well, heck…how did that one make in in there? Maybe because every extended discussion I have with a Green ends up with, “Well, corporate executives shouldn’t be getting so much money anyway”. So, I must have just thought it should be the last one. 😉
Also, to more directly answer your question, the more you siphon off money from the producers and give it to the non-producers through green energy programs, the more you hurt the economy and jobs.
More succinctly, green policies increase the cost of energy and therefore the cost of business operations. Since businesses can’t just print money like the government, an increase in cost of energy must be offset by a comparable decrease in another cost category if the company is to remain profitable and viable. Generally this has translated into cutbacks in labor by shuttering less profitable business units or by increased automation.
When profit margins fall, the private sector is generally only left with two alternatives, lay off some now or lay off all later.
Therefore, many green policies are nothing more than selective trickle up economics.
I wasn’t thinking about redistributing wealth or income to non-producers. My beef with the way income distribution has changed in recent decades has to do with people who work for a living. Their productivity has grown, their educational requirements have increased, taxation of the rich has decreased, the rich have gotten richer, per capita GDP has grown, but working folks are being paid less.
Not that I favor paying for non-productivity. Over the past few centuries, increasing productivity has increased prosperity of everyone, including those who work for a living. But changes of the past few decades breeds malcontent, and some of that gets misdirected to promote policies that are punitive to productivity.
In light of this, praising the rich reminds working folks that the rising of the tide in the past 3 decades (which did happen) has not lifted most of the boats – a majority of them are lower now than they were 3 decades ago.
Raising an argument that those who have bigger pie slices should keep their pie slice growth or get more still does not help the morale of the bakers. I think it would be more productive to just concentrate on eliminating impediments to productivity of our bakeries.
Donald, Al Greenspan has dubbed the last few decades (of which you refer) the “era of moderation”. It’s been an era in which the federal reserve has taken seriously it’s (arguably misguided) role of curbing demand inflation. The way it’s done is by maintaining an artificially high unemployment rate (no less than 4%) by manipulating interest rates. In essence it means keeping people poor because of fewer jobs and lower wages due to greater competition for those jobs. Poorer people spend less money thus demand inflation is held in check. In a growing economy, though, the growth of personal wealth out paces the growth of demand inflation. (were it not the case the inflation would make people poorer, demand would cease to grow and the economy would stall out) The rising tide can not raise all ships if the federal reserve doesn’t allow the tide to roll in…
I’ve recently read that King Canute only went to the shore to command the tide to stop to prove his advisers were fools. Perhaps one can hold back the tide artificially for a bit, but when it finally breaks through, it’s gonna leave a bigger mess than just dealing with it on it’s own terms. …kinda like “climate change.” The problem is, we’re the ones who are going to be the victims of their folly.
The Fed has effectively held back the tide since the appointment of paul volker in 1979. So there really is no difficulty in doing so. The problem is that when they shut down the economy (at 4% unemployment) it inevitably leads to a recession. Sooner or later a drag comes along and since the economy isn’t going forward, it starts heading backwards. (2008 was a classic example of that) As the saying goes, “the federal reserve: creating recessions since 1913″…
A comprehensive economic analysis of income inequality and trends would be too long to summarize here but a few points:
1) It is very possible that income inequality has NOT increased. When marginal tax rates were at 91% or 70%, the rich put their wealth into vehicles that did not produce reportable income on tax returns. Now, with marginal rates in the 30s, the wealthy report more income on tax returns and it seems that their income goes up even though it may not actually have done so.
2)The lowering of marginal tax rates has been beneficial because capital is being more efficiently employed, less resources are devoted to avoiding taxes, and total taxes collected from the rich has gone up dramatically.
3) Numerous programs now encourage low-income household to file tax returns — even if their income levels do not require a return — so that they can take advantage of programs like Earned Income Credit, etc.
4) The influx of women into the job market has increased the supply of labor, bringing wages down.
5) Demand for non-professional labor is soft because technology advances has made it easier for the work to be done overseas or to be done with machines.
6) Demand for non-professional labor is further softened because regulations and other labor costs make it more beneficial to source productions overseas.
Nothing to do with environmental policies!?!
How many “greens” would support proposed “environmental policies” if they realized that they wouldn’t just effect the pocket books of the “evil rich” but their own as well? And their support of such policies has only served to make the rich richer (Think Al Gore.) and the poor poorer while not doing a damn thing for “Mother Earth”?
It might make them feel good to vote for such policies…but for long.
Good point with NYC. It is so easy to demand green energy and savings, when you are not producing it yourself. Later on they complain when energy prices goes up.
I remember a lot of agony when Sandy turned the heat and elektricity out in parts of NY. No one seemed to be happy for all the fossil fuel they saved.
“If a doctor claims to be a weight loss specialist but is an obese glutton, you may not want to buy his diet book .If a self-proclaimed environmentalist
claims that CO2 is destroying the world, but he is still flying jets all over the world — well, you can figure out how much credence to give him”
Re: “Where pro-green, anti-warming activists choose to live . . .” on photo of Manhattan.
Not sure that’s an effective meme. Per capita energy consumption is far lower in dense urban areas than in rural areas. Manhattanites have one of the lowest per capita carbon footprints in the country.
Point taken. My point is they are worried about warming, yet CHOOSE to live in an environment that has been artificially warmed from the urban heat island effect.
Recognizing that the post wasn’t intended to be particularly serious, I doubt that anyone in NYC would be much concerned if it were a bit warmer there. The secondary effect of sea level rise is a very real concern to such a coastal city.
It’s more efficient on a per occupant basis to heat/cool a “massive” building because the surface area to interior volume ratio is much lower. You also have people tending to occupy smaller living spaces because of the exorbitant cost of real estate. The biggest factor though is that rates of car ownership are by national standards very low in NYC and the mass transit system has very high utilization rates. Clearly there are downsides to urban living, but population density does have some inherent advantages as well.
But, those massive buildings are not occupied 100% of the time. You’ve still got to keep those high rise office buildings heated or air conditioned through the night because it takes too much time to heat or cool them in the morning. It doesn’t cost nothing just to pump water to the tops of those towers.
Moreover, there is a lot of waste. E.g., Times Square, and all the signage. All the traffic snarls. All the night clubs and bars and other activities city people use to amuse themselves.
No, I won’t believe it until I see a strict accounting.
And the transit to get them to their tourist destinations – parks, seashore, ballgames, reunions etc. They don’t live their full time, only part time and then spend Carbon on getting to where they live part time.
You don’t need to COMMEMORATE it because the media miasma of foul green hypocritical nonsense hasn’t ended. The stench won’t end until and unless the population of sub-literates and demagogues in the population ( a fairly significant number – just ask Barnum and Bailey ) finally obtain their hearts desire, manage to con the gullible segment of the remaining population to trust them, vote in a slew of GREEN NAZI’s and tie-up citizen access to the nation’s hydrocarbons in an impenetrable massive mesh of incomprehensible climate regulations thousands of volumes thick. Impenetrable legislation that is to anyone accept highly paid corporate lawyers and their clients. Unfortunately, with citizen access to natural resources ladled over to leftists, and a few un-elected plutocrats ISIS volunteerism among the young and uneducated ( a large and seemingly ever growing number ) will likely skyrocket. Hopefully, the commemoration will not have to be for a once great and enlightened country that yielded governance to a collection of self-absorbed, psuedo-scientific half-wits.
I think the NYC one is on-target for a different reason than given. People living in a dense urban environment probably have a tendency to see the world as though it were all like what they see around them 24/7. They lose track of scale relative to the entire Earth, and the fact that they really inhabit only a very small part of it.
I can’t find the specific link now, but Burt Rutan once wrote that if you compress all human biomass into a cube, it would fit on the mall in Washington, D.C., and you could walk around it in about 20 minutes.
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I don’t see the last one having anything to do with energy or environmental policies.
well, heck…how did that one make in in there? Maybe because every extended discussion I have with a Green ends up with, “Well, corporate executives shouldn’t be getting so much money anyway”. So, I must have just thought it should be the last one. 😉
Also, to more directly answer your question, the more you siphon off money from the producers and give it to the non-producers through green energy programs, the more you hurt the economy and jobs.
Get it now?
More succinctly, green policies increase the cost of energy and therefore the cost of business operations. Since businesses can’t just print money like the government, an increase in cost of energy must be offset by a comparable decrease in another cost category if the company is to remain profitable and viable. Generally this has translated into cutbacks in labor by shuttering less profitable business units or by increased automation.
When profit margins fall, the private sector is generally only left with two alternatives, lay off some now or lay off all later.
Therefore, many green policies are nothing more than selective trickle up economics.
Who the world’s largest non-producer?
Here is a clue:
U _ _ T _ D _ A T _ _ N _
I wasn’t thinking about redistributing wealth or income to non-producers. My beef with the way income distribution has changed in recent decades has to do with people who work for a living. Their productivity has grown, their educational requirements have increased, taxation of the rich has decreased, the rich have gotten richer, per capita GDP has grown, but working folks are being paid less.
Not that I favor paying for non-productivity. Over the past few centuries, increasing productivity has increased prosperity of everyone, including those who work for a living. But changes of the past few decades breeds malcontent, and some of that gets misdirected to promote policies that are punitive to productivity.
In light of this, praising the rich reminds working folks that the rising of the tide in the past 3 decades (which did happen) has not lifted most of the boats – a majority of them are lower now than they were 3 decades ago.
Raising an argument that those who have bigger pie slices should keep their pie slice growth or get more still does not help the morale of the bakers. I think it would be more productive to just concentrate on eliminating impediments to productivity of our bakeries.
Donald, Al Greenspan has dubbed the last few decades (of which you refer) the “era of moderation”. It’s been an era in which the federal reserve has taken seriously it’s (arguably misguided) role of curbing demand inflation. The way it’s done is by maintaining an artificially high unemployment rate (no less than 4%) by manipulating interest rates. In essence it means keeping people poor because of fewer jobs and lower wages due to greater competition for those jobs. Poorer people spend less money thus demand inflation is held in check. In a growing economy, though, the growth of personal wealth out paces the growth of demand inflation. (were it not the case the inflation would make people poorer, demand would cease to grow and the economy would stall out) The rising tide can not raise all ships if the federal reserve doesn’t allow the tide to roll in…
I’ve recently read that King Canute only went to the shore to command the tide to stop to prove his advisers were fools. Perhaps one can hold back the tide artificially for a bit, but when it finally breaks through, it’s gonna leave a bigger mess than just dealing with it on it’s own terms. …kinda like “climate change.” The problem is, we’re the ones who are going to be the victims of their folly.
The Fed has effectively held back the tide since the appointment of paul volker in 1979. So there really is no difficulty in doing so. The problem is that when they shut down the economy (at 4% unemployment) it inevitably leads to a recession. Sooner or later a drag comes along and since the economy isn’t going forward, it starts heading backwards. (2008 was a classic example of that) As the saying goes, “the federal reserve: creating recessions since 1913″…
A comprehensive economic analysis of income inequality and trends would be too long to summarize here but a few points:
1) It is very possible that income inequality has NOT increased. When marginal tax rates were at 91% or 70%, the rich put their wealth into vehicles that did not produce reportable income on tax returns. Now, with marginal rates in the 30s, the wealthy report more income on tax returns and it seems that their income goes up even though it may not actually have done so.
2)The lowering of marginal tax rates has been beneficial because capital is being more efficiently employed, less resources are devoted to avoiding taxes, and total taxes collected from the rich has gone up dramatically.
3) Numerous programs now encourage low-income household to file tax returns — even if their income levels do not require a return — so that they can take advantage of programs like Earned Income Credit, etc.
4) The influx of women into the job market has increased the supply of labor, bringing wages down.
5) Demand for non-professional labor is soft because technology advances has made it easier for the work to be done overseas or to be done with machines.
6) Demand for non-professional labor is further softened because regulations and other labor costs make it more beneficial to source productions overseas.
Very true, inquirer, HOWEVER, most all you’ve said would be moot if the fed just stopped stepping on the damn economy!
b… b… but, Hillary says…
oh, and Krugman won a no bell price for wreckonomics, and he says…
Seriously, since Green is the new Red, it seems totally appropriate.
“Green is the new Red”
IPCCCP ?
Good one!
Nothing to do with environmental policies!?!
How many “greens” would support proposed “environmental policies” if they realized that they wouldn’t just effect the pocket books of the “evil rich” but their own as well? And their support of such policies has only served to make the rich richer (Think Al Gore.) and the poor poorer while not doing a damn thing for “Mother Earth”?
It might make them feel good to vote for such policies…but for long.
Good point with NYC. It is so easy to demand green energy and savings, when you are not producing it yourself. Later on they complain when energy prices goes up.
I remember a lot of agony when Sandy turned the heat and elektricity out in parts of NY. No one seemed to be happy for all the fossil fuel they saved.
Rather liked this comment from
Jason Calley –
“If a doctor claims to be a weight loss specialist but is an obese glutton, you may not want to buy his diet book .If a self-proclaimed environmentalist
claims that CO2 is destroying the world, but he is still flying jets all over the world — well, you can figure out how much credence to give him”
King Leo .. Messenger of Peace ( may his name be worshipped ) was overheard at recent UN meeting in NY:
“We’ve got to get them out of their yachts!”
Re: “Where pro-green, anti-warming activists choose to live . . .” on photo of Manhattan.
Not sure that’s an effective meme. Per capita energy consumption is far lower in dense urban areas than in rural areas. Manhattanites have one of the lowest per capita carbon footprints in the country.
Point taken. My point is they are worried about warming, yet CHOOSE to live in an environment that has been artificially warmed from the urban heat island effect.
Recognizing that the post wasn’t intended to be particularly serious, I doubt that anyone in NYC would be much concerned if it were a bit warmer there. The secondary effect of sea level rise is a very real concern to such a coastal city.
Yeh, I bet all the folks living in NYC are losing sleep over sea level rise…too funny. We are doomed. The end is near.
It says “ant warming”… 🙂
I use a magnifying glass and the sun for that activity.
MarkB,
You tryin’ to tell me that the Per Capita energy use in Manhattan is lower than most areas in Africa and other third world areas?!?!?!
Yeah, lifts going up and down – inside and out – of “Sky-scrapers” all day & night long. Traffic ain’t moving but the engines are running, hmmmm.
I very much doubt that. Times Square alone probably breaks the bank. And, all those square miles of heated and air conditioned massive buildings?
No, I’d have to see actual figures from an unbiased source to believe that.
It’s more efficient on a per occupant basis to heat/cool a “massive” building because the surface area to interior volume ratio is much lower. You also have people tending to occupy smaller living spaces because of the exorbitant cost of real estate. The biggest factor though is that rates of car ownership are by national standards very low in NYC and the mass transit system has very high utilization rates. Clearly there are downsides to urban living, but population density does have some inherent advantages as well.
But, those massive buildings are not occupied 100% of the time. You’ve still got to keep those high rise office buildings heated or air conditioned through the night because it takes too much time to heat or cool them in the morning. It doesn’t cost nothing just to pump water to the tops of those towers.
Moreover, there is a lot of waste. E.g., Times Square, and all the signage. All the traffic snarls. All the night clubs and bars and other activities city people use to amuse themselves.
No, I won’t believe it until I see a strict accounting.
And the transit to get them to their tourist destinations – parks, seashore, ballgames, reunions etc. They don’t live their full time, only part time and then spend Carbon on getting to where they live part time.
hard to say but follow the money, where the incomes on manathanites come from?
Hi Roy,
You stated:
“In commemoration of green hypocrisy.”
You don’t need to COMMEMORATE it because the media miasma of foul green hypocritical nonsense hasn’t ended. The stench won’t end until and unless the population of sub-literates and demagogues in the population ( a fairly significant number – just ask Barnum and Bailey ) finally obtain their hearts desire, manage to con the gullible segment of the remaining population to trust them, vote in a slew of GREEN NAZI’s and tie-up citizen access to the nation’s hydrocarbons in an impenetrable massive mesh of incomprehensible climate regulations thousands of volumes thick. Impenetrable legislation that is to anyone accept highly paid corporate lawyers and their clients. Unfortunately, with citizen access to natural resources ladled over to leftists, and a few un-elected plutocrats ISIS volunteerism among the young and uneducated ( a large and seemingly ever growing number ) will likely skyrocket. Hopefully, the commemoration will not have to be for a once great and enlightened country that yielded governance to a collection of self-absorbed, psuedo-scientific half-wits.
Have a great day!
I think Roy just forgot the “sarc” tag.
I think the NYC one is on-target for a different reason than given. People living in a dense urban environment probably have a tendency to see the world as though it were all like what they see around them 24/7. They lose track of scale relative to the entire Earth, and the fact that they really inhabit only a very small part of it.
Bart, if you were to give everyone in the whole world one square meter to stand in they would all fit in an area the size of Delaware…
I can’t find the specific link now, but Burt Rutan once wrote that if you compress all human biomass into a cube, it would fit on the mall in Washington, D.C., and you could walk around it in about 20 minutes.
It’s probably in one of these excellent links. I’m especially fond of this one.
This is what no carbon gets you. Must See.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AZidJ36nA0
No worries though, just google
solar and sierra leone, gambia or liberia.
Green slebrity slogan always has been: DAWS NAWD (Do as we say, Not as we do).
“We must dig deep into the past,