114
   

Where is the US economy headed?

 
 
okie
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 09:36 am
This graphic of nations energy consumption (from 2006) for everyone's reminder: If you take solar, wind, and geothermal combined, according to this chart, they make up 10% of renewables, and all renewables comprise 7% of the sources, thus solar wind and geothermal comprise roughly 0.7% or 7 tenths of 1 percent of the total energy consumption in the U.S. Solar, wind, and geothermal are the principle energy sources that I have heard Obama tout as the answer to the energy production of the 21st century. Now I don't know what planet Obama lives on, but even if he expanded those sources by 10 times in the next 25 years, they would still comprise only 7% of total consumption, and probably less than that as the energy demand will likely grow as well.

I am all for practical and economical expansion, but I also favor being realistic, so I would also favor continue drilling for more oil and gas reserves in a very aggressive manner. I also believe we should aggressively expand our nuclear generating capacity.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/images/h1_08.jpg
0 Replies
 
okie
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 09:44 am
@Cycloptichorn,
Cycloptichorn wrote:

Fine with me, as long as energy and other production companies are forced to pay the full price of producing their energy; and that means they must pay for their emissions. See, the environment is a shared resource; it doesn't belong to those companies and they have no right to dump the byproducts of their production process into the environment without paying to clean up or mitigate the effects of that.

Once the costs are properly accounted for, Solar and Wind get downright affordable. Coal, oil and gas only look affordable if you completely ignore the free pass they get on environmental damage it causes to produce energy using fossil fuels.

Cycloptichorn


Proof positive that global warming is a politically driven agenda. There is absolutely no proof that CO2 is a pollutant, and if it was, we should all pay a tax proportionate to our weight. This sounds nonsensical, but not in the liberal mind, this is probably being considered somewhere. We already know cows are being considered for taxation. And who pays the tax for deer, elk, and all the other creatures out there?

You post explains why I think liberals have basically lost their marbles.

Getting down to issues, the cap and trade will be murder on the economy, on the energy sector, and on the utility bills of the poor. Not a problem for the Obamaites, as the aim is to go to central planning and totally socialistic state.
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 09:47 am
okie has only one myopic view of our future use of energy and only is able to look at percentages as they are today. That's what I would call "short-sighted" with no future potential to find or expand the alternatives sources of energy.

What okie fails to understand is that we humans cannot rely on oil as our primary source of energy. When the economy of the world improves, demand for oil will increase at unsustainable levels throughout the world - especially in China and India.

okie always seems to get himself into trouble by not thinking through what he says, and has the disease "foot in mouth." His criticisms are usually unfounded and ridiculous.
okie
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 09:51 am
@cicerone imposter,
My problem is I actually look at the data, huh ci, as that ruins the idealistic view of the world. All that matters to liberals is to say something, and its true. If Obama says it, it happened, he meant well. Don't bother with facts. I challenged you to demonstrate that his energy plan was practical, with evidence, many many pages back, ci, and you have not shown one iota of evidence, not even an attempt. Instead you proceed with your assinine insults post after post.
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 10:03 am
@okie,
As with our economy, working on alternative energy sources is a long-term goal. Things will not happen over-night or within the next few years. All you have done is attack Obama's plan to increase alternative energy sources; that is the right course of action for our future. Oil and coal now makes up 66% of human energy use; that cannot be sustained for the long term future. Oil and coal are natural resources that have limits, and they increase CO2 and pollutants into the atmosphere. Oil has price constraints when the supply cannot meet demand, and we've already seen what can happen we have to pay over $4/gallon. Coal is not a clean fuel. We must reduce the demand for these two major sources of energy.
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 10:05 am
@okie,
okie wrote:

. . . .Getting down to issues, the cap and trade will be murder on the economy, on the energy sector, and on the utility bills of the poor. Not a problem for the Obamaites, as the aim is to go to central planning and totally socialistic state.


Every once in awhile though, Congress demonstrates that at least a few brain cells are still working. We can only hope that a trend toward common sense and a sense of responsibility will begin to catch on again:

Quote:
ABC's Stephanopoulos Declares Cap and Trade Dead for 2009
By Noel Sheppard
March 21, 2009 - 19:14 ET

If you needed some good news to brighten your Saturday evening, this could be it: ABC's George Stephanopoulos believes Democrats have abandoned their goal of enacting a carbon cap and trade program this year. . . .
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/03/21/abcs-stephanopoulos-declares-cap-trade-dead-2009


Personal note: this was one of those issues in which some of us 'evil conservatives' wanted the President to fail. It would have been one more costly and counterproductive policy piled on top of others.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 10:05 am
@okie,
okie wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Fine with me, as long as energy and other production companies are forced to pay the full price of producing their energy; and that means they must pay for their emissions. See, the environment is a shared resource; it doesn't belong to those companies and they have no right to dump the byproducts of their production process into the environment without paying to clean up or mitigate the effects of that.

Once the costs are properly accounted for, Solar and Wind get downright affordable. Coal, oil and gas only look affordable if you completely ignore the free pass they get on environmental damage it causes to produce energy using fossil fuels.

Cycloptichorn


Proof positive that global warming is a politically driven agenda. There is absolutely no proof that CO2 is a pollutant, and if it was, we should all pay a tax proportionate to our weight. This sounds nonsensical, but not in the liberal mind, this is probably being considered somewhere. We already know cows are being considered for taxation. And who pays the tax for deer, elk, and all the other creatures out there?

You post explains why I think liberals have basically lost their marbles.

Getting down to issues, the cap and trade will be murder on the economy, on the energy sector, and on the utility bills of the poor. Not a problem for the Obamaites, as the aim is to go to central planning and totally socialistic state.


Forget about Global Warming! I'm talking about pollutants, toxic agents, and radioactives. Coal pumps all these into the atmosphere. The production of gasoline and other oil products does as well. This significantly harms the quality of life for all who live anywhere close to the area.

When the costs of mitigating this damage is included, the price of these forms of energy goes up dramatically.

As for the completely separate topic of cap-and-trade, I support that as well; for the simple reason that safe is better than sorry. It will raise prices in the short-run, but efficiency increases and technology increases will lower them back down quickly enough, as competition and the Free Market do their job.

Cycloptichorn
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 10:49 am
@okie,
How about The Audacity of Hope?

What's the point of writing about it when you can see it in action in the pub?
0 Replies
 
maporsche
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 10:51 am
@Cycloptichorn,
I agree with the cap and trade program as well, but your argument (better safe then sorry) is faulty.

This is the same argument that Christians try to pursuade non-Christians with.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 10:53 am
@cicerone imposter,
Quote:
What okie fails to understand is that we humans cannot rely on oil as our primary source of energy. When the economy of the world improves, demand for oil will increase at unsustainable levels throughout the world - especially in China and India.


That's a good argument for preventing the economy of the world from improving ci. You are aware of that aren't you. After all, "unsustainable" is hardly an advantageous adaption in the Darwinian canon.
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 11:07 am
@maporsche,
maporsche wrote:

I agree with the cap and trade program as well, but your argument (better safe then sorry) is faulty.

This is the same argument that Christians try to pursuade non-Christians with.


At least there is a good body of evidence supporting the Climate Change theories. There is no body of evidence supporting the 'all-powerful god' theory.

The Earth is basically a closed system with an outside energy source. If you start mucking around with the balances of such a system, it will inevitably lead to changes in the system; not a hard concept to understand. So we should be conservative when it comes to mucking with the balances.

Cycloptichorn
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 11:22 am
@maporsche,
maporsche wrote:

I agree with the cap and trade program as well, but your argument (better safe then sorry) is faulty.

This is the same argument that Christians try to pursuade non-Christians with.


I don't think it is an issue of better safe than sorry. That's the argument a lot of the pro-anthropogenic global warming religionist use all the time: i.e. okay, maybe the science hasn't proved AGW yet, but shouldn't we do all this extreme stuff anyway just in case it's true? Better safe than sorry?

Shouldn't you be armor plating your vehicle just in case you happen upon a drive by shooting?
Shouldn't you be digging a bomb shelter for your family just in case?
Is taking such precautions more important than sending your kids to college or improving your quality of life?

Or is it reasonable to have some assurance of a real threat or a real problem or some assurance of measurable benefit before taking extreme measures? Especially if such measures will take away personal resources, freedoms, choices, opportunity?

Here's one perspective that I think merits a close look. Please pay particular attention to the last paragraph:

Quote:
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
MARCH 9, 2009
Who Pays for Cap and Trade?

Hint: They were promised a tax cut during the Obama campaign.

Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups.

Politicians love cap and trade because they can claim to be taxing "polluters," not workers. Hardly. Once the government creates a scarce new commodity -- in this case the right to emit carbon -- and then mandates that businesses buy it, the costs would inevitably be passed on to all consumers in the form of higher prices. Stating the obvious, Peter Orszag -- now Mr. Obama's budget director -- told Congress last year that "Those price increases are essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program."

Hit hardest would be the "95% of working families" Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat "unless you use energy." Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.

The Congressional Budget Office -- Mr. Orszag's former roost -- estimates that the price hikes from a 15% cut in emissions would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That's about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9% to 2.7% of income. The rich would pay 1.7%. Cap and trade is the ideal policy for every Beltway analyst who thinks the tax code is too progressive (all five of them).

But the greatest inequities are geographic and would be imposed on the parts of the U.S. that rely most on manufacturing or fossil fuels -- particularly coal, which generates most power in the Midwest, Southern and Plains states. It's no coincidence that the liberals most invested in cap and trade -- Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey -- come from California or the Northeast.

Coal provides more than half of U.S. electricity, and 25 states get more than 50% of their electricity from conventional coal-fired generation. In Ohio, it totals 86%, according to the Energy Information Administration. Ratepayers in Indiana (94%), Missouri (85%), New Mexico (80%), Pennsylvania (56%), West Virginia (98%) and Wyoming (95%) are going to get soaked.

Another way to think about it is in terms of per capita greenhouse-gas emissions. California is the No. 2 carbon emitter in the country but also has a large economy and population. So the average Californian only had a carbon footprint of about 12 tons of CO2-equivalent in 2005, according to the World Resource Institute's Climate Analysis Indicators, which integrates all government data. The situation is very different in Wyoming and North Dakota -- paging Senators Mike Enzi and Kent Conrad -- where every person was responsible for 154 and 95 tons, respectively. See the nearby chart for cap and trade's biggest state winners and losers.

Democrats say they'll allow some of this ocean of new cap-and-trade revenue to trickle back down to the public. In his budget, Mr. Obama wants to recycle $525 billion through the "making work pay" tax credit that goes to many people who don't pay income taxes. But $400 for individuals and $800 for families still doesn't offset carbon's income raid, especially in states with higher carbon use.

All the more so because the Administration is lowballing its cap-and-trade tax estimates. Its stated goal is to reduce emissions 14% below 2005 levels by 2020, which assuming that four-fifths of emissions are covered (excluding agriculture, for instance), works out to about $13 or $14 per ton of CO2. When CBO scored a similar bill last year, it expected prices to start at $23 and rise to $44 by 2018. CBO also projected the total value of the allowances at $902 billion over the first decade, which is some $256 billion more than the Administration's estimate.

We asked the White House budget office for the assumptions behind its revenue estimates, but a spokesman said the Administration doesn't have a formal proposal and will work with Congress and "stakeholders" to shape one. We were also pointed to recent comments by Mr. Orszag that he was "sure there will be enough there to finance the things that we have identified" and maybe "additional money" too. In other words, Mr. Obama expects a much larger tax increase than even he is willing to admit.

Those "stakeholders" are going to need some very large bribes, starting with the regions that stand to lose the most. Led by Michigan's Debbie Stabenow, 15 Senate Democrats have already formed a "gang" demanding that "consumers and workers in all regions of the U.S. are protected from undue hardship." In practice, this would mean corporate welfare for carbon-heavy businesses.

And of course Congress is its own "stakeholder." An economy-wide tax under the cover of saving the environment is the best political moneymaker since the income tax. Obama officials are already telling the press, sotto voce, that climate revenues might fund universal health care and other new social spending. No doubt they would, and when they did Mr. Obama's cap-and-trade rebates would become even smaller.

Cap and trade, in other words, is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth -- but in a very curious way. It takes from the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from Miami, Ohio, and gives to Miami, Florida; and takes from an industrial America that is already struggling and gives to rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street "green tech" investors who know how to leverage the political class.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123655590609066021.html
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 12:18 pm
@Cycloptichorn,
Quote:
At least there is a good body of evidence supporting the Climate Change theories. There is no body of evidence supporting the 'all-powerful god' theory.


The CC theories wouldn't exist without the apg theory coming first.

Quote:
The Earth is basically a closed system with an outside energy source. If you start mucking around with the balances of such a system, it will inevitably lead to changes in the system; not a hard concept to understand. So we should be conservative when it comes to mucking with the balances.


What would we do without such brilliant insights?

What is your definition of "mucking with" Cyclo? As a progressive socialist I assumed you were all for mucking with. Always remember that doing the splits can cause a squeaky voice.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 12:23 pm
@Foxfyre,
Quote:
We asked the White House budget office for the assumptions behind its revenue estimates, but a spokesman said the Administration doesn't have a formal proposal and will work with Congress and "stakeholders" to shape one. We were also pointed to recent comments by Mr. Orszag that he was "sure there will be enough there to finance the things that we have identified" and maybe "additional money" too. In other words, Mr. Obama expects a much larger tax increase than even he is willing to admit.


Those are not the "other words" I would translate the foregoing two sentences into. I think that "no comment" is more accurate.


Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 12:29 pm
@spendius,
No, I think it is pretty safe to assume that when a politician or bureaucrat says 'maybe additional money' will be necessary, it isn't a 'no comment' moment. You can take it to the bank that a whole lot of additional money will be necessary. (Confessing that this is a 100% prejudicial point of view on my part.)
Cycloptichorn
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 12:37 pm
@Foxfyre,
The WSJ can reliably be counted on to oppose any and all actions which increase the cost of doing business, irregardless of the validity or necessity of said actions. They cannot be considered anything but an extremely biased source.

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 01:22 pm
@Foxfyre,
Quote:
You can take it to the bank that a whole lot of additional money will be necessary.


I'm all in favour of taking it to the bank. It is a question of which of us will be doing that and which of us won't. I presume Foxy that you anticipate being one of the favoured ones.

Money is like a govenor on a whirling mechanism. When it goes too fast the outward impelling forces on the two weighted, and often polished balls, causes them to rise and this is intelligently designed to trip a switch which slows down whatever it is that is going too fast and the two balls then descend and trip the switch the other way so there is an on/off system which eventually reaches what looks to the naked eye to be a stasis. We are in descent mode at the moment. The balls are descending.

Of course, with better engineering and lubrication it is possible to set the trip switch higher but the on/off system still operates but at faster speeds.

It is useful politically to come in just when the balls have descended to the point where the on switch is required as you can take the credit for putting the required energy in again (read-"getting us all back to work.) {with jobs like WC Fields portrayed, obviously.} Assuming no materials fatigue or congealed lubricants are left over from the previous cycle.

PS- I inserted the "polished balls" phrase so that you wouldn't misunderstand my economic exegesis. One has to be exact these days. People are always jumping to conclusions too prematurely without giving the matters in hand sufficient consideration.
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 01:26 pm
@spendius,
If I anticipated being one of the favored ones, I wouldn't really mind would I? Smile

Instead, I expect to be among the large majority who take it fully in the neck if some of this stuff is actually enacted.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 01:32 pm
@Foxfyre,
I refuse to believe Foxy that you will have to "take it in the neck" whatever happens. Unless taking it fully in the neck, a rather unfortunate phrase I hope, consists of restricting pedicures to once a week.


0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 01:44 pm
Yesterday, at the president's press conference with German Chancellor Merkel, the Washington Times journalist (Jon Ward, I think) asked if the two (Obama and m
Merkel) didn't consider Germany's enormous trade surplus to be a main factor in the US economic crisis, since Wall Street's excess was fueled by easy money, supplied from surplus countries such as Germany and e.g. China.
 

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