Cut Carbon Emissions Without A Carbon Tax, Command And Control, Or Wrecking the Economy: Reprint Of September 2019 Blog Post

Reprint of my September 23, 2019 blog post.

Monday, September 23, 2019

Updated: Let The Consumer Choose. Comment To WSJ, "How to Cut Emissions Without Wrecking the Economy"

Posted By Milton Recht

My published comment to The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, "How to Cut Emissions Without Wrecking the Economy: A proposal for carbon dividends, backed by the broadest climate coalition in American history" by Christopher Crane and Ted Halstead:

Global warming is a world-wide problem. The US has a competitive profit motive private sector that constantly reduces production costs using fewer resources and more efficient production processes. The result is reductions in energy use and carbon output and the US is producing more with less energy per unit. Over the last few years, the US has seen a decline in its total CO2 equivalent emissions. While the US has reduced its green house gas output, the rest of the world has not. Virtue signaling, like the Paris Accord, will not reduce emissions. A carbon tax goes to the government and is not a private sector efficiency incentive nor an incentive to realistic approaches, such as carbon capture, nuclear, hydropower and hydrothermal power. Taxes, even refunded carbon based, increase prices, reduce output and wages, create deadweight loss and increase unemployment. Instead of a tax, put a carbon use number, like calories and mpg, on a product and let the consumer choose.

Addendum
A reply I posted to a comment to my comment in the previous article:

A carbon tax creates inefficiency through the creation of a tax wedge. The price consumers pay, price plus carbon tax, is less than the amount the producer receives for the goods produced, the price without the carbon tax. The tax goes to the government and not the producer. The differential creates a space where inefficient producers can sell their goods at a price higher than similar goods prior to the carbon tax, if they have lower carbon taxes. The carbon tax amount will be decided by bureaucrats and not the marketplace leading to loopholes and market distortions. Non-existing clean power producers, windmill, etc., will have to build new plants and power storage facilities to meet demand. Constructing new clean power facilities will produce carbon emissions. The startup carbon tax may prohibit them, unless they are exempted or subsidized. Exemptions and subsidies will lead to non-taxed carbon emissions. Better to let the consumer choose based on producer's carbon use. Label it.

Labor-Saving Devices, Longer Life Spans Allowed Millennials, Gen Z’ers To ‘Adult’ At A Later Age: WSJ Book Review: “Generations,” by Jean Twenge

From The Wall Street Journal, Books & Arts, "‘Generations’ Review: Growing Up Is Hard to Do: Labor-saving devices and longer life spans have given Millennials and Gen Z’ers the gift of time. They ‘adult’ at a later age than their parents did." by Matthew Hennessey:

*** An old theory has it that each generation adopts its group characteristics by way of the shared experience of “major events at impressionable ages,” as Ms. [Jean] Twenge [psychology professor at San Diego State University] puts it in “Generations,” her latest book.*** Ms. Twenge doesn’t buy this theory. “History is not just a series of events,” she writes. ... She has her own theory: Technological change is the main driver of generational differences. Unlike wars, pandemics and economic cycles, she notes, “technological change is linear.” It moves toward ever more sophistication and convenience. It has the power to change things completely, making our lives “strikingly different from the lives of those in decades past.”

By “technology” she doesn’t just mean microchips and satellites. She means everything from air-conditioning to sanitation to birth control to architecture. The progressive development of technology shapes us, she writes, primarily by nudging us toward a greater degree of self-reliance—Ms. Twenge calls it “individualism”—and a “slower life trajectory.” Every generation has had the privilege of living “longer lives with less drudgery” than the lives of their parents and grandparents.

The “slow life” thesis may do more to explain the friction between the generations than anything else. [Emphais added.] ... Young people can put off education, career, marriage and child-rearing in ways their parents and grandparents couldn’t. Labor-saving devices and longer life spans have given Millennials and Gen Z’ers the “priceless gift of time.” Why so many of them choose to use it watching cat videos and filming themselves dancing is one of life’s great riddles. *** Particularly refreshing is Ms. Twenge’s dismantling of Millennials’ frequent claim that they are doing worse than every other generation at similar stages of life. [Emphais added.] The argument that 30-something Millennials have been “screwed economically” is “treated as close to gospel,” Ms. Twenge writes, but it’s mostly based on “outdated statistics, often from the early 2010s, when the economy was still recovering from the Great Recession.” Ms. Twenge has new numbers, and they show the opposite of the grim picture typically painted by mopey Millennials. “By 2019, households headed by Millennials actually made more money than Silents, Boomers, and Gen X’ers at the same age—and yes, that’s after the numbers are adjusted for inflation.”

If Millennials think they’re poorer than other generations, they have their own indulgence in slow-life habits to blame. Instead of getting jobs and getting married, many Millennials spent their 20s eating avocado toast, meandering through graduate school and working in the gig economy. In the aggregate, such choices have led to a perception of a generational economic rout. This perception is of course fueled by Twitter hyperbole, but social media isn’t social science.

Durham Report: Intelligence Activities and Investigations of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns

Durham Report of the Intelligence Activities and Investigations of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns on Scribd

Whistleblower Report Details FBI Abuse, Misallocation of Resources, and Retaliation: US House Judiciary Interim Report: Full Text

From the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, "New Whistleblower Report Details Government Abuse, Misallocation of Resources, and Retaliation at the FBI" May 18, 2023, Press Release:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim report, “FBI Whistleblower Testimony Highlights Government Abuse, Misallocation of Resources, and Retaliation,” detailing egregious problems infecting the senior leadership ranks of the FBI. Whistleblower disclosures from rank-and-file agents and employees reveal a recurring theme of abuse, misallocation of resources, and retaliatory conduct.

FBI Whistleblower Testimony Highlights Government Abuse Misallocation of Resources and Retaliation by Milton Recht on Scribd

April 2023 Retail Spending Prior Month Change: Category Chart

From The Wall Street Journal, "Shoppers Boosted Retail Sales in April, Reversing Two Months of Declines: Consumers spent more on autos, dining out and home projects last month after cutting spending earlier in the year" by Gwynn Guilford and Sarah Nassauer:

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Options For Reducing The US Deficit: CBO Slide Presentation

From Congressional Budget Office, "The Budget Outlook and Options for Reducing the Deficit," May 11, 2023, Presentation by Julie Topoleski, Director of CBO’s Labor, Income Security, and Long-Term Analysis Division, and Molly Saunders-Scott, analyst in CBO’s Tax Analysis Division, at the National Tax Association’s 53rd Annual Spring Symposium:

Summary
CBO’s baseline projections suggest that, over the long term, changes in fiscal policy would need to be made to address the rising costs of interest and mitigate other adverse consequences of high and rising debt.

• In coming decades, the aging of the population and rising health care costs will put increasing pressure on the federal budget.
  
  
• Revenues under current law will not keep pace with spending.
  
  
• Major trust funds will be exhausted within 10 years, reducing benefits for vulnerable people.
  
  
• Changes to both spending and revenues could be made in many ways.
  
  
• Undertaking new initiatives that were paid for would not improve the fiscal trajectory.
  
  
• The longer action is delayed, the larger the policy changes would need to be.

The Budget Outlook and Options for Reducing the Deficit from Congressional Budget Office

PDF of above slide presentation.

Climate Change Does Not Pose Serious Risk To Large Bank Safety And Soundness Or US Financial Stability: Christopher Waller, Fed Reserve: Video

From Bloomberg, "Fed’s Waller Says Climate Change Doesn't Pose Serious Financial Risk" May 11th, 2023, 12:31 PM EDT:

"Climate change is real, but I do not believe it poses a serious risk to the safety and soundness of large banks or the financial stability of the United States," Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller says at a conference in Madrid. (Source: Bloomberg)

May 14, 2023 update
Text of full speech, "Climate Change and Financial Stability" by Governor Christopher J. Waller on federalreserve.gov.

CBO: Long-Term Projections of Health Care Spending and the Implications for the Federal Budget: Slide Presentation

Long-Term Projections of Health Care Spending and the Implications for the Federal Budget from Congressional Budget Office

March Newly Built Homes Made Up About One-Third Of For Sale Single-Family Homes: Historical Chart

From The Wall Street Journal, "Tight Supply Fuels Demand for Newly Built Homes: A recent fall in mortgage rates relieves a source of industry pressure" by Nicole Friedman:

Now, new single-family home sales are bouncing back with supply tight in the existing-home market. Active listings in March stood at roughly half of where they were four years earlier, according to Realtor.com, in part because higher mortgage rates made many homeowners reluctant to sell and give up their current low rates. (News Corp, parent of the Journal, operates Realtor.com.)

That low inventory has put home builders in a good spot. Newly built homes made up about one-third of single-family homes for sale in March, up from a historical norm of 10% to 20%.

***

Source: The Wall Street Journal