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Let's Do Something—Anything
The trouble with the new "cap and trade" bill
(Page 2 of 2)
It is also distressing, but not surprising, to hear a politician assert that trading with foreign nations means we are beholden to them rather than explain how trade makes partners more peaceful, makes us competitive, and makes everyone more prosperous.
But even if you measure trade as Markey does, we do not import the "majority" of our oil from "unstable" "Middle Eastern" countries.
According to the Energy Information Administration, the top sources for U.S. crude oil for many years have been Canada and Mexico—with Saudi Arabia third.
Saudi Arabia is a terrible place ruled by religious fascists (whom no American president ever should hold hands with or bow to), but it is rather stable, considering.
Not that it makes any difference, mind you. Something, after all, needs to be done.
David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Denver Post and the author of Nanny State. Visit his Web site at www.DavidHarsanyi.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 THE DENVER POST
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Michael Ejercito|7.1.09 @ 12:09PM|#
Have you noticed that the only acceptable solution to global
warming is to abstain from fossil fuels?
This is like hearing that the only acceptable solution to unwanted
pregnancy is abstinence from sex.
I would not be surprised if there is a significant overlap between
believers of the above ideas.
me|7.1.09 @ 12:12PM|#
Dear George Stephanopoulos,
Next time you have Paul Krugman at your "round table," ask him if
he's read the bill.
Then ask him if he believes in a god.
|7.1.09 @ 12:13PM|#
I love that sign. That is the thing most lacking in humans. The ability to determine when we are completely unproductive to the point as to be a drag on humanity. A person should, at that realization, relinquish their carbon back to gaia.
|7.1.09 @ 12:16PM|#
brotherben,
Are you serious?? Humans are the ultimate in carbon
sequestration!!! We need to create breeding farms. That's the only
logical solution.
|7.1.09 @ 12:33PM|#
For a site called "Reason", you certainly engage in a lot of irrational logical fallacies. What a pile of trash. And I'm talking both about the OP and the commenters.
DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|7.1.09 @ 12:36PM|#
"Are you serious?? Humans are the ultimate in carbon
sequestration!!! We need to create breeding farms. That's the only
logical solution."
Breeding farms? Where do I sign up?
DHS Thinks I\'m a Terrorist|7.1.09 @ 12:38PM|#
"For a site called "Reason", you certainly engage in a lot of
irrational logical fallacies. What a pile of trash. And I'm talking
both about the OP and the commenters."
If you have an actual point made that you can dispute you have not
yet attempted to do so.
Xeones|7.1.09 @ 12:40PM|#
For a site called "Reason"...
DHS etc, Ray is just trying to do his part for the environment by
making us all die of alcohol poisoning.
|7.1.09 @ 12:42PM|#
For a site called "Reason", you certainly engage in a lot of
irrational logical fallacies.
Wow, never heard that one before.
Cabeza de Vaca|7.1.09 @ 12:52PM|#
Do I have to take a drink everytime someone quotes Ray, or just for the original post?
Mike M.|7.1.09 @ 12:53PM|#
Democrats have declared war on America.
Left-wing socialists declared war on America about sixty or seventy
years ago.
The Democratic party by and large was able to stave off most of
their influence until now. But yeah, the two groups have
unfortunately pretty much become one and the same, so we're in deep
sh*t.
|7.1.09 @ 12:54PM|#
For a site called "Reason", you certainly engage in a lot of
irrational logical fallacies.
Ha, nice parody, Xeones. That was you, right? I just took a lot of
codeine so I might not be that observant.
Rich|7.1.09 @ 12:54PM|#
> ... you certainly engage in a lot of irrational logical
fallacies.
Yes, Ray, we do. It's fun. But (I dare say) most of us *understand*
when "irrational logical fallacies" are being bandied about.
Michael Ejercito|7.1.09 @ 12:55PM|#
How did left-wing socialists take over the Democratic
Party?
Governor Pat Brown would not fit in today's California Democratic
Party.
|7.1.09 @ 1:00PM|#
According to this, the cap and trade bill imposes a tax of at least 100 - 400% on coal, perhaps doubling the cost of electricity. How a dramatic increase in the cost of electricity is supposed to encourage the adoption of plug-in transportation is an exercise for the reader.
Mike M.|7.1.09 @ 1:05PM|#
Now is when Chad jumps in to remind us that we can completely overhaul our energy and transportation infrastructure to renewables for the low, low cost of only six trillion dollars.
Seward|7.1.09 @ 1:09PM|#
"irrational logical fallacies"?
Why do you need the modifier of "irrational" when mentioning
logical fallacies?
Anyway, can you be more specific? What species fallacy are we
talking about here?
|7.1.09 @ 1:15PM|#
Now is when Chad jumps in to remind us that we can
completely overhaul our energy and transportation infrastructure to
renewables for the low, low cost of only six trillion
dollars.
And to tell us that we can pay for it by simply by giving up trips
to Starbucks.
|7.1.09 @ 1:30PM|#
And to tell us that we can pay for it by simply by giving up trips to Starbucks.
Damn, I've already done my share then. I never go to Starbucks.
Rest of you need to hop to it.
:)
|7.1.09 @ 1:30PM|#
Wait. I'll use my taxpayer funded monthly check to buy starbucks if I want. Let the rich fix the environment.
Misha|7.1.09 @ 1:38PM|#
David Harsanyi is a right-wing fanatic. Have you ever noticed that the number of posts on this moronic blog approaches a fraction of the number Daily Kos gets only when some troll pushes your buttons. Idiots.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 1:40PM|#
"Now is when Chad jumps in to remind us that we can completely
overhaul our energy and transportation infrastructure to renewables
for the low, low cost of only six trillion dollars."
Yes and don't forget about the MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES of fossil
fuels.
Because of those MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES, we are actually "paying"
far more for the energy we're using now but we're just to dim to
realize it until Chad/Wilee-coyotee-super-genious graciosly deigns
to instruct us on it.
MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES|7.1.09 @ 1:49PM|#
Yeah, I'm pretty much the deal-breaker for your side. You can't
prove that I'm not doing all kinds of harm. Even harm to your
children. I'll get you denialists! Prove me wrong!
You can't.
mark|7.1.09 @ 1:52PM|#
It's hard to watch, but this is what it looks like when an award-winning economist struggles to say something useful to leftists without saying some kind of economic nonsense. As a result, Krugman ends up saying very little. It's kind of funny in a way. Clearly he's more in his element when he's writing those ridiculous columns.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 1:53PM|#
"Read the comments on this thread."
Hi crazy loon denier,
I think argument from authority and ad hominems are
legitimate forms of debate and are logically acceptable. You sir
are an ass, you are condescending and have "conservative"
tendencies; therefore, you are not only wrong in anything
you might say, regardless of factual validity or intellectual
merit, you are also evil and a traitor to the planet.
Naga Sadow|7.1.09 @ 1:53PM|#
FOOLS!!! ALL FOOLS!!! This cap and trade bill will create millions of new jobs!!! Millions!
MNG|7.1.09 @ 1:55PM|#
", for kicks, penalize foreign trade partners who fail to engage
in comparable economic suicide."
Uhh, as folks have pointed out around here this kind of thing might
be very pointless unless you can get other nations to go along, so
this is more "crucial to the scheme" than "just for kicks."
MNG|7.1.09 @ 1:56PM|#
Naga
I think the FOOLS! beginning should be your permanent catch-phrase.
But I grew up watching a lot of Super-friends...
kinnath|7.1.09 @ 1:58PM|#
According to this, the cap and trade bill imposes a tax of
at least 100 - 400% on coal, perhaps doubling the cost of
electricity.
Just wait till the senior citizens take note of this. They'll grab
their senators by the ear and give them a good talking to.
The Angry Optimist|7.1.09 @ 1:59PM|#
MNG - I think that the "for kicks" was kind of an understatement, because that's pretty much the worst part. It would be sad if the United States chose to hamstring its own business, but to penalize consumers when they come to rely on foreign imports that substitute industries killed by the bill? So. Bad.
Mike M.|7.1.09 @ 1:59PM|#
Yes and don't forget about the MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES of
fossil fuels.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the massive externalities!
By the way, everyone should go to weather.com right now and take a
good hard look at the current national temperature map.
It's July 1, and our temperature in Washington D.C. is topping out
today at around 83 degrees, and looking at the 10 day extended
forecast, it's highs of mid 80s and lows of upper 60s as far as the
eye can see. Anyone who has lived here a while and is honest will
tell you that these are below-average temps for this area at this
time of year.
The man-made global warming B.S. is right up there with the
rationales given for the Iraq war as the biggest fraud in the
history of the world.
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:01PM|#
TAO
I thought your beef (or one of them) with it was that it was
foolish to unilaterally do this. So a provision trying to push
other nations to go along seems rational to me.
The Angry Optimist|7.1.09 @ 2:03PM|#
In "pushing" other nations, you're causing them severe economic
retardation. Meaning they aren't going to do it.
All you're creating is either A) a massive black market or B) huge
incentives to cheat the system.
I am saying that it's folly to go about this in any fashion because
of the global nature of the solution required. OK, great, so now
you've pushed manufacturing out of China. Maybe now it goes to
Russia? to I dunno, Senegal or Africa or somewhere not covered by
the bill?
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:03PM|#
Well of course Mike, this cool summer day (I'm not far from you in MD) definitively proves global warming is a crazy myth! Since they called for all days to be very hot forever, you have falsified the theory clung to stubbornly by every major professional scientific organization out of sheer madness and spite. You need a Nobel nomination!
kinnath|7.1.09 @ 2:06PM|#
Time for a massive information (or misinformation) campaign; we need to get AARP and UAW beating on the Democratic Senators about how Cap-n-Trade is going to destroy their cushy lives.
The Angry Optimist|7.1.09 @ 2:07PM|#
you know, MNG, for all of your talk for wanting to see Americans succeed over other countries, you sure are eager to give away the Industry Farm to other countries' with less crazy bad schemes.
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:10PM|#
You may find that manufacturers just comply, if the costs of
complying are greater than they would be to go to the trouble of
cheating the system and such.
Libertarians are such funny folks sometimes when it comes to
regulation. Take the drug war. On the one hand, it's this set of
horrible libertyrestricting laws. On the other hand, no one really
follows these rules anyway because black markets meet supply and if
we abolished the laws we would have no more drug users than we
already do. It's nuts.
MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES|7.1.09 @ 2:11PM|#
I'm always there even when I'm not.
Whenever a polar bear drowns.
Whenever heavy metals enter an aquifer.
Whenever a request to landfill flyash is denied.
AND
Whenever congress is in session.
I'll be there.
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:12PM|#
I do want to see Americans do better than other nations. Which
is why I favor the provisions that will push nations to go along
with us.
I also don't want to see the harm to humanity that is predicted if
steps are not taken to better the environment. Which is why I
support something (in theory) like the measure which passed.
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:14PM|#
Is it some of your opinion's that externalities don't
exist?
Or has that matter been conclusively settled by the relevant
experts in libertarians favor too?
So in addition to all of these scientists, economists are
perpetrating these socialist hoaxes too, eh?
Hmmm...
|7.1.09 @ 2:15PM|#
I have a cunning plan.
* * *
Conquer the rest of the planet and make all of the other countries
"green." We, of course, get to continue our proliferate ways as
global hegemon.
Earth is saved!
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:17PM|#
"Conquer the rest of the planet and make all of the other
countries "green.""
I don't know if you realize this but most of the super-heroes are
Americans, so this will not be hard.
We've got the FF, the Hulk, Superman, Spider-man...Who's gonna fuck
with us, Alpha Flight? Batroc the Leaper?
phalkor|7.1.09 @ 2:17PM|#
No, externalities do exist. And, as evidenced here, they are perhaps developing consciousness.
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:18PM|#
@ 2:10 meant they would comply if the costs of compliance was less than the effort of getting around the penalties and such
MNG|7.1.09 @ 2:19PM|#
"And, as evidenced here, they are perhaps developing
consciousness."
I'm not sure I would promote what we've seen to
"consciousness."
ABSOULTE UNEQUIVOCAL DEFINITIV|7.1.09 @ 2:23PM|#
MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES, don't get to cocky.
You WILL utlimately have to answer to me.
Imperialist|7.1.09 @ 2:24PM|#
Conquer the rest of the planet and make all of the other
countries "green." We, of course, get to continue our proliferate
ways as global hegemon.
Can we nuke a couple to set an example, huh, huh, huh -- remember
nuclear winter is the solution to AGW.
|7.1.09 @ 2:31PM|#
Well, I think it would be wrong to use nukes, but I suspect some of the conquerees will use them to try to stop our forces of goodness.
Imperialist|7.1.09 @ 2:33PM|#
Well, I think it would be wrong to use nukes, but I suspect
some of the conquerees will use them to try to stop our forces of
goodness.
I suppose that will cool the planet well enough, but it sort of
takes the fun out of conquest.
chimcham|7.1.09 @ 2:41PM|#
http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v14n01_human_induced_climate_change.html
|7.1.09 @ 2:46PM|#
I do want to see Americans do better than other nations.
Which is why I favor the provisions that will push nations to go
along with us.
Why, you imperialist, you.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 2:52PM|#
"Conquer the rest of the planet and make all of the other
countries "green." We, of course, get to continue our proliferate
ways as global hegemon."
But we would still have the cancer of the greenie assholes eating
away our own country from within.
A better idea would be to round up all the greenie assholes
worldwide and summarily execute them all.
Problem solved.
Mike M.|7.1.09 @ 2:57PM|#
The good news is that that sh*thead Henry Waxman apparently had
to be rushed to the hospital for something yesterday.
The bad news is that whatever he has doesn't appear to be
life-threatening. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed anyway.
|7.1.09 @ 3:00PM|#
Gilbert,
No, no, no. We're going to be an enlightened empire. We're not
going to kill them. We're going to send them to a new place, a
place I call "Greenland." By edict, Greenland will be forever safe
from fossil fuels, machinery, GM-foods, etc.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 3:05PM|#
"Gilbert,
No, no, no. We're going to be an enlightened empire. We're not
going to kill them. We're going to send them to a new place, a
place I call "Greenland." By edict, Greenland will be forever safe
from fossil fuels, machinery, GM-foods, etc."
I get it.
You want to kill them too, but in a lot slower and more painfull
way.
Cool.
|7.1.09 @ 3:19PM|#
Agreed. This is a pretty bad bill.
It's funny how most people on the left and right admit that a
carbon tax would be a much more efficient way to reduce carbon, and
you could make it revenue neutral to avoid raising overall
taxes.
You could also apply it like a VAT to goods, to avoid giving
imports an advantage over domestic goods.
Yet...
instead of pursing the best option, we came up with a boon doogle
to reward the special interests. What a surpise.
Then again the word "tax" has become so demonized lately that you
can't use it. So all taxes must be hidden in some other form.
Sigh...
Rich|7.1.09 @ 3:21PM|#
> Doesn't mean shit to a tree.
Henry! 8-) So there's where *one* hippy has gone!
ESKIMO BLUE DAY (G. Slick/P. Kantner)
... Consider how small you are
Compared to your scream
The human dream
Doesn't mean shit to a tree
|7.1.09 @ 3:41PM|#
"I also don't want to see the harm to humanity that is predicted
if steps are not taken to better the environment. Which is why I
support something (in theory) like the measure which passed."
The case has not been proven that there will be great harm to
humanity.
Regarding the success of reducing CO2 with cap and trade, let's
look at Europe's experience with it. The EU has not been able to
reduce its CO2 emissions under cap and trade. Its emissions have
increased. Do we really expect to be more succesful with it? Our
economy will be damaged with no effect on CO2 output. I hope the
Senate kills this nonsense.
Polio Robot|7.1.09 @ 3:45PM|#
"Conquer the rest of the planet and make all of the other
countries "green." We, of course, get to continue our proliferate
ways as global hegemon.
Earth is saved!"
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 3:46PM|#
"instead of pursing the best option..."
Which would be to scrap the entire bill because there is no proven
need to reduce carbon dioxide one iota to begin with and replace it
with legislation the lifts any and all restrictions on exploring
and drilling for oil and gas everywhere onshore and offshore.
Drill, baby drill!
MNG|7.1.09 @ 3:48PM|#
"A better idea would be to round up all the greenie assholes
worldwide and summarily execute them all."
Gilbert's the kind of guy that on another thread would be trying to
peddle the "liberals are fascists, not conservatives" line.
Because what was evil about the fascists was not their annoying
tendency to round up group x or y and summarily execute them, but
those dang industry wide codes!
|7.1.09 @ 3:52PM|#
Actually, even if global warming turns out to be false, I still
think that some type of net zero carbon tax would be a good
idea.
You would be encourgaing the conservation of a radpidly depleting
finite resource, and increasing the returns to labor (ie a
reduction in the income tax).
Moreover, you would be preparing our economy for the increasing in
fossil fuel prices that will come no matter what in the
future.
I see that as a win/win whether climate change is real or no.
For example, if our gas tax wasn't so low, we wouldn't have had the
suburban sprawl that we had, and our economy wouldn't be as
adversly effected by changes in the price of oil.
Of course you're probably going to come back with something about
that's how people want to live, and that's true. But it doesn't
change the fact that it's an unsustainable model built on the false
idea that oil will remain cheap forever.
Anyway, it's going to be a tough adjustment for people.
The Angry Optimist|7.1.09 @ 4:01PM|#
kroneberg - the adjustment can be handled via the price
mechanism. no government "help" needed. Remember when it took
government to wean us off of whale oil? Oh yeah, that never
happened.
And I am about tired of the words "sustainable/unsustainable" - no,
use of energy sources isn't, strictly speaking, ever
sustainable, krone. Duh...that's just thermodynamics speaking
You would be encourgaing the conservation of a radpidly depleting finite resource, and increasing the returns to labor (ie a reduction in the income tax).
please pass whatever drug you're on. Do you really think that once
government gets a taste of income, its going to relinquish some of
it? Keep dreaming.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 4:09PM|#
"You would be encourgaing the conservation of a radpidly
depleting finite resource"
How do you know it's "rapidly depleting"?
There are a significant number of places in the world where the
biggest constraint on oil prodcution is political - not
physical.
Also a lot of the places off our own coasts have not only been off
limits to drilling, they have been off limits to testing and
exploration as well for a long time. Technology has gotten a lot
better at finding oil and gas in the intervening years.
|7.1.09 @ 4:10PM|#
Kroneborg, you're basically saying the government should oversee
a massive social and economic engineering scheme. With, like all
such things, the best of intentions.
No thanks. You'd think by now we would have learned better.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 4:12PM|#
"Gilbert's the kind of guy that on another thread would be
trying to peddle the "liberals are fascists, not conservatives"
line."
It's not only a line - it's a fact.
I don't see any conservatives pushing the massive expansion of
government power and control that is the carbon cap and trade
bill.
Executing those who attempt to enslave you is merely self
defense.
Chad|7.1.09 @ 4:20PM|#
Kroneborge | July 1, 2009, 3:19pm | #
Agreed. This is a pretty bad bill.
It's funny how most people on the left and right admit that a
carbon tax would be a much more efficient way to reduce carbon, and
you could make it revenue neutral to avoid raising overall
taxes.
Actually, this is not true. The cap and the tax are economically
equivalent, and there are minor advantages and disadvantages to
their practical implementation. The tax IS better in my opinion,
but only because of slightly less overhead, better clarity, and
less difficulty for businesses and individuals to calculate the
value of various projects. Overall, though, the economic impacts
are largely identical.
The problem with this bill is largely that the permits are not
auctioned, but rather given away to special interests in order to
buy votes. Now if a large group of libertarian-style Republicans
were to come out and say "Cap and Trade is correct in principle,
let's make it work by passing a clean bill without all the special
interest rent seeking", I would give the right some respect on this
issue. The reality is that they DON'T agree with cap and trade,
even in principle, and are delighted by (and indeed, often behind)
all the pork that keeps being added.
Chad|7.1.09 @ 4:28PM|#
Gilbert Martin | July 1, 2009, 1:40pm | #
"Now is when Chad jumps in to remind us that we can completely
overhaul our energy and transportation infrastructure to renewables
for the low, low cost of only six trillion dollars."
Yes and don't forget about the MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES of fossil
fuels.
Because of those MASSIVE EXTERNALITIES, we are actually "paying"
far more for the energy we're using now but we're just to dim to
realize it until Chad/Wilee-coyotee-super-genious graciosly deigns
to instruct us on it.
Sorry, I was busy today. Were you trying to be ironic?
But hey, we can always keep up the status quo, all at the low, low
price of selling our country to the Saudis, watching our unprepared
economy come to screaching halt when oil production, and especially
exports, begin to rapidly decline, killing a few tens of thousands
a year with air pollution, defacing thousands of square miles of
pristine boreal forest and Appalachian mountaintops, frying much of
the southern and western plains, flooding a good part of Florida
and Louisiana, and wiping out a tenth of the species on
earth.
Clearly, the loss of a couple of grand per year in income for your
family would be far more devastating. Just think, with that much
money lost, you might have to give up buying your new Hummer until
next year.
|7.1.09 @ 4:28PM|#
"Now if a large group of libertarian-style Republicans were to
come out and say "Cap and Trade is correct in principle, let's make
it work by passing a clean bill without all the special interest
rent seeking"
It's not right in principle because it will be costly to the
economy and it hasn't been proven that AGW will have disastrous
conseqences.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 4:34PM|#
"I would give the right some respect on this issue."
LOL
I'm sure thy're all staying up nights worrying about how to gain
your respect.
|7.1.09 @ 4:39PM|#
"But hey, we can always keep up the status quo, all at the low,
low price of selling our country to the Saudis, watching our
unprepared economy come to screaching halt when oil production, and
especially exports, begin to rapidly decline"
Read Gilbert's comment above. There need be no rapid decline of
fossil fuels.
"killing a few tens of thousands a year with air pollution"
Reference needed.
"defacing thousands of square miles of pristine boreal forest and
Appalachian mountaintops"
Versus defacing all that land with unsightly looking
windmills.
"frying much of the southern and western plains, flooding a good
part of Florida and Louisiana, and wiping out a tenth of the
species on earth."
All unproven.
"Clearly, the loss of a couple of grand per year in income for your
family would be far more devastating. Just think, with that much
money lost, you might have to give up buying your new Hummer until
next year."
There will also be a large net loss in jobs.
Chad|7.1.09 @ 4:47PM|#
bookworm | July 1, 2009, 4:28pm | #
It's not right in principle because it will be costly to
the economy and it hasn't been proven that AGW will have
disastrous conseqences.
First, I would disagree with your line about the economy. It is
wrong, because you forgot to include the words "as we measure it".
The problem is that our normal measure of economy, the GDP,
includes bad things (eg, The Broken Windows fallacy) as positives,
and fails to include bad things such as resource consumption or
environmental destruction, which are also negatives. It also
completely fails to measure pro-sumption (production for your own
personal consumption, like cooking your down dinner). So it winds
up with being a very inaccurate measurement of the state of our
society. Cap and Trade will make the economy LOOK smaller, not
because our society would be worse off, but because more of these
negatives would become incorporated within the GDP
measurement.
The second problem I have with your statement is that you seem to
think that something MUST be "disasterous" before one should act to
prevent it. This is not true. Rational people act in advance to
prevent things that are merely annoying, pretty bad, potentially
very bad but unlikely, or any other way of expressing the idea of
"undesirable" you can think of. If AGW is going to be "probably
bad", we should act to prevent it. If it is going to be "possibly
disasterous", then we should act to prevent it. If BOTH of these
cases are true, which they are, we should act even more
strongly.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 4:47PM|#
Mark 1:52pm:
It's hard to watch, but this is what it looks like when an award-winning economist struggles to say something useful to leftists without saying some kind of economic nonsense. As a result, Krugman ends up saying very little. It's kind of funny in a way. Clearly he's more in his element when he's writing those ridiculous columns.
Dude, I just got around to watching a little bit of this and
Krugman points out the myth (and a depressing myth it is) that A.
we already have a "single payer" system for health care in Medicare
and also B. that the Federal Government already pays for 60ish% of
all treatment in the US right now... and that it's not at all a
private system...
He says all this not even 4 minutes into the video!!
I keep trying to understand why people who are so dissatisfied with
the current state of health care in the US don't recognize the
simple fact that their dissatisfaction is directly proportional to
the amount of government involvement.
Incidentally, I keep failing in my quest for comprehension.
|7.1.09 @ 4:50PM|#
Jesus fuck what is wrong with you people? What do libertarianism
and science denial have to do with each other?
"Largest tax in U.S. history" is bullshit. Where'd you get that
idea? GOP talking points memo? Cuz that's where it's from. That is
certainly always a source of sound, rational policy analysis.
I'm interested to know what libertarians think we should do about
global warming. But you guys don't have to bother because you're
deep into flat earth territory on this issue, inexplicably to me.
As Chad said above, our current energy situation is hardly a cheap
or free one.
So that you guys go out of your way to believe fringe bullshit
generously provided by GOP memos and pro-oil think tanks makes no
sense to me, unless you're just worried that global warming is one
issue where there is no real libertarian solution, and you're just
scared to admit it so you wrap yourself up in the warm blankie of
science denial.
I can hardly imagine a more immoral stance to take than to
willfully deceive yourself about established science--on a reality
that will affect all humans everywhere--for the sake of ideology or
whatever the hell. Politicians who peddle this bullshit are the
worst--their names should be alongside the worst mass murderers
when history judges them, assuming there's anyone left to do it.
That you guys, under the banner of freedom, take those same
politicians' talking points and believe them as facts in the face
of overwhelming scientific evidence just makes you ignorant tools
of evil men.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 4:56PM|#
"all at the low, low price of selling our country to the Saudis,
watching our unprepared economy come to screaching halt when oil
production, and especially exports, begin to rapidly decline,
killing a few tens of thousands a year with air
pollution,...."
Blah, blah, blah.
Chad, in order to conserve valuable posting space on the blog, in
the future just use the abbreviation ME for your usual spiel whiich
we've all heard many times before.
Unless you're going to throw something funny in at the end such as
"dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!"
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 4:57PM|#
Tony, Chad has the troll job covered in here today.
You can take the rest of the day off.
Chad|7.1.09 @ 4:59PM|#
bookworm | July 1, 2009, 4:39pm | #
Read Gilbert's comment above. There need be no rapid decline of
fossil fuels.
I am specifically speaking of oil, which is the hardest to replace.
The big fields are declining 7% per year. Deep water and small
fields are declining 15%. We are depleting more than three times as
fast as we are finding, and haven't been able to increase
production for five years despite very large prices increases. Just
to replace the depletion of current fields, we would need to find a
new Saudi Arabia every 22 months.
I'll take math and chemistry over "Gilbert's comments" any
day.
We hit Peak Oil in July 2008. Be prepared. I am serious.
"killing a few tens of thousands a year with air
pollution"
You can google "air pollution deaths" and find all the data you
want. "tens of thousands per year" actually is just in the US.
Actually, just coal pollution in the US runs around 20,000
premature deaths per year.
Versus defacing all that land with unsightly looking
windmills.
Yes, because a farm with a few wind generators in it is at all
comparibly ugly to a giant patch of wasteland where there was once
a beautiful forest. You really are digging deep to find crap,
aren't you?
"frying much of the southern and western plains, flooding a
good part of Florida and Louisiana, and wiping out a tenth of the
species on earth."
All unproven.
I don't think you know what proof means. Unless something changes,
it is only a question of when with respect to the flooding and
southwestern droughts. There was an article recently in
Environmental Science and Technology which calculated 1C = 10% of
all species lost, so I was actually being pretty conservative.
Welcome to the Sixth Great Extinction.
There will also be a large net loss in jobs.
Not if you believe that markets are at all close to efficient. Able
and willing workers are an asset that markets would not leave
un-exploited indefinitely. C&T will cause economic shifts, and
some people will get lost temporarily as they adjust, but that
happens all the time. De-carbonizing our economy will actually
cause it to be more stable and therefore reduce unemployment.
Remember, four out of the last five recessions were triggered by
oil shocks.
Chad|7.1.09 @ 5:03PM|#
Tony | July 1, 2009, 4:50pm | #
I can hardly imagine a more immoral stance to take than to
willfully deceive yourself about established science--on a reality
that will affect all humans everywhere--for the sake of ideology or
whatever the hell. Politicians who peddle this bullshit are the
worst--their names should be alongside the worst mass murderers
when history judges them, assuming there's anyone left to do it.
That you guys, under the banner of freedom, take those same
politicians' talking points and believe them as facts in the face
of overwhelming scientific evidence just makes you ignorant tools
of evil men.
I just finished reading "Bury my Heart and Wounded Knee", and I
kept thinking how the denialists are so much like those that all
but exterminated the last tribes of Native Americans for the west.
The transparency of the raw greed hidden behind their phoney
arguments and propaganda is almost identical. You are right,
history will remember the denalists no better than we remember the
murders who "conquered" the west.
|7.1.09 @ 5:03PM|#
Yeah Gilbert how dare we "troll" with our fact-based opinions that are connected to reality. We'll have none of that here at Reason thank you very much! Ignorant fuck.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 5:14PM|#
OMG... Chad AND Tony, together at last... When's the big day guys? Send out your invitations yet?
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 5:23PM|#
Tony, we aren't going to pay you any overtime for trolling on Chad's watch.
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 5:35PM|#
"I'll take math and chemistry over "Gilbert's comments" any
day."
Get back to us if you ever happen to run across somebody who is an
actual authority on either one.
Rich|7.1.09 @ 5:37PM|#
> "Largest tax in U.S. history" is bullshit.
OK then, Tony, what *is* the largest?
|7.1.09 @ 5:50PM|#
Rich,
I dunno, maybe it was the time Democrats talked about letting the
Bush tax cuts expire, which is the last time the GOP trotted out
the "largest tax increase in history" talking point.
Or could be the 1954 income tax, or the social security tax. Who
cares. Why do you guys take meaningless GOP talking points as facts
(when convenient)?
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 5:51PM|#
Aww noo no... Gilbert, Chad just told me the other day that he
used to teach "college level" math.
Plus he's a scientist, or so I've heard. He's an
uber-authority.
|7.1.09 @ 5:59PM|#
I really hate that "talking points" argument. Of course they're
talking points. It's what they're talking about. Just because the
GOP takes a side on things, and talks about them, that makes them
automatically wrong? What happens when we take the same side of an
argument as the Democrats? Are we parroting the Democrat talking
points then? I doubt you'd see it that way.
If you'd take off your Democrat-colored sunglasses for once Tony,
you'd see that the world isn't just made up of right-wing and
truth.
But then again, I'm a victim of the right wing propaganda, so
anything I just said is meaningless, isn't it?
|7.1.09 @ 6:03PM|#
Just because the GOP takes a side on things, and talks about them, that makes them automatically wrong?
Generally. Can you name something they've been right about?
Republicans don't believe in science when it's inconvenient.
They've demonstrated that amply. If Democrats understand and
appreciate science and use it in their policy proposals, that's not
just another side of the argument. That's being rational, and bully
for them.
The Republicans say "this is the largest tax increase in U.S.
history" every time the Democrats come out with a budget. It's not
reality and it doesn't mean anything. When talking points align
with truth, good for them. When they distort it and you use it as a
fact to pursue an agenda, well you're being dumb.
|7.1.09 @ 6:07PM|#
So distortion of facts to support an argument is solely the domain of the Republicans? Democrats never resort to that sort of shenanigans?
|7.1.09 @ 6:13PM|#
But hey, we can always keep up the status quo, all at the
low, low price of selling our country to the Saudis,
Actually, our two biggest sources of imported oil are
Canada and Mexico. The biggest barrier to
reducing dependence on foreign oil are environmental
regulations.
watching our unprepared economy come to screaching halt when
oil production, and especially exports, begin to rapidly
decline,
Speculative. And the history of speculation that we will abruptly
run out of any natural resource gives little reason to believe this
is true. You might look up a certain wager
made by Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon sometime.
killing a few tens of thousands a year with air
pollution,
[citation needed], but, sure. Just make sure to offset the
externalities caused by whatever will replace carbon fuels.
defacing thousands of square miles of pristine boreal forest
and Appalachian mountaintops
What boreal forest is being defaced? What, for that matter, is the
total footprint of all open-face coal mines in the US? Betcha its
not thousands of square miles.
frying much of the southern and western plains, flooding a good
part of Florida and Louisiana, and wiping out a tenth of the
species on earth.
Speculative, based on modeling of certain unproven yet assumed
feedback loops, not supported by any data.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 6:35PM|#
Woah... Tony, you think Democrats give a shit about
science??
HAHhahahahahaha.... Man, that's awesome. I love you guys.
If I can be serious for two seconds (it's so hard for me with Chad
and Tony around, but I'll try). The Democrats completely ignore
science on Nuclear Power, I doubt you'll get a Dem to admit that
the ANWR pipeline was a boon to the local Caribou
population, and you sure as hell won't find one who's willing to
deal with the mounds of empirical evidence in economics that point
towards the success of free markets, but i suppose you don't
consider that "science". A CA democratic assemblyman said just the
other day that the couple billion dollar tax-increase the state is
imposing on crude-oil won't be passed on to any
end-consumers.
You people (D)s, honestly believe that taxing "corporations" isn't
a tax on every individual who uses that company's products. If that
isn't at least in essence anti-science, I'm not sure what
qualifies.
If you aren't stuck with this weird democratic view of the field
where consensus is more important than non-contradictory logic and
real-world (as opposed to laboratory/model-created) evidence, then
Dems are pitifully far behind the curve.
That said... Of course the (R)s are unquestionably worse on these
issues, but both the idiot parties suck a goat's ass when it comes
to dealing with any facts and logic.
BUT, Tony... occasionally one "side" or the other gets something
right.
|7.1.09 @ 6:42PM|#
You can argue about "when" peak oil, peak coal etc will occur,
but never the less, they will occur. (note peak oil doesn't mean
that we run out of oil tomorrow, it just means that supply
(especially cheap supply) can no longer keep up with demand).
And the price mechanism is telling us they will occur sooner rather
than later.
Also, with a carbon tax, (or cap and trade to a lesser extent) the
government is overseeing the transformation, the market is. The
government is just providing signals to the market.
One very interesting paper on this can be found here. Note it's an
actual economic paper, and not just an op-ed.
http://www.sociology.northwestern.edu/faculty/prasad/Taxation_3_25_08
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 6:52PM|#
Krone...
Government's cannot provide accurate signals to the market. If they
are attempting to do so, then you cannot continue to say that the
transformation is being overseen by "the market". Government &
market are two separate entities. One relies on dispersed
information carried through price signals based on the voluntary
transactions of millions of people around the world - in other
words, it is "bottom-up"... And the other relies on a few people
using various degrees of force to pressure and coerce the bulk of
humanity to make a decision sponsored by an oligarchy and it, by
definition, "top-down".
These are conflicting methods of dealing with issues - so while
you're right, government can "provide signals" to the market, you
are wrong in then assuming that that A. those
signals will be remotely accurate or reflect the true state of
scarcity related to a wide spectrum of goods, services & raw
materials... and B. that the "market" is then
responsible for the results.
It's exactly that line of thinking that leads most people to think
the "free market" has failed in the case of the housing, financial
& health care industries when it was precisely the government
tampering and sending bad signals into the market that are the
actual problem.
Chad|7.1.09 @ 7:30PM|#
R C Dean | July 1, 2009, 6:13pm | #
What boreal forest is being defaced? What, for that matter, is the
total footprint of all open-face coal mines in the US? Betcha its
not thousands of square miles.
Dear God! Do you not know that most the Canadian "oil" we receive
comes from the tar sands in Alberta? With an area of 54000 sq
miles, and 20% of that with shallow deposits best collected by open
pit mining, thousands of square miles of devasation result.
National Geographic just did a nice peice on this mess. It is
definitely a contender for the least environmentally-friendly
project on earth. It actually drastically amplifies carbon
emissions compared to regular oil because so much natural gas is
burned in order to boil the tar out of the sand. And we won't even
get into the massive lakes full of toxic water that are being built
all over the place up there, with no long term solution.
And you may want to re-think your opinion of Mexican oil. Their
production is falling like a rock and their demand increasing. They
will be a net importer before long.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 7:39PM|#
Wow... umm... Chad........... hate to break it to you buddy...
but RC Dean wasn't talking about "oil", as you could have
determined by accurately reading the word: "coal"
You know... the word which you copy & pasted, then promptly
ignored to make a tangential point.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 7:40PM|#
Also... I love that he additionally said, "in the US" and you
immediately start talking about Canada.
...You are some of the best comic relief, dude.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 8:54PM|#
Incidentally... I got curious, so I decided to take up RC's
implicit challenge.
Here are some of my findings:
1. The McMurray Formation, within the Canadian Athabasca Oil-Sands
region you were referring to is where the main strip mines are.
From what I can gather, the total area being mined seems to be
32 square miles. It's possible that I've only
found data on one company, but since there are only 4 mines
operating in that part of Canada, I'm going to bet that if I'm
wrong about 32 square miles as the total, then the real total
cannot possibly be over 120 square miles being strip mined.
And... To RC's real question:
2.Wiki tells me that the United States has a whopping grand total
of FIVE open-pit mines...
They are:
Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana - 320 acres
Hull-Rust-Mahoning Mine near Hibbing, Minnesota - 4,480 acres
Bingham Canyon Mine near Salt Lake City - 1,900 acres
Lavender Pit near Bisbee, Arizona - 300 acres
and
El Chino Mine near Silver City, New Mexico - weighing in at a whopping 9,000 acres! (El Chino is apparently one of the largest in the world, and very close to shutting down permanently it turns out.)
All combined, the total surface area being covered by these mines
is at most... WAIT FOR IT...
25 SQUARE MILES
Notably, this means that it would take 40 times that
amount of area being strip-mined in the United States to break 1000
square miles, so I think I can afford a rather wide margin of
error...
Chad, I hate to break it to you for the bazillionth time, but you
are full of shit.
Sean W. Malone|7.1.09 @ 9:15PM|#
Oh by the way... none of those are Coal mines.
If you want to talk Mountain-Top Removal coal mining, that's
another issue but still doesn't manage to break a few thousand Sq.
Miles in the entire United States...
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 9:26PM|#
"Aww noo no... Gilbert, Chad just told me the other day that he
used to teach "college level" math.
Plus he's a scientist, or so I've heard. He's an
uber-authority."
Yes indeed.
Just like this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MaJbJgZEp8
Gilbert Martin|7.1.09 @ 9:38PM|#
"Actually, our two biggest sources of imported oil are Canada
and Mexico. The biggest barrier to reducing dependence on foreign
oil are environmental regulations."
Indeed so.
There's lots more oil to be had offshore, in ANWAR, in tar sands in
Canada and in oil shale in the Western U.S.
Also we can make synthetic gasoline out of coal. We've got plenty
of that. We could build a bunch of new nuclear power plants to
replace coal fired ones and then we would have even more spare coal
available to make gasoline out of.
And make all those nuclear power plants be the the breeder reactor
type. They can produce more fuel than they use and it can be
reprocessed and used over and over again. Now that's REAL renewable
energy!
Also we can stop the pussyfooting around and start storintg all
that nucleear waste at Yucca Mountain where it belongs. There is no
physical reason why it shouldn't be stored there - only a political
bullshit one. Tell those whiny crybabies in Nevada to suck it
up.
They were perfectly happy to take all the economic benefit of the
government spending tons of taxpayers money to build the place but
when it comes time for the taxpayers to get what they paid for,
they pitched a hissy fit about it.
Chad|7.1.09 @ 10:03PM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 1, 2009, 8:54pm | #
I'm going to bet that if I'm wrong about 32 square miles as the
total, then the real total cannot possibly be over 120 square miles
being strip mined
Sean, I am talking about what we will do, not what we have already
done. Massive investments are being made up there, and will last
for decades. Wikipedia puts the area that is consistent with strip
mining at over 10,000 sq miles. Please tell me, at how many should
we quit? And of course, that isn't counting how much devastation
these things cause all around them. There are areas of Alberta that
have worse air pollution than Mexico city, and they are also having
serious water issues as well. Never mind the lakes of toxic water,
either...
There's lots more oil to be had offshore, in ANWAR
That buys us a year.
in tar sands in Canada
Buys us a couple more years, is environmentally destructive in the
extreme, and is highly expensive.
and in oil shale in the Western U.S
A few more years, and several times worse than tar sands in every
way.
Also we can make synthetic gasoline out of coal.
Similar to tar sands. Expensive and filthy.
We could build a bunch of new nuclear power plants to replace
coal fired ones
Fine. Go ahead and try to build one without subsidy.
|7.1.09 @ 10:09PM|#
cutting though the crap...
Which of you have actually read the bill?
...and where can I find it?
Rich|7.1.09 @ 10:31PM|#
> The Republicans say "this is the largest tax increase in
U.S. history" every time the Democrats come out with a budget. It's
not reality and it doesn't mean anything.
Does "it" refer to "a budget"?
Seriously, I really am trying to understand your "tax increase"
point. Maybe we just have to agree to wait and see what future
1040s result in.
|7.1.09 @ 10:33PM|#
Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana - 320 acres
Berkeley Pit is now abandoned and filling with highly acidic water,
presumably filled with the salts of various metals.
I wonder how much of these metals could be extracted if
Atlantic-Richfield simply had a few anodes and cathodes suspended
into the lake and various locations and let electrolysis
begin.
Just a little mental exercise I've engaged in, from time to
time.
Rich|7.1.09 @ 10:36PM|#
Sam-Hec, here ya go:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2454rh.txt.pdf
I look forward to your crap-cutting.
Michael Ejercito|7.2.09 @ 12:05AM|#
I wonder how much of these metals could be extracted if Atlantic-Richfield simply had a few anodes and cathodes suspended into the lake and various locations and let electrolysis begin.
I doubt it would be profitable.
|7.2.09 @ 12:10AM|#
"That buys us a year."
"Buys us a couple more years"
"A few more years"
Citations needed. You're talking out your ass again Chad.
Chad|7.2.09 @ 12:22AM|#
Silentz | July 2, 2009, 12:10am | #
"That buys us a year."
"Buys us a couple more years"
"A few more years"
Citations needed. You're talking out your ass again
Chad.
If you had any clue about how much oil is being pumped, how much
oil is in ANWR, how fast we could extract that oil, and how fast
current oil fields are currently declining and how fast they will
be declining, you wouldn't be asking such stupid questions. Get
informed. I am not going to google what you could google on your
own.
ANWR would increase world oil supplies by about one percent....in a
world where oil supplies will be almost certainly be declining by
several percent per year by the time ANWR. The same is true of the
continental shelf.
Yes, we should drill ANWR. But don't pretend for a second that the
oil there is going to do anything but delay the inevitable by year
or so.
|7.2.09 @ 12:36AM|#
Seriously, I really am trying to understand your "tax increase" point. Maybe we just have to agree to wait and see what future 1040s result in.
By the way, I think the bill isn't nearly strong enough, which
Harsanyi says somewhere in the middle of a bunch of tired GOP-style
extortionate fear tactics about what the most profitable businesses
in history will do (to Americans) if we raise their expenses by a
single cent.
Anyway, I'm just pointing out that the Republicans said "this is
the largest increase in taxes in U.S. history" when Democrats
proposed letting Bush's tax cuts expire (and what a great job they
did for the economy!). This is despite the fact that the original
cuts expired by themselves (to hide the massive deficits they'd
cause in the future). It's a stupid bit of vintage GOP talking
points they've recycled for the climate change bill because they're
stupid and they have no ideas except that any tax, no matter what
the circumstances, is a bad thing. While we need some taxes, they
can never be raised, only reduced. Not even to stabilize a
radically damaged global environment. Don't worry, magic will fix
it!
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 4:29AM|#
Chad, you don't google what you could google for yourself. When
people ask you to back up your bullshit claims, you never do - and
we ask you to because you spend so much time pulling "facts" right
out of your idiotic ass.
Tony - I'm talkin' to you too...
/evil eye>
As many have pointed out around here in the past, tax cuts without
spending cuts is nothing more than a political shell-game, one
which Bush didn't even play all that well. The republicans have
done diddly squat to lower anyone's taxes as you pointed out by
noting the massive deficits they covered up. We aren't Republicans
here though. But the fact is we have a drastically better global
environment than we had 80 years ago, and it's thanks to improved
technology and global prosperity. You can't tax your way into
prosperity, and pushing less efficient technologies over more
efficient one's is a piss-poor way to "save" the environment.
My advice: Take a drive through the countryside every once in a
while... The air is clean (in fact even my neighborhood in LA
smells like flowers year round) and the land and water is easily
99.9% non-polluted. Get out... Go camping, bring a tent and a water
bottle and enjoy nature for once.
Jesus... I have lived in 3 of the the largest cities in the United
States and not once have choked on toxic fumes when I've stepped
outside my house. Relax.
Gilbert Martin|7.2.09 @ 7:55AM|#
"Citations needed. You're talking out your ass again
Chad."
That's all he's capable of doing.
Gilbert Martin|7.2.09 @ 7:57AM|#
"Fine. Go ahead and try to build one without subsidy."
Ha!
You don't even remotely resemble any sort of authority on what does
and doesn't constitute a "subsidy".
Chad|7.2.09 @ 8:25AM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 2, 2009, 4:29am | #
Chad, you don't google what you could google for yourself. When
people ask you to back up your bullshit claims, you never do - and
we ask you to because you spend so much time pulling "facts" right
out of your idiotic ass.
I get tired of searching for simple facts such as "The world uses
about 85 million barrels of oil per a day, the US a quarter of
that". If you are arguing with me, and you did not already know
this, you are simply so mis-informed that your opinion is worth a
rat's ass.
No, I am not going to provide a link to trivial things that any
informed person should know. The sun rises in the east. Grass is
green. Oil supply is flat despite high prices and massive
investment.
Chad|7.2.09 @ 8:28AM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 2, 2009, 4:29am | #
Jesus... I have lived in 3 of the the largest cities in the United
States and not once have choked on toxic fumes when I've stepped
outside my house. Relax.
Tell that to the tens of thousands of Americans who DO choke on the
fumes each year. Oh wait, you can't, because it really doesn't work
that way and you can't tell which particular heart attacks or cases
of lung disease or cancer were caused by pollution.
Sorry, but I will take peer-reviewed data over your personal
anecdote anyday. And btw, LA stinks. You have simply become
accustomed to it as the smog fried your sense of smell.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 11:10AM|#
OF FFS CHAD... you DON'T HAVE "peer-reviewed" data!!
IF you did, then A. you would actually present it once in a while,
instead of making up shit that suits your purpose, and B. you
wouldn't contradict yourself by saying things like:
"you can't tell which particular heart attacks or cases of lung
disease or cancer were caused by pollution."
It's hard for me to imagine a person who is so
stupid as to not get the irony of claiming that
he's got access to peer-reviewed data on information that is
impossible to know or not researched in the same
post!
You've got to be kidding Chad...
If you've got the fucking data, then CITE IT.
I did just a few posts ago and it makes you look like a right twit.
You claimed that thousands of square miles of "devastation" result
from the Canadian strip mining and the actual area doesn't
even break 100 square miles!
You sir, are a useless, oxymoronic waste of space.
(PS. I also lived in Nebraska for 15 years, and have been camping
in CO, WY, MN, and been to most states in the US - and 17 foreign
countries... My anecdotes trump your non-existent "peer-reviewed"
date pretty hard, buddy.)
Chad|7.2.09 @ 11:23AM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 2, 2009, 11:10am | #
OF FFS CHAD... you DON'T HAVE "peer-reviewed" data!!
Again, are you smart enough to type "air pollution deaths" into
google? Or go to the wiki site on air pollution? Apparently
not.
I WILL NOT CITE INFORMATION THAT CAN BE FOUND BY A
KINDERGARTNER.
Ten seconds of research on your part would confirm the gist of
numbers I put up, with data from agencies such as WHO and the EPA.
Is this too much for you?
Now, when I cite some unusual or difficult to find data, then, yes
I will link it.
Do you think that I don't understand that you are simply trying to
waste time, because all the evidence is against you?
|7.2.09 @ 11:31AM|#
Michael Ejercito | July 2, 2009, 12:05am
Yes, but it might help clean it up, which is something A-R is going
to have to face up to eventually.
And whatever revenue it brought in might offset what's likely to be
a huge bill.
But, actually, I assume that it's likely not practical or workable.
If it was someone at the mining companies would have already though
of it.
After all, it's not like I'm a giant-brained super-genius like
Chad. It must be wonderful to know it all.
|7.2.09 @ 11:47AM|#
Hi Sean,
With things like externalities it is actually up the government to
provide the signal to the market because the market can't provide
the signal to itself. By definition that's what makes it an
externality.
You are correct that the signal will almost certainly be wrong to
some degree. The question then becomes is will the wrong signal
provide enough value that it's still better than no signal at
all?
Ofte times no, but some times yet. A great example would be
government intervening to provide signals to reduce things like
acid rain.
You are correct that government tampering had a lot to do with our
current financial crisis, but a lot of it to was because government
didn't properly define the rules of the game either. IE the way
incentives were allowed to be strucutred encourged bad
behavior.
Also with something like housing, what's the exernality, that
government was trying to correct?
Finally, even though government is poor at it, the market is even
worse at long term planning. The market doesn't care about events
50-100 years out because of discoutning, but people (and thus the
government does).
IMHO, the government should be able to have a longer time horizon
and thus get things like dam, roads etc built that private
enterprise often wouldn't.
Gilbert Martin|7.2.09 @ 12:06PM|#
"You are correct that government tampering had a lot to do with
our current financial crisis, but a lot of it to was because
government didn't properly define the rules of the game
either."
No a lot of it was because the government mistakenly thinks that
part of it's jobs is trying to engineer specific economic outcomes
for specific groups of people.
Just as increasing home ownership rates.
Gilbert Martin|7.2.09 @ 12:08PM|#
"If you've got the fucking data, then CITE IT."
LOL
Don't hold your breath.
He DOESN'T have data on anything.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 12:17PM|#
Krone, the market does a vastly superior job of
long-term planning, because as a part the price mechanism the
market reallocates resources for short vs. long-term
projects.
The "people" don't give a shit about long-term planning on their
own and have no way of knowing how to tell which resources are
scarce and need to be conserved or which need to stop being used -
but the combined power of everyone living on the planet trading
with each other and a few easy-to-understand principles provides a
way in which, without anyone ever saying anything, we all stop
using something that's becoming hard to get. A great example was
Tin.
Prices go up, and we switch to something that is less scarce or
more efficient.
Government has no incentive to plan long-term...
In case you haven't noticed... The events of this year should serve
as a perfect reminder. Obama is spending trillions of dollars on
projects that will have negligible (I actually believe, very
*negative*) economic effect - but which benefit Democrat friendly
special-interest groups... And leaving the tab for our
grandchildren. Is that the "long-term planning" you're referring
to?
And Chad: I DID look up the last piece of idiocy
you spouted - remember? And you were wrong by a magnitude of 10...
Yet again, you overlook your own contradictory statements, and
pretend that you're an authority on something that you've proven
time and time again to be one of the most ignorant people to ever
grace this website.
mark|7.2.09 @ 12:18PM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 1, 2009, 4:47pm | #
I'm going to post this
again in case someone missed it. The guy looks extremely
uncomfortable, like he's watching his words in case he says
something he knows to be false, from his work in economics. At no
point does he defend the market's role in the health care market.
He says standard talking points about how much other countries
spend on health care, without qualifying those statements with
facts that he knows to be true, including a) Other countries
free-ride off American medical advancements, b) Countries with
single-payer and rationing have health outcomes and decision-making
that many Americans would find "undesirable", and c) There is no
guarantee that more government involvement in health care would
cause health care spending to fall in line with other countries,
and in fact this seems rather unlikely.
Thankfully, Charlie Rose doesn't call bullshit on any of the
shallow points Krugman makes, and the interview proceeds awkwardly
forward.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 12:23PM|#
Btw, Krone:
The signal for long-term investment is an increase in
savings.
Thus, just as a side-note, when you have a government pushing as
hard as they possibly can for people to forego savings, and
spend-spend-SPEND(!), what you have is government specifically
trying to negate the very thing that would cause people to
reallocate capital for long term projects and instead allocate
capital for immediate consumption.
Can't have it both ways really...
Chad|7.2.09 @ 12:23PM|#
Let's play a little game. I will chose the phrase "air pollution
deaths per year", type it in to Google, chose the first link, and
let you know what I find. Without looking, I am betting it confirms
my claim that tens of thousands of Americans and/or hundreds of
thousands world-wide are killed by air pollution every year.
So here goes! What do we find?
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2006/2006-10-06-01.asp
The title? "World Health Experts Warn Air Pollution Kills Two
Million a Year".
Game, set, match. I win. Grovel before me and appologize profusely
for wasting everyones' time.
mark|7.2.09 @ 12:27PM|#
I can't believe that I said "market's role in the health care
market". Let me flesh that out a bit.
At no point does he defend the market's initial and continuing role
for bringing about medical innovation, and the huge availability of
medical treatment, in the absence of any central control.
Chad|7.2.09 @ 12:27PM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 2, 2009, 12:17pm | #
Krone, the market does a vastly superior job of long-term planning,
because as a part the price mechanism the market reallocates
resources for short vs. long-term projects.
Yes, I am sure that our great great grandchildren will be so deeply
thankful that we ran up trillions in debt to buy crap from China
that lasts an average of a few months, McMansions that will have to
be torn down when no one can afford to live 30 miles from work, and
SUVs long ago sent to the scrap yard.
There are actually very few things we can leave future generations.
We are spending precious little on such things, and rapidly
depleting any natural resources they might wish to have.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 12:27PM|#
Thanks for posting that earlier/now Mark, I couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of it before wanting to punch Krugman in the neck.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 12:29PM|#
Chad... you are a fucking genius, you know that?
Who borrowed that money from China again? Was it... The US
Treasury perhaps?
You remember what I just said about how saving is the price-signal
for long-term investment? You know what the savings rate in the US
is? Know what the deficit & debt nationally are?
Thank you for so clearly making my point... again.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 12:36PM|#
Perhaps, Chad... you might consider that an endless glut of
money that anyone can borrow for absurdly low interest rates (who
controls those again?), encourages people to spend on things that
only last a year because they will have even more money next year
to replace it with the next "new thing".
The Treasury borrowed the money from China while the Fed printed
more and held interest rates down. Banks distributed that massive
increase in cash through the system as they are wont to do...
But to the average citizen, what they saw was a boatload of cash
being offered for virtually 0% interest (for 9 months!) and the
opportunity to buy whatever they wanted - savings be damned.
You see what I'm saying Krone?
|7.2.09 @ 12:59PM|#
agreed that higher interst rates act as a signal for
saving.
disagreed that the investment will go towards truly long term
projects.
The process of discounting makes any business investment past 30
years or so practically worthless in terms of net present value.
But from a societal standpoint that's not necessairly true.
I do think NPV is very useful, AND should still be used for
government projects, but I don't think it should be the only
critera.
Also, as noted in my first post, I'm not in any way saying that our
current policies are good ones.
But...
I would say that there are certain policies that if implemented
could have long term benefits both environemtanlly, AND
economically.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 1:26PM|#
Ok, well maybe we should define our terms a little better.
Long-term in economics (and if you think about it in reality) is
more along the lines of 20-30 years. It's not 100-200 years.
But do you honestly believe that it's remotely possible to plan for
100 years?
Changes in communication technologies alone over the last 50 years
have rendered the world a universe away from where anyone would
have predicted in 1959... much less 1909.
Having some humility to realize that you have no way of knowing
what technology, nature, science and humanity is going to look like
in 100 years is part of the point too. Anyone who pretends that
they do know the future would spend their time better reading palms
and tarot cards.
Is there some magic crystal ball that government uses to predict
life 200 years from now that lets them plan long-term? Is there any
evidence at all for governments around the world even remotely
thinking about anything but the next election cycle? Surely our
meddling in international affairs has proven brilliant, as has our
rabidly printing money since 1973...
|7.2.09 @ 1:58PM|#
You are right, there is always going to be some uncertaity, but
IMHO, that doesn't mean we can't take actions.
Building things like the hoover dam, or the national highway system
certainly didn't payoff during the short term, but I think were
well worth it long term.
I think similiar reasoning can be applied to fossil fuels. We don't
know what the future holds, but it's reasonable to believe that as
we use up finite resources they will become more expensive,
therefore we should have programs in place that can provide the
technology that can move us away from that.
The gas shock last summer was a perfect example. I would estimate
(based on a considerable amount of time studying fossil fuels for
investment purposes) that there is 80-90% chance that oil will hit
$150 again within 10 years, and better than 50% chance that it will
hit it in 5. And 30 years out our economy is going to be in real
trouble if it's still based on oil to the same extent it is
now.
Shouldn't we be thinking about stuff like this, and taking
reasonable steps to protect our economy?
Again I'm not saying Obama etc is taking the righg steps, but I
think the market overall is not paying enough attention to it
either.
Michael Ejercito|7.2.09 @ 2:41PM|#
The gas shock last summer was a perfect example. I would estimate (based on a considerable amount of time studying fossil fuels for investment purposes) that there is 80-90% chance that oil will hit $150 again within 10 years, and better than 50% chance that it will hit it in 5. And 30 years out our economy is going to be in real trouble if it's still based on oil to the same extent it is now.
The reason our economy is based on oil is because of cost and
convenience.
When the cost and convenience advantage for oil disappears, we
switch to something else. That is how markets work.
Chad|7.2.09 @ 2:49PM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 2, 2009, 12:36pm | #
The Treasury borrowed the money from China...
Everybody borrowed money from China, Sean, and not just in the last
few years. I think you over-estimate the influence of the Fed in
this matter. The markets control rates to a much larger extent that
you are willing to admit. Like always, libertarians always find a
way to blame the nearest government department every time the
markets blow up.
Sean W. Malone | July 2, 2009, 1:26pm | #
Ok, well maybe we should define our terms a little better.
Long-term in economics (and if you think about it in reality) is
more along the lines of 20-30 years. It's not 100-200
years.
Thank you for pointing out the problem. We SHOULD be thinking for
the long haul. We rarely think past the next election. Corporations
put little effort or faith in anything beyond ten years, so they
aren't a solution, either.
Think about it. What can you do today to benefit the lives of
people alive in 2209? What can you leave them that they might use
or want? You can leave information. You can leave nature and
natural resources. You can leave a few select, very durable goods
and core infrastructure. You can leave art. If you really think
about, there aren't many things on the list, and in some cases, we
aren't accumulating things on the list but rather depleting
them.
When we blast off the top of a mountain in West Virginia, we are
harming every generation for millions of years. We are giving them
almost nothing in return. That is about a big of a sin as I can
imagine.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 2:49PM|#
The economy can protect itself if left alone enough to function
properly. It's an extremely complex system of competing values and
trade-offs - risk and over-reaching greed should be balanced
against fear of loss, failure shouldn't be rewarded, and we can't
be subsidizing (and thus distorting the price-signal) gas companies
or so-called "green" energy companies. When that
happens, the actual cost-effective and efficient projects are very
likely to be passed over for the political favorable ones. Chad
challenged anyone to privately build a nuclear power plant... I
would in a heartbeat, were I an energy investor if the regulatory
climate allowed me to. It's clearly proven to be safer, less
accident prone, and multiple times more efficient than anything
else going right now, but it's impossible to be allowed to build
virtually anywhere. It meets all my requirements for power: overall
cheaper than alternatives, more efficient, containable &
storable waste (unlike carbon spewing into the air from coal plants
it only has water vapor), and as a result a single plant can power
a much greater area. Plus it's damn cool and futuristic.
I maintain that absent government support through subsidies,
military protection and the various automobile industry &
fossil fuel industry friendly laws and social engineering schemes
over the years, (and fear mongering of useful idiot hippies)that we
wouldn't even be talking about CO2 or carbon or strip-mining for
shale-oil.
Point is, energy isn't a market problem, it's a government
problem.
Chad|7.2.09 @ 3:00PM|#
Kroneborge | July 2, 2009, 1:58pm | #
The gas shock last summer was a perfect example. I would estimate
(based on a considerable amount of time studying fossil fuels for
investment purposes) that there is 80-90% chance that oil will hit
$150 again within 10 years, and better than 50% chance that it will
hit it in 5. And 30 years out our economy is going to be in real
trouble if it's still based on oil to the same extent it is
now.
You are decidely optimitic. I wouldn't be surprised to see $150 by
2011, and I don't even want to guess at the number in 2019. We
should be planning everything with the assumption of $150.
The process of discounting makes any business investment past
30 years or so practically worthless in terms of net present value.
But from a societal standpoint that's not necessairly
true.
Agreed. The problem with NPV and any cost-benefit system that uses
discounting is that it just doesn't make sense over long time
periods, especially intergenerationally.
The reason for this is that the discount rate is an individual
phenemenon, not a social one. I discount my future cash flows for
fundamentally two reasons. The first is that I might not collect,
either because I pass away or the borrower defaults. The second is
that I expect to be richer in the future than I am now, making the
future cash flow worth less to me. Also, part of the discount rate
is simply irrational. We are wired to discount the future, whether
it makes sense or not.
At an intergenerational societal level, these reasons for
discounting don't make as much sense. Our children WILL be around,
and because we are talking about many borrowers, the risk of
large-scale default is low. So the only remaining reason to
discount is to have the belief that our kids and grandkids are
going to be so filthy stinking rich that an inflation-adjusted
dollar in their pocket is worth less than one in ours.
I don't think that even passes the smell test.
mark|7.2.09 @ 5:32PM|#
When we blast off the top of a mountain in West Virginia, we
are harming every generation for millions of years.
You mean in terms of depleted resources or spoiling the view for
those well-off enough to go out to the mountain for a hike? Because
I'm sure future generations will have plenty of resources and
plenty of places to hike.
We should be planning everything with the assumption of
$150.
You pulled that number out of your ass. The only reason prices were
that high before was due to bubble economics (borrowing cheap and
cornering the market, plus fears about the dollar). If they get
that high again it will be for the same reason, especially if there
is a glut of dollars. There is a world clearing price for oil and I
seriously doubt it's more than double the price now. What's more,
even if that were the case, the market would do a far better job of
allocating resources than the government could on its best day.
mark|7.2.09 @ 5:43PM|#
I couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of it before wanting to
punch Krugman in the neck.
Can you make anything of his eye movements? Typically when someone
looks off to the left, he is making something up, possibly not
truthful. When he looks to the right, he is remembering something,
and is likely telling the truth. I see lots of eye movements to the
right, remembering, then stuttering, then he looks to the left for
some bullshit, then answers the question much more easily.
Sean W. Malone|7.2.09 @ 5:55PM|#
That's usually how it goes Mark - Krugman stutters a lot when he's trying to remember stuff. I imagine that that's partially due to his lack of practice recalling true things.
Chad|7.2.09 @ 6:09PM|#
mark | July 2, 2009, 5:32pm | #
You mean in terms of depleted resources
Not really. If we don't burn them in the next couple of
generations, we never will. It's only our children and
grandchildren that we are screwing by not saving enough for them
without providing a good way for them to survive without.
or spoiling the view for those well-off enough to go out to the
mountain for a hike?
Ummm, hiking is one of the cheapest hobbies there is, and often is
less expensive than your day-to-day life.
Because I'm sure future generations will have plenty of
resources and plenty of places to hike.
I am interested in your spontaneous coal-generation theory. Can I
subscribe to your service?
You pulled that number out of your ass. The only reason prices
were that high before was due to bubble economics
Ahh, so you ADMIT that the market failed. Great. You just conceded
everything to me.
Thanks for playing.
Or do you want to recant and claim that it was supply and demand
that caused the price spike, in which case, you must admit that
prices will again skyrocket as demand is going nowhere but up in
the long term, and supplies physically cannot increase
substantially.
the market would do a far better job of allocating resources
than the government could on its best day.
As evidenced by our society borrowing trillions from the Chinese
and Saudis in order to buy McManions, SUVs, and cheap Chinese crap.
Clearly, that was a brilliant example of resource allocation.
mark|7.2.09 @ 7:52PM|#
I explained what I meant by "bubble economics": borrowing
cheap and cornering the market, plus fears about the
dollar
Government "stimulus" and Federal Reserve pumping led to
self-interested traders borrowing easy money and parking it in
commodities. If the gov. didn't mess with the market for money, you
can bet that the market for oil would be much more stable.
And as for resource depletion, we have hundreds of years of fossil
fuel resources, and the economy will transition to new (even
undiscovered) power sources as needed. There is no need for
government intervention in energy, unless you're worried about
OPEC, which you shouldn't be. OPEC fell apart in the 90's and has
little chance of coming together again. AND guess what, those gas
lines in the 70's were caused by price controls!
Your comments about cheap Chinese crap are lame. People have every
right to spend their money on what they see fit, political decrees
notwithstanding. Don't blame the laws of supply and demand, like a
fool. Isn't it obvious from history that the market is actually
pretty freaking great at allocating resources EXCEPT when the
government gets involved?
Chad|7.2.09 @ 11:47PM|#
And as for resource depletion, we have hundreds of years of
fossil fuel resources
Apparently you missed the news. When EIA actually did real research
into the coal reserves (rather than SWAG), they dropped their
estimates from 200+ years to 132 years.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/coalreserves.html
That is, of course, at current consumption rates. It drops like a
rock once you start figuring in Chinese and Indian consumption,
coal-to-fuel schemes, etc. And of course, there is the question of
whether the atmosphere and oceans can handle all that
carbon...
Isn't it obvious from history that the market is actually
pretty freaking great at allocating resources EXCEPT when the
government gets involved?
Ummm, how can something be "obvious" when it has never been tested?
The government is involved in everything! Indeed, libertarians NEED
the government to be involved in everything, so that you can always
have a scape-goat for every market blow-up.
Sean W. Malone|7.3.09 @ 1:01AM|#
Chad, it's been shown a thousand fucking times... At this point
it's about the most disingenuous thing to pretend that it
hasn't.
I'm going to go ahead and cite: The entire history of the
world.
Just do yourself a favor of a comparative study of East, vs. West
Berlin... Let me know how it goes. No.... Better yet, I don't even
care. You apparently don't have the mindpower to do it anyway, but
really... that's just embarrassing. It shows a basic lack of
pattern-recognition ability that should be a baseline for any
functioning human-being.
Your conception of "testing" is wrongheaded thinking anyway - a
laboratory experiment does dickall to explain the behavior of
thousands of people living in the real world with real concerns.
Taking a step back and thinking logically about human behavior and
diligently reviewing history will do you much better. The
conclusions you make will be based on *real* information, instead
of fictitious and overly simplified modeling.
And ya know... We don't need a damn thing as a "scape goat". It's
quite obvious why there was a bubble economy. You can't pump
trillions of dollars into the economy and hold interest rates far
below any market clearing level while simultaneously using
government to push banks into lower lending standards and not get
*exactly* what happened in the last few years...
AGAIN... It is why the Austrian school economists predicted all of
this shit accurately and your boy Krugman actually
recommended the bubble and is now back-pedaling like your drunk
momma on a stationary bicycle.
The thing that's amusing about it is that it's actually remarkably
easy to understand if you're not a complete moron partisan
hack.
Chad|7.3.09 @ 7:22AM|#
Sean W. Malone | July 3, 2009, 1:01am | #
I'm going to go ahead and cite: The entire history of the
world.
Sean, I agree. An economy that is 90% or more government is bad,
but even then, this has not been demonstrated many times, and never
in a truly honest experiment, because such governments have have
always been totalitarian. The world has never seen a 90%+
governemnt-run economy in a democracy, so we have no idea what
would happen.
We have, however, seen ~60% government-run economies in
democracies, and guess what - they work just fine. The simplistic
"evidence" does not suggest that "government is bad" but that
rather "too much or too little government is bad".
AGAIN... It is why the Austrian school economists predicted all
of this shit accurately and your boy Krugman actually recommended
the bubble and is now back-pedaling like your drunk momma on a
stationary bicycle.
I predicted it too, Sean. I guess I am just as smart the Austrians.
Again, you are exhibiting a childish, selective reading of the
facts. You are so partisan that there is no getting through to
you.
Here are some nice notes from a lecture on Austrian economics. Note
that this professor points out that Austrians are constantly
predicting busts....which makes it pretty easy to get it right when
one happens.
http://blog.mises.org/archives/002409.asp
Please show me peer-reviewed statistical evidence that members of
this school of thought are better at predicting market changes, and
then explain why they are not all multi-billionaires by now.
And note the difference from yesterday. When I ask for a citation,
I ask for something that, if it even exists, isn't trivially easy
to find.
Sean W. Malone|7.3.09 @ 2:39PM|#
Ugh... Chad... A few things, then I have to shift focus
again.
1. When the policies don't change, then the Austrian's keep noting
the end results. Side note: We've experienced 3 bubbles in 10
years, tech, financial and housing - if you really want to get
picky, one might say we've experienced 2 financial bubbles in that
time, so 4 total in 10 years. My knowledge of the Austrian position
has been that for the most part they have all called the specifics
of what the bubbles were about and what they have been caused by.
You can find Lew Rockwell, Peter Schiff and other stalking about
the tech bubble in the late 90s, the financials in 2001-2002, and
of course, all the recent stuff - generally very easily.
2. The difference with the Austrians, is that their ultimate
premise is based around the Hayekian idea that knowledge is
necessarily limited and that it is a mistake to think that
certainty of prediction is even possible. Too much can change. This
is, again, what surrounds their critique of econometrics. If you
realize that each individual human is its own variable in a "model"
there's no way those models have any hope of working ever - and
they don't, unsurprisingly. Further, if you ever listen to Peter
Schiff, people try to get him to make specific predictions about
"when" this or that will happen, and he usually says something to
the effect of, "I don't know, there's still hope the government may
do X or Y, and we might change course, or ___, or ___ could happen
and change this", etc.
The point is that the general principles are easy to see if you
know what you're looking for, and the results of policy are often
relatively easy to tell - but you're asking for specifics where
none are possible in such a dynamic system. I don't expect you to
totally get this because you believe that the AGW debate can also
be certain based on similarly over-simplified
modeling.
Frankly, it's just bad science. Soooo... point is, the prediction
thing is to some degree a straw-man either way.
That said I spoke to Jeffrey Tucker about this a minute ago and
while he didn't think a comprehensive comparative study is even
possible "by school" since most economists are post-modern
eclectics and don't belong to a "school" per se, he did point me to
a Mark Thornton article about this topic... to quote
Thornton:
"Others are sanguine about the prospects for prediction, like the famous Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, but do not reject the idea of forecasts and predictions altogether. They merely restrict themselves to hypothetical and qualitative prediction. Foremost among this group is the Austrian school of economists, who reject the notion of fixed relations between human-controlled variables, or even that data can be used to "test" a theory. Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises rejected the general notion of forecasting and claims that economics can only provide qualitative predictions about particular polices:"
and...
3. "Why they aren't all multi-billionaires by now"
See above.
Forecasting is A. not a big part of the Austrian tradition, for
good reason, because, B. they recognize that the variables in play
are ever-changing and insanely complex and don't have the hubris to
think they can simply lump a whole population into one or two
variables and have that reflect reality.
That said, sometimes I think I'd like to see a long-term (say 100
year long) comparative study of Austrian predictions vs. other
"schools" simply to shut people like you up.
Also... The Laffer Curve starts well below 90% buddy.
Sean W. Malone|7.3.09 @ 3:19PM|#
The Thornton article, btw: http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Thornton6.pdf
mark|7.3.09 @ 6:18PM|#
Also... The Laffer Curve starts well below 90%
buddy.
What's funny is that Chad wasn't even talking about taxes, he meant
spending, and some amount of state control of production. Whether
his penchant for planning extends into people's personal lives is
an open question.
Anyone who thinks the state should be involved in setting prices or
production schedules is a poor student of history.
Chad|7.5.09 @ 10:52AM|#
Sean, I want specifics - statitistics showing that these people
are better at predicting the ups and downs of the economy than
anyone else. If they can't, you have no evidence supporting their
theory. Pointing out that perma-bears predicited the recession is
like pointing out the sun rose in the east.
Also... The Laffer Curve starts well below 90%
buddy.
About 70-80% or so.
If you disagree, ask yourself a simple question: How high would
your taxes have to go before you quit your job and chose to live on
the dole. The number most people pick is about where the peak of
the Laffer curve is. If you said 40%, you are full of crap.
Chad|7.5.09 @ 1:17PM|#
Just a note on the Laffer curve, Sean.
I am only discussing the case of broad-based taxes like income
taxes. A narrow tax DOES have a Laffer curve, which is why they
should be avoided.
If, for example, New York City were to implement a 50% income tax
on people who make more than $10,000,000 per year, it's revenues
may very well go down, as many of those people would simply move to
the next city. However, note that there is no lost production
here...the economy is essentially unaffected.
With a broad tax like federal income taxes, however, there is
little of this type of effect. Few people flee the country to avoid
taxes. This effect IS a good argument for tax synchronization,
though.
Intelligent liberal|7.9.09 @ 2:30PM|#
Obviously, we should take as much money as possible from the most productive members of society, but not so much that they complain about it. Then, we must spend that money on goods and services for people who cannot afford them, because, well, who needs reasons? And finally, if any outcome of the taxing and/or spending is different than expected, blame it on the market, specifically "greed".
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