " Gillibrand projects a $3 trillion dollar market for carbon credits-"commodities" with even less value than mortgage-backed securities, which at least had real albeit overvalued property behind them-by 2020.
(4) King Canute's futile command that the tide not come in, which applies to today's proposed multitrillion dollar efforts to prevent climate change for which uncontrollable solar activity is primarily responsible, " The advance and retreat of the glaciers that created, among other things, the Pocono Mountains and New York's Finger Lakes, illustrates the predominance of solar activity over anthropogenic effects.

The Company officially denounces anthropogenic global warming as junk science whose real purpose is to enrich special interests such as investment banks with stakes in cap and trade, companies that are unwilling or unable to engineer and bring to market "green" products whose benefits outweigh their costs, and offshore manufacturers that would benefit from the outsourcing of American jobs (along with their carbon emissions) under cap and trade.
The Company also, however, recognizes the emission of carbon dioxide and methane as symptoms of waste (muda), just as black smoke (unburned carbon) was recognized as waste a hundred years ago. The Company supports and encourages efficiency improvements and resource recycling that, while their primary purpose and effect is to reduce operating costs, have the incidental effect of reducing carbon dioxide and methane emissions per unit of product or service.

[1] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece ["Climate Change Data Dumped," by Jonathan Leake]
[2] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703683804574532022758745200.html [Link not valid as of July 2011]
[3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500604574481812686144826.html ["Cap and Trade Could be a Boon to New York," link valid as of July 2011]

Corporate Statement on the Financial Crisis: Adopted September 29 2008

It is the official position of Levinson Productivity Systems P.C. that the root cause of the current financial crisis consists of institutional and individual attitudes to the effect that wealth can be created by means other than manufacturing, agriculture, and extractive industries (with transportation as a necessary adjunct). As stated by Henry Ford's My Life and Work,

The primary functions are agriculture, manufacture, and transportation. Community life is impossible without them. They hold the world together. Raising things, making things, and earning things are as primitive as human need and yet as modern as anything can be. They are of the essence of physical life. When they cease, community life ceases. Things do get out of shape in this present world under the present system, but we may hope for a betterment if the foundations stand sure. The great delusion is that one may change the foundation-usurp the part of destiny in the social process. The foundations of society are the men and means to grow things, to make things, and to carry things. As long as agriculture, manufacture, and transportation survive, the world can survive any economic or social change. As we serve our jobs we serve the world.

Nowhere does Ford mention using houses as sources of cash (by taking out home equity loans on the expectation that the price of houses, like that of Dutch tulip bulbs, will rise indefinitely), "flipping houses" (unless one buys and renovates distressed properties, thus adding value to them), trading in carbon credits, and similar non-value adding activities. As stated by Ford, "The great delusion is that one may change the foundation-usurp the part of destiny in the social process," and it is this delusion that has led our country to today's sorry state of affairs.

Corporate Statement on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: adopted April 24 2007
 Due to the widening controversy over greenhouse gas emissions, and proposals for carbon taxes and mandatory caps on these emissions, the Company adopts the following official policy. 

It is the official position of Levinson Productivity Systems P.C. that carbon emission caps, carbon taxes, and carbon offset trading are contrary to the interests of American consumers and workers, and the economic welfare and national security of the United States as a whole. Good business and engineering practices, which seek to minimize energy costs per unit of product or service, already have the incidental effect of reducing carbon emissions. The Company accordingly adopts the following Seven Points with regard to greenhouse gas emissions:

 (1)   Manufacturing is the backbone of national prosperity and national security. Our country's standard of living, ability to make good on its Social Security commitments to retirees, and military power rely on manufacturing. Anything that undermines the United States' manufacturing base must therefore be regarded as a clear and present danger to our national security, as well as to our standard of living.
(2)    Intelligent management (lean manufacturing, Toyota production system) can reduce per-unit labor costs to the point where access to cheap labor should not be a consideration in deciding where to build a factory. The best engineering on earth cannot abolish laws of thermodynamics that define the minimum amount of energy that is required to make steel, aluminum, and most chemical products.
(3)    Factories, power plants, and vehicles have an ethical and often legal duty to control emissions that are harmful to human, animal, and plant life, Carbon dioxide does not qualify as such an emission, so its regulation has no identifiable employee safety or public health benefits.
(4)    Although carbon dioxide emissions may play a role in trapping or absorbing sunlight:

o  The preponderance of global warming is almost certainly due to unavoidable climate cycles. These include both Ice Ages (New York's Finger Lakes were created by glaciers) and warm periods that encouraged Viking settlements in Greenland.
o  Regulation of carbon dioxide emissions by the United States will do nothing to reduce atmospheric concentrations of this gas as long as countries like China have no plans or obligations to implement similar regulations. It will, by raising energy costs, encourage manufacturers to move their smokestacks, and all the carbon dioxide and manufacturing jobs that go with them, to China.
o  The Company further notes that South American countries that are among the Kyoto Treaty's most vocal advocates are burning down rain forests (carbon sinks) to clear land for development.

(5)   Real wealth comes from exactly three activities: mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. It does not come from trading carbon offset credits, coins, comic books, stamps, baseball cards, and other collectibles.

o  Carbon offset trading also creates widespread opportunities for frauds and scams at the expense of credulous consumers and even businesses. It has, in fact, been compared to the medieval scam of selling indulgences for people's sins.

(6)   Proposed carbon cap-and-trade mandates would reward their corporate advocates for implementing existing business plans, "not raising hogs," or forcing consumers and businesses to buy their products or services.

o  A proposed ban on incandescent light bulbs seems to benefit only companies that manufacture fluorescent lights that, while far less friendly to the human eye, are not sufficiently cost-effective to get people and businesses to buy them voluntarily.
o  The Company's position is that these corporations should earn money the old-fashioned way: by getting the cost of their "green" products down to where an engineering economic analysis yields a positive Net Present Value for purchasing them. For reference,  

where P is the original cash outlay at time 0, A_k is the net benefit (savings or income minus costs) in the kth time period, and i is the buyer's required rate of return on investments. (Salvage value, which is generally negligible, is ignored.) The Company encourages sellers of so-called "green" products to get P low enough, and/or A high enough, so people and businesses will buy them voluntarily.

(7)    The Company supports and encourages efficiency improvements and resource recycling that, while their primary purpose and effect is to reduce operating costs, have the incidental effect of reducing greenhouse gas emissions per unit of product or service.

Contact Us

Levinson Productivity Systems P.C.
6 Lexington Court
Wilkes-Barre PA 18702
570-824-1986
TheBoss "at" ct-yankee.com