Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

“Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime this century when the fuel runs out.
…He said the world is headed toward a global oil shortage that could cause warfare, economic depression and the crumbling of institutions.”

This guy’s a professor???
Considering we already have electric cars, this is a very uninformed statement.
By the time we run out of gas, they will probably be just as efficient, if not more so, than the vehicles we are using now.
Now, if we can actually produce a good-looking electric car, they might become popular…

With the price of oil going higher and higher, we’re already seeing other things replacing oil. It’s being used less in home heating, for example.
We are also coming up with a lot of new ways to produce electricity without using fossile fuels.

This is all good, but certain people have to realize that it all takes time to research and implement. Their solution is, “Let’s tax all polluters so they won’t be inclined to cause pollution.” That only works in certain cases.
Why should we want to tax, for example, the electricity companies who are voluntarily spending their own money to research new ways of producing it? Talk about defeating the purpose.

You guys into Doom Scenarios? Look at this:

—————————————
Economic `Armageddon’ predicted
By Brett Arends/ On State Street
Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish.

But you should hear what he’s saying in private.

Roach met select groups of fund managers downtown last week, including a group at Fidelity.

His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic “armageddon.”

Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach’s presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, “it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public.”

Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that “we’ll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.”

The chance we’ll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe.

In a nutshell, Roach’s argument is that America’s record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants.

The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded.

Less a case of “Armageddon,” maybe, than of a “Perfect Storm.”

Roach marshalled alarming facts to support his argument.

To finance its current account deficit with the rest of the world, he said, America has to import $2.6 billion in cash. Every working day.

That is an amazing 80 percent of the entire world’s net savings.

Sustainable? Hardly.

Meanwhile, he notes that household debt is at record levels.

Twenty years ago the total debt of U.S. households was equal to half the size of the economy.

Today the figure is 85 percent.

Nearly half of new mortgage borrowing is at flexible interest rates, leaving borrowers much more vulnerable to rate hikes.

Americans are already spending a record share of disposable income paying their interest bills. And interest rates haven’t even risen much yet.

You don’t have to ask a Wall Street economist to know this, of course. Watch people wielding their credit cards this Christmas.

Roach’s analysis isn’t entirely new. But recent events give it extra force.

The dollar is hitting fresh lows against currencies from the yen to the euro.

Its parachute failed to open over the weekend, when a meeting of the world’s top finance ministers produced no promise of concerted intervention.

It has farther to fall, especially against Asian currencies, analysts agree.

The Fed chairman was drawn to warn on the dollar, and interest rates, on Friday.

Roach could not be reached for comment yesterday. A source who heard the presentation concluded that a “spectacular wave of bankruptcies” is possible.

Smart people downtown agree with much of the analysis. It is undeniable that America is living in a “debt bubble” of record proportions.

But they argue there may be an alternative scenario to Roach’s. Greenspan might instead deliberately allow the dollar to slump and inflation to rise, whittling away at the value of today’s consumer debts in real terms.

Inflation of 7 percent a year halves “real” values in a decade.

It may be the only way out of the trap.

Higher interest rates, or higher inflation: Either way, the biggest losers will be long-term lenders at fixed interest rates.

You wouldn’t want to hold 30-year Treasuries, which today yield just 4.83 percent.

I just heard Russia has chosen to buy Euros instead of their usual Dollars.

South Korea is asking for help from the public in stabilizing the Dollar. They will buy Euros too soon.

Long Live Bush!!!!!!!

Aldous.

C’mon folks, where would we be without the doomsayers of the civil rights movement? Where would we be without the doomsayers of chloroflurocarbons? - the ozone hole is shrinking today directly due to their doomsaying. How many more names would be on the Viet Nam Memorial wall were it not for the anti-Viet Nam War doomsayers?

Doomsayers have a vitally important role to play - they wake people up to doomsday scenarios which often will occur if action is not taken. Take heed of all the conservative and liberal doomsayers of the national debt, trade deficits, and budget deficits. Listen to them. For if you don’t, acting as if we require no fiscal or trade policy discipline will indeed ruin America’s future for 10’s if not 100’s of millions of Americans down the road.

Aldous,

All that and we still have the strongest economy the world has ever seen! I seem to remember certain people saying the post-911 recession would last at least five years. Long live Bush, indeed!

David,

I agree with your post, but these arguments are more effective when based on facts, rather than “doomsaying” paranoia.

Lighten up Eric! What would the world be without doomsayers and conspiracy theorists? You might as well advocate taking the History Channel and A&E off the air…..

“What would the world be without doomsayers and conspiracy theorists? You might as well advocate taking the History Channel and A&E off the air…..”

They do have their entertainment value, that’s for sure!
I always enjoy a good conspiracy theory even if I disagree with it.

Elrich does not understand economics because economic growth is value neutral, it need not produce a throw-away society, if anything economic grow leads to more efficiency. This guy is a crackpot communist who has a bone to pick with anthing outside his control.

Mike, what an absurdly simple comment. It is like a liberal dismissing Greenspan’s warnings about current fiscal policy and deficits posing a serious threat to our future based on his being a Republican. Get just a little unpartisan and weigh the the merits and weaknesses of the man’s arguments rather just dismiss him out of hand because he does come from your ilk. That is a cop out and short cut to avoid critical thinking.

David,
“Get just a little unpartisan and weigh the the merits and weaknesses of the man’s arguments rather just dismiss him out of hand because he does come from your ilk. That is a cop out and short cut to avoid critical thinking.”

True. But aren’t you making the same mistake? You seem to be taking Arends and Roach as fact.

It’s pretty well established that we’ll hit peak production for the “easy” oil in the next twenty years or so. After that oil just keeps getting more expensive.

The point of the doomsaying is not that we’re all going to die, it’s that we need to think about where we get our energy from next.

We could just wait until the market forces us to switch to something else, but that’s likely to involve economic and social upheaval and possibly force us into using coal or tar sand or something dirtier than the oil and natural gas we’re using now.

It’s better we should have a plan for an orderly transition to a better alternative. Haha! But look at me, trying to convince Republicans we should have a plan! :)

BTW, a couple really interesting books on the subject are “The Hydrogen Economy”, and “The End of Oil”.

Hey, Traveler, what are you going to use to charge those batteries?

“Considering we already have electric cars, this is a very uninformed statement.”

AP,

“The point of the doomsaying is not that we’re all going to die, it’s that we need to think about where we get our energy from next.

Yes, but the problem is some of these people actually believe we’re all going to die. That’s even scarier.

“We could just wait until the market forces us to switch to something else, but that’s likely to involve economic and social upheaval and possibly force us into using coal or tar sand or something dirtier than the oil and natural gas we’re using now. It’s better we should have a plan for an orderly transition to a better alternative.”

Sand?? Interesting idea…
The transition to cleaner energy is already taking place. Like I said before, we can’t expect changes to take place all at once. Actually figuring out how to do it helps…

“Haha! But look at me, trying to convince Republicans we should have a plan!”

I see words here, so obviously it’s being discussed. Considering this is the red side, I’m guessing it was a Republican who brought up the subject.

Hey, Traveler, what are you going to use to charge those batteries?

“Considering we already have electric cars, this is a very uninformed statement.”

Rocky,

There are ways the cars can generate their own power. I don’t remember the exact process, but there is a hydrogen/oxygen reaction that generates power and leaves water as a by-product.
Some batteries used on he space shuttle and he ISS use a similar reaction to produce power.

Do you really think that as long as there is oil to plunder that the oil companies and their cronies in congress will allow any thing else to be developed?

Extreme positions make nice you-know-whats, especially when one’s motivation is to cover for a position which is itself extreme.

We need to be careful, that’s what. Who in 1999, even with Y2K scaring the Bejeesus out of us, could have predicted the economic perfect storm of Bin Laden’s attack and Wall Street’s scandals?

Some people, actually. People who were pushed to side by colleagues who valued status quo and careerism rather than responsible, if sober, analysis and preparation.

I don’t think doomsday is on its way, but I do think there are a variety of unnecessary problems and disasters that will rear their head and take some price, if we don’t keep ourselves aware of the situation at hand.

I think your people want the world simpler than it is. They want to ignore the effects chemicals and pollution has on people, ignore the problems that bad healthcare management creates, ignore each and every problem that stands to take a chunk from the bottom line, including the company’s own true bottom line.

Truth is, these things have both real world and economic prices that their myopic perspective on the nature of the economy doesn’t do justice. Environmental damage lowers property values, lowers productivity, raises health costs, causes damaging changes to the way that environment reacts to natural events and natural disasters.

A health system that doesn’t catch diseases earlier or treat them properly creates added costs when illness worsen and workers are taken out of the productive workforce.

Economic trickery serves as a substitute for actual, productive planning and administration, exacerbates debt issues, drains wealth and income from society and causes ripple effects in the confidence and willingness to take risks among investors.

There world is not a clockwork construction to be tampered with at the business elite’s whim. It is a complex system that must be dealt with for what it is. Of course, that is a challenge for a party that’s built itself up on organized denial of it’s participants real motives.

It may not be doomsday, but it is an attitude of dealing with the world that is certainly doomed to failure.

Rocky,
What do you think they are going to do? Outlaw electric cars?
The Auto industry might have something to say about that…
Congress can see the handwriting on the wall just as well as everyone else. Why do you think the government spends so much money on energy research?

Traveler,
So that the oil companies don’t have to.
Look there is a waiting period for the Presis, what about the rest? Do you think that those in the red states will give up their Suburbans that easy?
BTW all of the electric cars are hybrids.
Big isn’t going to give up it’s grip on the American economy any time soon.

Sorry, I forgot about the Honda.
You yourself said that the cars need to become more stylish.
That won’t happen until people start buying them in much greater numbers.

stephen,

There world is not a clockwork construction to be tampered with at the business elite’s whim. It is a complex system that must be dealt with for what it is. Of course, that is a challenge for a party that’s built itself up on organized denial of it’s participants real motives.

It may not be doomsday, but it is an attitude of dealing with the world that is certainly doomed to failure.

That’s little vague… are you saying that capitalism is killing the planet?

Rocky,

“So that the oil companies don’t have to.”

So you’re saying the oil companies are paying the government not to put it’s energy research into use? Why would they waste the money trying to delay the inevetable? You do realize the oil companies are making less and less profits every year, don’t you?

BTW, Trucks and SUV’s are not confined to red states. Take a look around New York or New England sometime.

The economy and the environment are tied together, I see no way to separate that.
Perhaps if we elected more environmentalists, economists, bankers, farmers,and business owners we would have a mix in washington that could get something done.
Lets pitch-in a few natural resorceses biologists for good measure.

What we have now is a preponderance of trial lawyers, they cut down trees to make paper so they can write confusing laws, a billion pages long, that a judge (another lawyer) will throw out, then they start over.

A lawyers job, in a nutshell is to ARGUE!, we need people in office that can debate issues.

You want people to move back to citys to reduce fuel consumption? Get the crime and high taxes out of the citys, thats why everyone left!

Crime is caused by poverty, and poverty is caused by lack of education? That seems to be a common view, heres an idea folks, if public schools can’t teach our children lets try a voucher system.
All the major issues facing America should be nonpartisan.

OK then, I somewhat agree. Mass starvations and environmental cataclysm predictions are basically just ways to buy votes, get more research grants for the predictors dept. and are generally promoted by those who hold extreme views about the environment.
Those are pretty easy to write off.

But what about the mass starvations and environmental impacts that will occurr due to economic collapse?
D. Remer and AP have posted very informative info on our out of control debt.
Just because one may think their opinions are blindly partisan[AP:)] does not mean the info should be discounted.

Would those on the right classify the possibility of a depression as just more “doomsday” talk?

Is this statement logical?

“The world has not ended as was predicted and therefore it never will.”

Traveler,
Revenues are dropping? Right?
This was a press release from Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Opening Statement, ?Gas Prices: How are they Really Set??
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
http://govt-aff.senate.gov/043002lieberman.htm
“As PSI?s report points out, the increase in gas prices from 1999 to 2000 had been matched only once in history. And year 2000 income for major energy companies from refining and marketing was up 57 percent from 1999. In other words, the hundreds of additional dollars paid by the average American consumer went right into the pockets of the oil industry. Over the course of a year, every ten cent increase in the price of gasoline results in approximately $10 billion in additional oil company revenues.”

The best thing we can do for the economy is implement massive federal budget cuts and use the money to pay down the debt.
Of course, no one wants to do that, including the so-called conservative congressmen, as we learned this week.
If doomsday theories about economic collapse are meant to be propaganda for change, they are not being used properly.
Now that the “conservatives” have a more solid majority, they should be able to convince people that these steps are needed. But I guess pork for their states is more important.

Rocky,
You are confusing Profit and Revenue.
Revenue is the money conning in. Profit is what you have left at the end of the year. The American oil companies are loosing money.
This is because the oil they have to buy is more expensive than ever.

Traveler, people are traveling now as much as they ever were.
Please supply us with a link to prove your theory.

Here’s another link:

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/10-04/10-29-04/a15bu766.htm

This is from the AP 10-29-04
“DALLAS — Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, reported record third quarter profits and might be headed for all-time marks for annual revenue and earnings, thanks to higher prices for oil and natural gas.
The company said it earned $5.68 billion, or 88 cents per share, in the third quarter, compared with $3.65 billion, or 55 cents per share, a year earlier. The company said it would have earned $6.23 billion in the recent quarter after excluding a $550 million charge to cover the cost of a class-action lawsuit by gas station dealers.”

Please re-think your position.

Eric

Medical science is obviously to blame since despite all its efforts people continue to die.

You know, today’s pessimism isn’t as bad as it used to be. I think it was worse in the 1970s and 1980s. Pessimists are always right in the long run.

Aldous

(I answered your question as best I could re Saddam in the earlier blog, in case you didn’t see.)

I sense a general pessimism in your comments. I used to feel that way too. I think most of us have felt pessimistic because it is seems impossible to see the way forward. But when we really look at the record, we have found that things work out in ways we had not imagined possible.

Important factors to remember are that today’s problems:

·Often cannot be solved with the tools and procedures we currently have at our disposal and
·Sometimes they cannot be solved at this time.
·More than occasionally are self correcting

As for the first case, we develop solutions to problem when they become crucial. Otherwise, it is sort of a waste of time developing solutions to potential problems. Sometimes we are caught short, but there really is not a better way, given that the future is so uncertain

The second case, some problems must wait until conditions have changed. There are some things you can’t teach your child until they reach the proper developmental stage and problems are like that. A good example was the Arab-Israeli problem. It probably could not be solved with the current cast of characters. Some have to leave the scene. (Arafat dying was a good first step.) Until then all you can do is temporize.

The third case usually has to do with markets. We may run out of oil, but we will never run out of energy. In fact, I think it is almost impossible that we will run out of oil. When oil costs about $60 a barrel, conservation and alternative technologies become attractive. As that happens, demand for oil drops and so does the price. The price trend for oil, in adjusted dollars, is down.

So – don’t worry, be happy. If the worst-case scenario comes to pass, we all go to hell together. But until that time, at least optimists will enjoy life. And if things work out better, pessimists will have wasted all those years gnashing their teeth in misery. The best way is to be optimistic and work to make sure that is how it comes out.

From the foulest fertilizers, nourishing fruits are grown. From dire predictions that may never come to pass, perhaps ideas for a more sustaining future can be cultivated as well.

Eric, you constantly attack the policies of sustainable development and conservation because their direst warnings have not yet come true. You do so with an air of smug superiority and condescencion, yet you offeno real analysis of their policies. You can cite no negative effects caused by sustainable development practices, and ignore the fact that even if our supplies of resources could last for years yet these practices can help extend them even further. One does not need to fear running out of something to practice the prudence of not wasting it. Waste inevitably costs money.

I have seen in recent years a tendency to develop new plots of land, stripping sections of forest to create shopping centers, where no client stores have yet been found to rent the spaces there, and where not five minutes away along the same road other storefronts lie abandoned and unrented. This distresses me not because the area that it is done in lacks forests, but because it seems a wasteful practice. Surely it would be more sustainable to use the storefronts already there, even repair them if necessary, than to create brand new ones on speculation and then seek new businesses to fill them, while others are left to rot in disuse. Such frugality in the face of unjustifiable waste, I think, is really the essence of the sustainable development movement.

Rocky,

You are right.

I should have used a different word than revenue when I first mentioned it. I think the point of what I read before was that the ratio between profits and revenues was getting smaller, and therefore the companies were not making as much money. There is a term for that ratio (profit MARGIN maybe?); perhaps someone who knows more about business can fill me in.
Whether what I read is right or not, I’ll have to look around the net.

Btw, read past the lead of the story you linked to:

“Earnings from chemicals were a record $1 billion, nearly four times higher than a year earlier.”

If I’m reading it correctly, that represents over 1/6 of their revenue this quarter. These companies have interests other than just “big oil.”

Traveler, chemicals are made from petroleum too.

ALL Chemicals????
They made a distinction in the story.

Traveler, certainly not all, but a great many. Otherwise why would the oil companies have chemical divisions?

Rocky,

Because it is a related industry.
The same reason some camera companies also make film. Or furniture companies that also make mirrors and other accessories.
The article you linked to made a distinction between the petroleum products and other chemicals.

Traveler,
How about herbasides, pestisides, solvents, styrofoam, plastics, industrial cleaners, I could go on and on.

Anybody care to research the ratio of spending by oil companies for finding and securing new oil versus finding new energy sources? I’d be willing to bet the former far outweighs the latter.

Traveler et al

You can’t make profits without revenues, but you can have revenues without profits. It all depends on how you are controlling expenses (and how lucky you have been). Just knowing that there has been a jump in revenue tells you little, although if it happens in a well-established and well-managed firm, it is almost always good news. There is no precise ratio and nothing works all the time. Otherwise we would all be rich.

You have to look at the performance of a company over a longer period of time. Some businesses are very uncertain. They make really big profits followed by really big losses. People complain when they see “obscene” or “windfall” profits, but they rarely clamor to pay firms that suffer catastrophic losses. The free market tends to even these things out. Those who really think that these firms are making too much money (that it is a sure thing) should put their own money at risk and buy the company’s stock. If they are right, they will soon be rich. It is a lot easier to be a tycoon in theory than in practice.

A lot of commodity prices, including oil, have been driven by demand in China. If you owned stocks in steel and oil supply companies, you probably made money in the last couple of years. But if you held some of these stocks for a longer period, you are just starting to break even.

Rocky,

OK, what about them?

Alejo,
You’re right about the oil companies.
Electricity companies are investing a lot in research, though, at least in the north east. I can’t speak for the rest of the country.

There world is not a clockwork construction to be tampered with at the business elite’s whim. It is a complex system that must be dealt with for what it is. Of course, that is a challenge for a party that’s built itself up on organized denial of it’s participants real motives. It may not be doomsday, but it is an attitude of dealing with the world that is certainly doomed to failure.

That’s little vague… are you saying that capitalism is killing the planet?

That’s a little vague? Eric, to quote Inigo Montoya, “I don’t think you know what this word means”.

My point’s specific: unregulated corporate activity can create losses both to quality of life and the health of the economy. We cannot forever escape the costs of what we do. The cost may not be Armageddon, it may just be old fashion misery and economic downturn.

Capitalism killing the planet. Man, when you come out with a straw man, you come out with a straw man. Capitalism is not the problem. It’s a system, a style of economic governance. But there is more than one kind of it. There’s a variety where insufficient laws govern and it’s everybody for themselves and God against all, and then there’s one where corporate power is limited to reasonable levels and corporate malfeasance against the public is properly punished.

You ascribe the status of deus ex machina to the Market. If you know your ancient theatre, the deus ex machina is a figure of a God or Goddess swung into place when the good and just need justice or salvation from danger. This is what you consider the market: a system that will save you from any and all mistakes without intervention. But the facts paint a different picture: The market is just a human system. It carries with it the fallibility and the ignorance of those who particpate within it. It provides the opportunity and means to change economic trends for the better, but it won’t necessarily teach executives to be people of greater morality, nor will it right all wrongs.

If we want our society to remain one worth living in, we had better decide ahead of time what limits to place on the activities of business in general, and do so after having a mature fact-based examination of the issue, not an theological fight about the free market and its mystical powers.

Traveler,
“Rocky,

OK, what about them?”

Gee, let me think. How about they’re all made with petroleum?

Eric, human population densities and consumption have been harming the aspects of our environment that support us, physically, as well as mentally, and spiritually.

To the extent that capitalism, socialism, and feudal systems promote ever greater populations through massive human populations living in poverty, to the extent that capitalism promotes individuality over general population well being, to the extent that capitlism supports the notion that all human life is worth producing and saving pressuring ever greater population densities, yes, to those extents, capitalism is harming the planet and the human condition. That is not to say that capitalism does not have its strengths over other systems, but, it is no panacea for the problems that face the human race on this planet. To believe it is, is pure religion without historical evidence to suppport such a proposition.

Rocky,

I don’t think you are understanding me. To put it simply, my point was that in your article, Exxon Mobil listed one set of earnings for petroleum products and one for chemicals. That’s why I’m assuming that when it lists the revenue earned from chemicals, they were probably not petroleum products.
Do I know this for a fact? No. It’s just what the article seems to be implying.
Also, not one of the items you listed HAS to be made from petroleum.

All,
I probably won’t be on tomorrow, so happy Thanksgiving!

Traveler, I’m sorry I misunderstood you. I was carrying on too many conversations at once and lost the thread.
My point about petrochemicals had nothing to do with profits.
My point would be that when we have to cut back on oil production petrochemical production will be affected and as a result the price of those items will rise as well.
As an aside I think that in the oil industry that the profit percentage stays the same whether the price of oil rises or falls. I would think because oil is such a staple item that would be the case.

alejo,

Is this statement logical?

“The world has not ended as was predicted and therefore it never will.”

A broken clock is right twice a day. I guess eventually one of these guys might accidentally have a disaster follow a prediction, but the whole point is that it won’t be because they were right. It would be the law of averages.

Jarandhel,

…you constantly attack the policies of sustainable development and conservation because their direst warnings have not yet come true. You do so with an air of smug superiority and condescencion, yet you offeno real analysis of their policies. You can cite no negative effects caused by sustainable development practices, and ignore the fact that even if our supplies of resources could last for years yet these practices can help extend them even further. One does not need to fear running out of something to practice the prudence of not wasting it. Waste inevitably costs money.

You won’t believe this but I agree with most of what you’re saying. Except that I see a danger to our liberty and our economy from these doomsayers. It is partly the tactic itself of making the issue one of life and death to push forward an agenda that could not otherwise be adopted. If the arguments are so conclusive, the evidence so overwhelming why lie? Why predict the worst sorts of disaster if your plans are not acted on?

I think the left is somewhat blind here. On this blog I’ve been told that because Bush believed there were WMD, which the whole world believed, that now Bush is a liar and he can’t be trusted in anything. Yet Environmentalists can predict mass starvation, total species extinction, that in ten years the world’s oceans will be dead, etc etc, on and on, (the predictions really are rather extensive and dire), yet even when these things don’t happen the left says the underlying truth is still there. ???

I think that most of the ideological underpinnings of environmentalism are based on a dislike of corporations and the modern world. Ranging from vague subconscious cultural beliefs to outright anti-capitalism.

I have seen in recent years a tendency to develop new plots of land, stripping sections of forest to create shopping centers, where no client stores have yet been found to rent the spaces there, and where not five minutes away along the same road other storefronts lie abandoned and unrented. This distresses me not because the area that it is done in lacks forests, but because it seems a wasteful practice. Surely it would be more sustainable to use the storefronts already there, even repair them if necessary, than to create brand new ones on speculation and then seek new businesses to fill them, while others are left to rot in disuse. Such frugality in the face of unjustifiable waste, I think, is really the essence of the sustainable development movement.

How would that be more sustainable? It may not be feasible. Who owns the failing shopping center? Maybe the property is not on the market, maybe the owners want too much for it. Maybe it costs less to build on cleared land.

One of the solutions to this problem is ‘solved’ by government in inner cities all over America by using eminent domain to condemn the property, take it from the owners, and then sell it to a developer to build on at a price that makes it feasible. It’s mostly a travesty actually.

It is economic freedom which is in the target sights of the ‘sustainability movement.’ Does the good of the many outweigh the good of the few?

Stephen,

My point’s specific: unregulated corporate activity can create losses both to quality of life and the health of the economy. We cannot forever escape the costs of what we do. The cost may not be Armageddon, it may just be old fashion misery and economic downturn.

You are proving my point actually. The inherent harmfulness of corporations and the need to overregulate them is a cherished liberal myth. You are being more specific about how harmful the market and corporations are but you purposefully left vague what kind of economic activity needs more regulating.

Capitalism killing the planet. Man, when you come out with a straw man, you come out with a straw man. Capitalism is not the problem. It’s a system, a style of economic governance. But there is more than one kind of it. There’s a variety where insufficient laws govern and it’s everybody for themselves and God against all, and then there’s one where corporate power is limited to reasonable levels and corporate malfeasance against the public is properly punished.

So the variety of capitalism, or ‘economic governence,’ marked by ‘insufficient regulation’ is killing the planet?

You ascribe the status of deus ex machina to the Market. If you know your ancient theatre, the deus ex machina is a figure of a God or Goddess swung into place when the good and just need justice or salvation from danger. This is what you consider the market: a system that will save you from any and all mistakes without intervention. But the facts paint a different picture: The market is just a human system. It carries with it the fallibility and the ignorance of those who particpate within it. It provides the opportunity and means to change economic trends for the better, but it won’t necessarily teach executives to be people of greater morality, nor will it right all wrongs.

Yes, the market is a human system. Fallible because it is made up of individual choices. How less fallible and ignorant are governmental decisions? As we all know politicians are so much more intelligent than the general population. I don’t argue that the market is not human. I argue that the market makes better decisions than politicians. What makes market decisions markedly different from government decisions is not that mistakes aren’t made, it’s that decisions are decentralized and made by those involved, not a collective higher authority.

The ‘sustainability’ arguments are based on a collective view that prefers to make collective decisions. There is an animus in this movement that views

You argue for a well regulated economy, but I’m not sure how far you think it should be regulated. How much is too much? and on what evidence are we basing these decisions? I submit that we cannot make any sound decisions based on the ‘fact-based’ examinations of those like Paul Ehrlich.

If we want our society to remain one worth living in, we had better decide ahead of time what limits to place on the activities of business in general, and do so after having a mature fact-based examination of the issue, not an theological fight about the free market and its mystical powers.

If we want our society to remain one worth living in, we had better discredit false and dangerous ideology before it is written into law. I don’t see any mystical powers or uncommon wisdom in government. In fact, show me a non-market economy, if you can, or an un-freemarket that works. I can’t think of one.

Eric said, In fact, show me a non-market economy, if you can, or an un-freemarket that works. I can’t think of one.

Aboriginal tribes of the Amazon and Borneo come to mind. Tibetans in the outback avoiding incorporation into Chinese modified society is another. But, capitalism and industry will wipe out those cultures too eventually. Be assimilated or die, that is the current state of modern markets today. Funny how the right does not want to be assimilated by the TV and Hollywood crowd. Nothing could be more free market oriented in video entertainment. Yet, the right have their exceptions don’t they, just like the left.

Just because one may think their opinions are blindly partisan[AP:)] does not mean the info should be discounted.

kctim, let’s just say, “partisan”. And even then I might surprise you once in a while. ;)

Traveler and Rocky: not to be all doomy and gloomy, but agriculture is also a petroleum intensive industry (fertilizers, insecticides, and machinery). If the price of oil stays high, look for higher food prices, along with chemicals, plastics, gasoline, and electricity.

With oil prices holding at over $45/barrel now, alternative enery sources should be more competitive. Instead of having to wait until scarcity brings the price up, it’s possible that the “fear premium” is going to be a big help in switching to an alternative energy economy.

…Unless, in desperation, the market decides, out of panic or convenience, to just fall back on coal. That’s the danger, and that’s where the govt should be working with industry to encourage a hydrogen economy.

Bush talks alot about studies and inconclusiveness, but you’re never going to get that fifth dentist to recommend Trident. It’s time to get to work on the future.

David

I don’t think we need fall into noble savage trap. What keeps these populations within the bounds of their environment is not their culture, but their low populations, and their low population is imposed on them by their inability to control their environments. The slash and burn agriculture practiced by many aboriginal people in Amazonia and Borneo is one of the more destructive ways to grow food. Since the dawn of their time, if populations grew, they soon crashed because of environmental degradation. Headhunting and perpetual petty war were also some of the remedies, but I think we should go there. If our own societies crash because we have pushed the environment too far, we will merely be following in the footsteps of our less technologically advanced fellow humans.

In the long run, every society is unsustainable and it is the height of human arrogance to think otherwise. In the last 10,000 years, the earth’s climate has changed radically. What society could have sustained itself through ice ages, warm periods, dry periods, wet periods and all the things that go with them. Humans lived through this period. Their societies collapsed to be followed by others, better adapted to the changed conditions. That will eventually be our fate too.

Of all the systems so far created by humans, the free market it the most robust because it incorporates aspects of most other systems and can deploy them flexibly. We have shrugged off resource shocks that would have killed less adaptable societies. We are in the process of adapting again. President Bush is spending millions to develop a “hydrogen” economy and private business is looking to make it a profitable business. This solution will create problems we can’t foresee, and our grandchildren will be complaining that life has never been so tough, just like we are. And just like us, they will be wrong.

Eric-
I argue that businessmen can make mistakes, decieve, and do immoral things. In short I argue commonsense: they are human beings. I do not expect the market to be a reliable or timely regulator of behavior. That is what regulation is for: to stop economic losses and corporate misdeeds that are predictable but not stopped in a timely or consistent manner by the market’s own self regulation.

So the variety of capitalism, or ‘economic governence,’ marked by ‘insufficient regulation’ is killing the planet?

I have made my moderation clear. Your immoderation is that you would defend these people for clearly harmful practices. I’m not for immoderate solutions, but I am for timely and appropriate ones.

Yes, the market is a human system. Fallible because it is made up of individual choices. How less fallible and ignorant are governmental decisions? As we all know politicians are so much more intelligent than the general population. I don’t argue that the market is not human. I argue that the market makes better decisions than politicians. What makes market decisions markedly different from government decisions is not that mistakes aren’t made, it’s that decisions are decentralized and made by those involved, not a collective higher authority.

The same question could be asked of you: how can business decision be any less fallible than governments? If you were to say that the decentralized nature of the market makes it easier to deal with economic issues on the local level, I’d agree with you. We don’t need a central market authority in this country.

What we do need is regulation of what the market does in terms of practices that affect the public welfare. Right now, Halliburton makes deals with Iran, aiding a nation we may have to meet on the field of battle. During the WorldCom Debacle, CitiBank sold stock from a company that was a debtor to it- a conflict of interest that meant they felt compelled to oversell a stock with bad fundamentals in order to reclaim the value of their financing of that same company. The law formerly prevented that, but was struck down by the Republican congress. A fall in accounting standards allowed the massive, widespread defrauding of investors that found its apotheosis in Enron. The Market has so far failed to regulate all this misbehavior in time to stem the consequences.

Because the system as a whole decides nothing, but merely represents the consensus of the investors, the imperfect spread of information limits the Market’s ability to regulate itself. From time to time, a new generation of investors brokers and traders will get caught up in a new fad, a new set of practices, believing that the new Wall Street paradigm is at hand, and they will say the old rules no longer apply. But certain things remain true: an informed market regulates itself best, and conflicts of interest should be routed out wherever possible. Those who finance should not have influence over those who sell the stock.

The paradigm of regulation I would put forward lets the market get out of the way of itself, the way lanes on the highway keep traffic out of the way of itself, while retaining the self regulation inherent in most driver’s behavior. Encourage honesty, transparency, productive behavior, but allow people to make decision for themselves. Not command economy lockstep, nor teenage angst deregulation (I should always be able to do things my way), but a mature, free market culture that isn’t eating the floor from beneath itself.

Truth is, Eric, you want to believe I’ve got some radical idea of how the economy should be run. Truth is, what you call a false and dangerous ideology is usually good research backed up by procedural and ethical safeguards. the same can’t be said for the papers your darling corporations tend to come up with. I mean, some corporations are responsible, but all too often, as with Merck and the Tobacco companies, the research used to defend their activities is done by people that the corporations have bankroll and payroll authority over, and whose distribution and publication they have control of.

It seems to me you would rather bury your head in the sand than admit that your corporations are in need of guidelines, regulation, and limitations of standards and practices from outside. Me, I just want whats appropriate and necessary. The market should not be a law to itself, above that of society’s.

Hmmm, quoting Paul Ehrlich in 2004. Kinda like quoting a Phrenoligist to explain Evangilism.

Stephen,

Because the system as a whole decides nothing, but merely represents the consensus of the investors, the imperfect spread of information limits the Market’s ability to regulate itself.

…Truth is, Eric, you want to believe I’ve got some radical idea of how the economy should be run. Truth is, what you call a false and dangerous ideology is usually good research backed up by procedural and ethical safeguards. the same can’t be said for the papers your darling corporations tend to come up with.

The imperfect spread of information is precisely why self-correction of the market is best. Imperfect information impacts those ‘researching’ these ‘rational safeguards’ you advocate and therefore limits the Government’s ability to regulate the market as well.

And you are right, I don’t know the scope of how far you think government should go in ‘safeguarding’. I could have been thrown off by your statements that seem to regard corporations as inherently evil. What you regard as rational safegaurds based on good research is often hyped up anti-corporatism. I am inferring your positions based on what’ve said and how they resemble (on the surface at least) positions of the left.

Eric,
“Besides which, the earth is surprisingly resilient and apparently has already survived a mass extinction or two, as well as numerous climate changes, completely without the help or hindrance of mankind whatsoever.”

The earth isn’t the problem.

Will humans be the cause of the next mass extinction?

We are the only species on this planet that offers nothing back in return for our existence. We use up the natural resources in an area until they are gone, and then move on to the next, leaving our waste to poison the areas we have left. Hell, our bodies don’t even make good fertilizer anymore.

“The imperfect spread of information is precisely why self-correction of the market is best. Imperfect information impacts those ‘researching’ these ‘rational safeguards’ you advocate and therefore limits the Government’s ability to regulate the market as well.”

I don’t claim to be an economist, but I can’t see how we can expect our economy to keep growing forever.

“The earth isn’t the problem.”

That’s true. When we say save the planet, we really mean save the humans, don’t we? The Earth will get along just fine without us. :)

Jack, I cannot argue your broad evolutionary historical view of the circumstances we find ourselves in, because I hold the same view. I expect however, for democracy and improved education and literacy to evolve society’s collective consciousness to a higher level that permits anticipating the destruction of life supporting environmental conditions and avoiding that destruction. That of course means not waiting for market forces to force human adaptation to environmental destruction, but, to preempt market forces from destroying the environment support system in the first place.

Idealistic, perhaps, but, the human mind is capable of it. What is needed is for social collective values to reflect that capability. Perhaps, one day.