Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr Willie Soon – according to GQ, Climate Change is the fault of the individuals whose efforts provided us with all with our modern abundance of consumer choice.
Billionaires Are the Leading Cause of Climate Change
BY LUKE DARBY
As the world faces environmental disaster on a biblical scale, it’s important to remember exactly who brought us here.
This week, the United Nations released a damning report. The short version: We have about 12 years to actually do something to prevent the worst aspects of climate change. That is, not to prevent climate change—we’re well past that point—but to prevent the worst, most catastrophic elements of it from wreaking havoc on the world’s population. To do that, the governments of Earth need to look seriously at the forces driving it. And an honest assessment of how we got here lays the blame squarely at the feet of the 1 percent.
Contrary to a lot of guilt-tripping pleas for us all to take the bus more often to save the world, your individual choices are probably doing very little to the world’s climate. The real impact comes on the industrial level, as more than 70 percent of global emissions come from just 100 companies. So you, a random American consumer, exert very little pressure here. The people who are actively cranking up the global thermostat and threatening to drown 20 percent of the global population are the billionaires in the boardrooms of these companies.
…
Even when Republican lawmakers show flashes of willingness to get something done, they’re swiftly swatted down. There are myriad examples, but one example comes via Dark Money, where Mayer describes an incident in April 2010 when Lindsey Graham briefly tried to support a cap-and-trade bill: A political group called American Solutions promptly launched a negative PR campaign against him, and Graham folded after just a few days. American Solutions, it turns out, was backed by billionaires in fossil fuel and other industries, including Trump-loving casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
…
Read more: https://www.gq.com/story/billionaires-climate-change
The planet would obviously be better off if we all had Soviet levels of consumer choice. While we were standing in a queue for half a day to buy a loaf of bread, we would not be driving our cars.
Well, if you’re talking Soros and Steyer – yeah – as in virtual reality and propaganda.
THAT’s the REAL ‘man-made climate change’.
Replace billionaires with the developed world and isn’t this the same tired old argument made by the UNFCCC to justify climate reparations?
There can be no doubt that prosperity and wealth are responsible for the vast majority of CO2 emissions. There’s just no supporting evidence and abundant conflicting evidence that the effect from CO2 emissions is anywhere near as large and catastrophic enough to be obsessing about. What little warming is produced is just an additional benefit to the biosphere enhancing increased CO2 concentrations.
Well, certain billionaires and millionaires will be excluded from causing “climate change” and so won’t have to pay.
But by blaming billionaires and not the masses, it leads the masses to believe that, somehow, their lifestyles will be unaffected once those who have profited from the industries they built that provide their lifestyles are reduced to poverty.
Why should only billionaires or “1%-ers” be among the “individuals whose efforts provided us with all with our modern abundance of consumer choice”? I grew up at a time when there were middle class folks starting businesses and hiring people. And doesn’t a fair amount of the remaining middle class invest in the stock market even if indirectly through mutual funds, even if mostly in retirement accounts, and doing so provide capital for American enterprise?
It’s (Climate dogma) has always been rooted in Global Marxism.
It’s just repackaging under a “science” label.
co2isnot evil: I think you will find that CO2 emissions are responsible for the prosperity and wealth. Not the other way round. Otherwise you make good points.
Alasdair,
It is not CO2 emissions that are responsible for prosperity and wealth, it is energy. There is a big difference. Energy can come from a variety of sources, and fossil fuels happen to be the most prolific. Coal burning does not produce more prosperity than natural gas just because CO2 emissions are higher.
And reliable. (Along with hydro and nuclear)
Don’t forget cheap, if it isn’t cheap, it doesn’t matter how reliable it is, because nobody can afford to buy any.
Energy can come from many sources. That is true.
However if those sources are expensive and unreliable, (such as the so called renewables), then they are incapable of enriching the masses. Those power sources only enrich the already rich people that build them.
Yep.
When you increase the cost of energy (dU) without increasing the value of work, you destroy wealth.
David,
Please refrain from going all physical and mathematical on us.
That is so old white male of you.
Kristi, in a way they are. It was cheap abundant energy that made modern society possible and that cheap abundant energy came mainly from CO2 emitting fuels. Remember we had renewable energy for centuries (wind mills, burning wood and dung, etc), but it wasn’t until we started using reliable high density energy fossil fuels in large quantities that the industrial revolution kicked off making modern civilized society possible.
So far there is no alternative as cheap and as abundant (and reliable) as the CO2 emitting fossil fuels (coal, oil, nat gas, etc) except maybe nuclear (if green-backed government interference that make it virtually impossible to build new nuke plants could ever be eliminated).
Yes, the old chicken and egg conundrum. Did either come first or did they emerge concurrently?
yes, the old hen and egg problem:
– first there must be a hen
– which lays the egg.
— the egg proves first there existed a hen.
full stop.
yes, the old hen and egg problem:
– first there must be a hen
– which lays the egg.
— the egg proves first there existed a hen.
full stop.
and yet you don’t get hens without there first being an egg to hatch from. the hen proves first there existed an egg.
full stop.
hence why it’s a “problem”. You don’t get eggs without hens to lay them but you don’t get hens without eggs for them to hatch from. Darwin and biologists can’t “solve” the problem, contrary to what you claim. The non-hen ancestor of the hen could have laid the egg with the hen mutation (thus the egg came first) or the non-hen ancestors of the hen could have first mutated into a hen and then laid the first egg (thus the hen came first). problem remains unsolved.
but this old “hen and egg” problem is easily solved by biologists and, yes, Darwin.
It is only intended to distract from the really unsolvable problem of missing proofs of God:
‘when every creation needs a creator where is the creator’s creator.’
________________________________________________
Only answere is Blaise Pascal’s bet.
Before is a concept that has no meaning outside of our space/time continuum.
Both “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming” and its big Sister “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change” are beliefs supported by hypotheses (e.g. models) and myths (e.g. circumstantial evidence). They may be true, but Nature is in denial.
That said, climate change is caused by immigration reform that forces concentrated population centers and “big” green policies that shift or obfuscate environmental disruptions and development.
People we need to keep reminding ourselves as the thinking people, aka skeptics, the one and only real goal of the dark regressive forces is a global socialist government- unelected and unaccountable of course. The warming is only fluff they keep generating to distract us from that evil goal.
Al Miller –
This comment shows no sign of thought, only assumptions parroting the propaganda of the right. There is simply no evidence that this is the case. Giving aid to the developing world is not the same as socialism. Cooperation among nations is not the same as global government. The Paris agreement has no legal mandate, it is purely voluntary.
Calling the left evil socialists is about as correct as calling the right evil fascists. Both terms have lost their meaning in the rush to demonize the other.
The left is full of propaganda, yes. So is the right. Unless people start recognizing the propaganda that is affecting their own views, they will just keep floundering in ignorance and hatred.
… evil socialists. Intent is not necessary to be evil … socialism, by its nature is evil.
At this point in time the Right has nothing to do with fascism. When I was a kid the left fooled people through the lies that the Left was about freedom, it is not. The Left is about control & lack of freedom.
Fascism is about control & lack of freedom. Socialism is about control & lack of freedom. Environmentalism is about control & lack of freedom (this is not propaganda … if you want to be helpful then what you need to do is call out the groups and individuals that use Environmentalism as a tool to take away other peoples stuff as the true assholes that they are).
Calling the left evil socialists is about correct as calling the LEFT evil fascists.
I don’t know anybody on the right that wants to take my stuff, people on the left want to take my stuff.
Kristi’s comment once again shows no signs of independent thought, only assumptions parroting the left wing propaganda she has been taught.
Giving aid to poor people isn’t socialism, provided the money is being given to individuals, not to governments, and provided that the money is donated voluntarily, not taken away by force.
Neither of these requirements apply to the things Kristi judges as “charity”.
While cooperation is good, the do-gooders are demanding mandatory cooperation.
The left are socialists, and that is evil. Calling the right fascists just shows how ignorant you are since fascism is a form of socialism.
It really is fascinating how Kristi whines about propaganda of the right, while repeating the propaganda of the left.
The latest polls show that 51% of millenials favour socialism over capitalism. True socialism destroys the incentive to work and in any case is impossible because once the capital wealth is usurped by the government, communism and dictatorship soon follow. There is only 1 country in recent memory that pulled back from the trainride to hell that is socialism and that was India. India today is increasingly productive thanks to its new found grasp of the free market. Thanks to a turnaround around 1990, India escaped the road to hell. But even today there are many parties in India that still espouse socialism and there is still plenty to do to change regulations to make the country more competitive.
Alan,
India still however suffers from a stultifying bureaucracy and barrier to free trade such as trucks spending hours at every state border crossing.
MarkW
This from Kristi:
“This comment shows no sign of thought”
Then this:
“Calling the left evil socialists is about as correct as calling the right evil fascists.”
Kristi is clearly unaware of the origins of fascism.
Hey Kristi, it was Mussolini, remember him? He invented the concept. A man steeped in left wing politics. A man the socialist Adolf Hitler admired.
Fascism eh? A concept from the right? As usual you are talking bollox from your distorted left wing, evil socialist, blinkered perspective.
Try to understand the difference luv. socialism means the state takes what it wants from you, yes you personally, does what it wants with it and brooks no criticism. See my earlier examples, Mussolini and Hitler.
Capitalism means you retain control over your wealth, your freedom and your right to work. If the state can present a reasonable case for taxes to fund social project then it should do so before asking for money.
As it is, the state takes your money before finding things to spend it on, which it does currently without making a case for spending your money.
The first ‘income tax’, a penny in the £ was levied nationally on the British public for one objective, to fight the Napoleonic wars, in defence of our shores.
The concept of an income tax has since been distorted and abused by politicians, for politicians, particularly left wing, socialist politicians.
Our current UK opposition party, led by the socialists (borderline communists) Corbyn and McDonnell are proposing nationalising various industries if they are elected. A concept which failed dismally here not half a century ago.
As can be seen from my examples, socialists are stupid and never learn from the past in their ideological fervour of what should work, but which has been demonstrated not to work.
+MarkW
Did you even read Kristi’s comment? Where in that does she say that the right are fascists? Where?
+HotScot
Again, did you read her comment? She is not saying the right are fascists. She is saying that calling the right evil fascists is wrong, just like calling the left evil socialists is also wrong.
Kristi is complaining about propaganda from both sides. It’s funny how you basically confirm her point.
And no, I don’t consider myself a “leftist”. I support free markets and capitalism. I’m skeptical of impacts of any possible climate change, but I’m just sickened and tired of this tribalism and other BS. Though I suspect you conveniently don’t read this last part and just post “Fredar is evil communist confirmed.” Because everything must be black and white.
Both Italian and German Fascists were Socialists. Learn to read.
Kristi, fascism arose from the left in the early 20th century. stop being an NPC and learn some history. (yes, I used the NPC meme, sue me).
The Paris agreement has no legal mandate, it is purely voluntary.
and the US has voluntary said the Paris agreement can go f-itself. so no problems then 🙂
So if I thought Sen. Lindsey Graham was deluded and ill informed, it does not count.
If anyone is serious about reducing fossil carbon emissions, forget about evil industrialists and George Soros . Republicans have proposed a way to reduce fossil carbon emissions that will start slow but gradually succeed if Congress will give it a chance.
On 10/9/18 Exxon Mobil committed $1,000,000 to Americans for Carbon Dividends [https://www.afcd.org/], a new group co-chaired by former Sens Trent Lott, a conservative Republican and John Breaux, a conservative Democrat, that supports a gradually rising carbon FEE on each pound of fossil carbon purchased directly or indirectly by consumers. This is fee is not a tax because it will not be spent by the Federal government, always an invitation for waste and corruption.
Their proposal, which was written by Republican statesmen, is known as the Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan [https://www.clcouncil.org/our-plan/]. The effectiveness of this proposal in reducing fossil carbon emissions has been confirmed by many economic analyses, including a June 2018 report by the non-partisan Resources for the Future [http://www.rff.org/files/document/file/RFF-IB-18-07.pdf].
The proposal is revenue neutral. All the proceeds from this carbon FEE would be returned to the American people on an equal and monthly basis via DIVIDEND checks, direct deposits or contributions to their individual retirement accounts.”
The Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan will result in a NET FINANCIAL GAIN for nearly everyone in the bottom 70% income bracket. Everyone pays the same fee per pound of fossil carbon they use, but for those in the top 30% income bracket, the fees paid to purchase fossil carbon will usually exceed the monthly dividend refund they receive.
Yes, the end result is financial redistribution from those who consume more fossil carbon to those who consume less, but can you propose a more effective way to reduce fossil carbon emissions?
Who do they think will be the first to change to an expensive but affordable (to them) all-electric lifestyle while all of us peons pay through the nose at the pumps?
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/frankfurt-motor-show/mission-e-porsches-600bhp-all-electric-sports-car-2018
“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau”
Economist Irving Fisher in October 1929, three days before the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression.
The stock market crash did not trigger the great depression. That took government malfeasance.
Within a year or so after the crash, the stock market managed to regain most of what it had lost.
You are wrong MarkW, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929 triggered the Great Depression.
Poor poor Remy, insisting that his historical revisions must be believed by all.
As to hating government, any sane person should. Government is force. Raw, brutal, force.
You of course love government because you can use it to rob from others so that you personally don’t have to work as hard.
He is right. The Smoot-Hawley tarrif triggered the stock market crash and the initial recession. The Federal Reserve’s massive contraction of the money supply caused a collapse of the banking system and turned a normal cyclical downturn into the Great Depression. The Federal Reserve actions were driven by adherence to the gold standard. A massive outflow of gold in 1931 hamstrung monetary policy and forced the Fed to raise interest rates in order to stem the outflow. In contrast, the Fed was unhindered by the gold standard and could prop up the banking system during 2008-9 and prevent a 1929-33 style banking collapse.
See Milton and Rose Friedman’s “A Monetary History of the United States, Chapter 7 The Great Contraction.
Sorry MarkW, you cannot rewrite history based on your current hatred of government.
You are the one rewriting history with the simplistic view the stock market crash caused the Great Depression any research on the topic would tell you it was simply one of many factors.
OK LdB, what are all the other “many factors” that caused the Great Depression?
…
Post four of them.
LdB, make sure you mention MarkW’s contention that it’s the government’s fault.
FDR’s Democrat friends and backers were largely responsible for the Crash, like J. J. Raskob, or benefited from it, like Joe Kennedy. The Wall Street Democrat scumbags encouraged mom and pop on Main Street to go on margin with only 10% equity, then reaped windfall profits shoring the market.
Shorting.
Remy,
Even this Wiki entry doesn’t cover all the causes suggested by economists, although more than four:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression
Of course, today it’s fashionable to add “drought” to the list.
IMO a big factor was Europe’s inability to buy our products. And the farm economy, then a much larger share of GDP than now, had already suffered depression in the ’20s, after booming during the Great War.
Tillman, from 1919 until 1929, the Senate was controlled by Republicans. From 1917 until 1929 the House was controlled by Republicans. Harding, Coolidge and Hoover were all Republican.
…
So,take your “FDR & friends” and enroll in a refresher course in US History.
Remy,
You would benefit from an historical education in the first place.
FDR was governor of NY, which, as you may know, is where Wall Street is located. It was his backer, J. J. Raskob, who said that everyone should be rich and buy stocks on margin. In 1929, federal involvement in the stock market was limited. The Fed existed, but the SEC didn’t. FDR appointed Joe Kennedy to head the SEC, on the principle of “set a thief to catch a thief”.
However the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 was named for two Republicans, ie Senator Smoot of UT and Rep. Hawley of OR.
But Democrats also favored protecting American industry from foreign competition, being then the ostensible party of workers and farmers, as long as they were white.
So, while the federal government didn’t police Wall Street in 1929, it did have a say in foreign trade.
Tillman, the governor of NY did not have control over the stock market. The governor of NY doesn’t appoint the head of the SEC. You see, FDR took over after the crash. So, please don’t continue being stupid and trying to lay blame on him.
Consensus or lack thereof among economists and historians on a number economic historical issues, to include causes of the GD:
http://www.employees.csbsju.edu/jolson/econ315/whaples2123771.pdf
The S-M Tariff Act, it must be admitted however, was largely GOP legislation.
Remy,
You miss the point.
The Democratic Party of NY was complicit in the Crash. Raskob and Kennedy weren’t the only Wall Street Democrats to benefit from suckering the public. Al Smith backer Raskob was forced to leave GM when he had to chose between the company or heading the DNC. He sold his GM stock and used it to build the Empire State Bldg.
Again, there was no SEC in 1929. It was established in the wake of the Crash, in 1934.
Increasing taxes and regulations turned a run of the mill recession into the great depression.
The “great depression” was in America only. Europe had a short recession. Because they didn’t have a “progressive” in charge. You sir, are a progressive. IE, either a man with blinders or an idiot.
The crash bottomed out in 1932, but 1929 Dow level wasn’t reached again until the ’50s.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/DJIA_historical_graph_to_jul11_%28log%29.svg
The Dow took longer to recover even than did the NASDAQ after the dotcom bubble burst in 2000.
However, there is no consensus among economic historians as to the causes of the Great Depression. Besides the Crash, they point to protectionism, natural boom-bust cycles and three waves of bank failures amid panics in the early ’30s, among other explanations.
Inept government policies probably did prolong the Depression. WWII is generally credited with ending it, but even that conclusion is far from unanimous.
“The stock market crash did not trigger the great depression. That took government malfeasance. Within a year or so after the crash, the stock market managed to regain most of what it had lost.”
—
What’s the imperative here Mark? To misrepresent an easily checked timeline of events and causes? No one needs obviously false-opinion to muddy the waters on significant issues that people should at least know some basics about, if they want to throw them into a comment section. You seem to have no such knowledge or are deliberate in misrepresenting what occurred for some strange agenda. In science, when wrong, an honest and ingenuous person accepts and recants.
Mark you are only partly correct. the crash started the ball rolling. but that only gave us a minor depression, it took government malfeasance to make that depression into a great one.
This is a horrible idea LarryB.
Energy taxes are viciously regressive. Poor people tend to spend more of their non-discretionary income on energy than rich people – the classic test of energy poverty is poor people being forced to choose between heating and eating.
Better heating insulation helps – but a lot of poor people don’t have this option. People who rent can’t make major structural alterations to their dwelling, and probably can’t afford the insulation in the first place.
Likewise installing solar panels only works if you have your own roof – people who live in apartments don’t necessarily have this option.
The Republicans who advanced this idea should be ashamed of themselves. If climate is a real issue, the solution is to mass produce nuclear reactors, the way France did in the 1970s.
They’re not Republicans, they’re RINOs. RINOs know no shame.
Larry B; I can propose a better way to reduce fossil carbon emissions. Go nuclear. Oh wait. The left doesn’t want nuclear. Despite the massive amount of money spent on subsidized renewables, they only meet a paltry 4% of the world’s energy needs, so they’re a non-starter.
1) Lott and Breaux are only conservative compared to out and out communists.
2) If you actually believe that every penny of that money will be returned to the people, you are serously deluded. Even if a substantial fraction is returned the first year, that fraction will go down rapidly. It always does.
Sorry Larry, but you lost me with your first line.
“…reducing fossil carbon emissions.”
Firstly as we all know, CO2 is the wonder substance that can do EVERYTHING, so why would we want to reduce it.
Secondly, even if it DID drive global temps, my real world concerns are less about if I will be able to wear my favourite overcoat for as many days in the year as I currently do some vaguely defined period in the future, and more about the fact my power supply is both questionable and expensive.
Frankly I don’t really care anymore if my power station is powered by the souls of polar bears anymore provided my power is available 24/7 and cost less than my entire disposable income.
Everything after that sentence is filled with buzz words like ‘Republican’ and Financial Gain to deliberately try and appeal to my conservative sensibilities. Don’t question it. A Republican wrote it and you like Republicans, right?
Sorry, but no.
What’s next? Tell me that cutting off my leg is a good idea because over the years I will have a net saving in shoes? Trust me, I’m a Doctor and our studies have shown that people with legs also suffer from heart problems?
Why would you want to reduce CO2 emissions? The atmosphere needs more CO2 NOT less. In any case China and India not only will never reduce, they are are increasing every year. China’s emissions are 31% of the world total which is double the US in 2nd place. In any case The US emissions have been going down for the last 15 years.
“… but can you propose a more effective way to reduce fossil carbon emissions?”
The most effective way to reduce fossil carbon emissions is to kill the economy. To do this, put democrats in power across the board.
The most effective way to kill the economy is to raise the cost of energy. To do this, put democrats in power across the board.
The IPCC is without doubt the leading cause of Climate Change.
Abolish the IPCC — Problem solved.
bingo, we have a winner.
The concocted pretension that someone can monitor ‘climate-change’ via thermometer and satellite within the time-horizon of a human career is utterly laughable. Nothing more than a political farce that was designed to be dishonest from the get-go to leverage money out of government taxpayers pockets under false-pretenses. The UN IPCC is a fraudulent organization created by a grand time and money wasting apparatus which generated a level of corruption that humanity has not had to deal with before. And which governments do not (as yet) really have the pluck to eliminate such an odious contrived pseudo-officialdom and ‘Authority’. Or to end their money and power usurping tactics over the tax payers of the globe, especially the western sphere, who did not vote for these people or their corrupt money usurping ways. A lack of oversight and no accountability has permitted the IPCC cancer to grow and be sustained for decades.
Co-opted governments mostly don’t have the pluck to over turn the fake-media narrative in their brief tenuous term, or the foreign policy remit to just call them what they are and lop-off this malignant pseudo-official corruption.org, that’s occurring still on a global scale due to it being coddled within the United Nations as its little den of pet snakes, who specialize in continually making nothings look like somethings.
Thus the IPCC leverages the weakness of Western Democracies to their advantage, i.e. their election cycles and hands-off fake-media organisations. oh look, the US mid-terms in a few weeks, what a coincidence!
Such tactics clearly don’t work on Authoritarian-States like China, where they control and filter their own fake-media narrative which they moderate and cull, minute by minute. The UN IPCC are unable to circumvent that. So China pays lip-service to climate-change and global responsibility for external optics, then doubles-down on doing the domestic opposites. The UN IPCC just can’t figure out how to milk the autocrats yet, China and Russia get a free-pass and go into the not-to-be-discussed ‘too-hard’ basket, while the IPCC prosecutes democratic soft-targets and the much less problematic taxpayer’s ‘dumb-money’.
I sure wish I could get me some first-class travel perks with a Perrier and a twist of lemon at 36,000 ft as I revel in the delights and tingles of deep, outrageous and endless hypocrisy. 😉
That is just the start. The UN agency UNFCCC established in 1992 (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) is the BIG Daddy. Killing off the IPCC only means that the UNFCCC will convene another agency to take its place. You have to also kill off the UNFCCC. with its 450 employees.
What Trump has to do is withdraw from the UNFCCC and kill off the funding. In fact, withdrawing from the complete UN would be even a better idea.
Move the entire UN to Iceland. They can convene in a giant igloo on Bardarbunga’s caldera.
When does the handheld Michael Moore hit piece movie come out?
I thought it already did. In it’s first weekend, 10 people watched it.
“the individuals whose efforts provided us with all with our modern abundance of consumer choice”
Consumer choice – that must be a code word for multinational conglomerates. Take a stroll down the cereal isle – how much choice is there, really, among the affordable products? Kelloggs, General Mills, Post (Kraft; includes Malt-O-Meal since 2015). That’s about it. And unless you really like bland, virtually all these cereals are full of sugar.
In the food industry alone there were 533 mergers and acquisitions in 2017, compared to half that in 2009. Is that supposed to increase consumer choice?
https://www.foodprocessing.com/articles/2018/mergers-and-acquisitions/
Among processed food companies, the top three made $105,886 million, combined, in food sales alone. Companies ranked 11th, 12th and 13th made $26,600 million, combined. PepsiCo, number one, made 4.36 times Cargill, #11 in food sales.
In what way does this improve consumer choice?
Sure, you could compare it to Soviet socialism, but that is not what American’s want. Even millennials don’t really want true socialism, they just reject the disparities in income, wealth and opportunity created by free market capitalism.
Just to be clear, I’m a capitalist. But I don’t think unregulated capitalism is good for anyone. The market doesn’t have a conscience, and it inherently tends to put most wealth in the hands of the wealthy. This in turn affects the power structure, and that’s the real problem: neither “side” is happy. The right complains about Soros, the left about the Koch brothers – two sides of the same coin.
History has shown what lack of regulation leads to: rapidly climbing market (like we are seeing now) followed by bust. There is already nervousness among economists.
There has to be a “happy medium” that prevents these cycles without restricting the growth of the economy. There should be a way to allow small- and medium-sized business to compete with the giants, but that’s tough with wealth and power in the hands of a few.
Propaganda is everywhere, it’s just that people only recognize it as such when it comes from the other side.
(Rescued from DEEP in the spam bucket) MOD
” … But I don’t think unregulated capitalism is good for anyone. … ”
Gee Kristi, try opening and operating a business sometime (for profit, btw) and then you can tell us all about how unregulated western capitalism is.
/peak-eye-roll
Kristi,
Sorry, but you are not a capitalist. Not even close.
Where, when and how, please say, has there ever been such a thing as “unregulated capitalism”. Thanks.
The economy has taken off under Trump not because he did away with regulation, but because he relaxed regulations and reduced taxes. We’re still not back to the regulatory environment of 2001. Nor even 2009.
Kristi I will take apart your points 1 by 1.
1) “Consumer choice – that must be a code word for multinational conglomerates. Take a stroll down the cereal isle – how much choice is there, really, among the affordable products? Kelloggs, General Mills, Post (Kraft; includes Malt-O-Meal since 2015). That’s about it. And unless you really like bland, virtually all these cereals are full of sugar.”
When was the last time you ever were into one of those small food specialty shops? Those specialty shops that carry dozens of food brand products of every kind of food? Small brands that you cant get in major supermarkets. Also every city has farmers markets 6 months of the year. Why would you eat cereals with sugar when you can buy the basic grains in bulk? Bulk food stores are sprouting up all over the country.
2) “In the food industry alone there were 533 mergers and acquisitions in 2017, compared to half that in 2009. Is that supposed to increase consumer choice?”
Do you realize that there are 38,571 supermarket stores in the US? And the street vendor industry has a 3.7% average annual growth. Even more astounding is that online grocery sales are over 10% growth rate.
Online Grocery Sales industry has a low level of concentration, with the top four players accounting for less than 15.2% of total industry revenue in 2017. Many online grocery retailers are small to medium size private establishments that operate on a state and regional level and serve niche markets. Although online grocery retailers offer similar products and services, low industry concentration stems partly from the diversity of regions covered by industry operators as well as problems related to scale. For example, the industry’s major player PeaPod, which delivers products to more than 350,000 customers in 23 markets, including the District of Columbia, captures 6.2% of the total industry’s market share.
There are over 80 new food retailers per 1000 firm population every year. There are ~ 26000 food manufacturing companies in the US alone. I shudder to think of the total number of retailers of food. So if 533 get gobbled up in the whole country, that is a pittance of the total.
3) “Among processed food companies, the top three made $105,886 million, combined, in food sales alone. Companies ranked 11th, 12th and 13th made $26,600 million, combined. PepsiCo, number one, made 4.36 times Cargill, #11 in food sales.”
Do you realize how many food products these large companies sell? And how many new products they introduce every year? And we want food companies to be big and successful, because they obviously are providing products that people want to buy. Also, I eat lots of peanut butter. There is a federal law that states that peanut butter has to be teasted for aflatoxin which causes cancer of the liver. Do you trust a mom and pop peanut butter manufacturer as much as a large corporation? I don’t. There are many other health related regulations like that. Listeria and botulinim toxin (botulism) come to mind.
4) “Sure, you could compare it to Soviet socialism, but that is not what American’s want. Even millennials don’t really want true socialism, they just reject the disparities in income, wealth and opportunity created by free market capitalism.”
The latest polls show that 51% of millenials choose socialism over capitalism. Disparities in income and wealth are the by products of a successful capitalist system. You want fabulously wealthy people because it is a big incentive for someone to be an entrepreneur. Rich and famous people also provide the source of the huge entertainment industry. Without entrepreneurs the country would die. Even the lowliest janitor lives better today than a king did 500 years ago. Even Cadillacs have been driven by poor people when the car is old. People give billions of their older clothes and other consumer items to thrift stores where poor people pick up bargains. And of course for people that don’t want to work there is always welfare provided by taxes where the rich pay a higher proportion as a %.
5)” Just to be clear, I’m a capitalist. But I don’t think unregulated capitalism is good for anyone. The market doesn’t have a conscience, and it inherently tends to put most wealth in the hands of the wealthy. This in turn affects the power structure, and that’s the real problem: neither “side” is happy. The right complains about Soros, the left about the Koch brothers – two sides of the same coin.
History has shown what lack of regulation leads to: rapidly climbing market (like we are seeing now) followed by bust. There is already nervousness among economists.”
US federal agencies issue ~ 4000 new regulations every year with about 25000 pages of rules. There is an increase every year. Small business are saying all the regulations are killing them. $51 billion was spent by regulatory agencies in 2012 in the US in trying to administer all the regulations.
6) “There has to be a “happy medium” that prevents these cycles without restricting the growth of the economy. There should be a way to allow small- and medium-sized business to compete with the giants, but that’s tough with wealth and power in the hands of a few.”
Boom and bust cycles are built in to capitalistic economic systems. Besides there are always people trying to game the system ( banksters come to mind) with Ponzi schemes, insider trading, monopoly manipulation, price fixing, …. etc . It is impossible to stop boom and busts. That is like trying to hold back the tides. If you really want we can get into a detailed discussion of why that is so, but it involves a deep discussion of capitalistic economics.
SO KRISTI ; YOU HAVE SHOWN THAT YOU DONT REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR FIELD OF GEOLOGY. But don’t be ashamed because almost all leftists think the way you do. Even some leftist economists are in denial of how human psychology and economics are linked in a way that leaves capitalism as the most successful economic system. Not perfect but the most successful.
Let me get this right.
The market doesn’t provide the exact thing that you demand, therefore the market doesn’t provide any choice for anyone.
You list the 3 largest food producers, however there are hundreds of regional producers plus every store has it’s own store brand.
History has shown that the cause of boom and bust is invariably government incompetence.
“Sure, you could compare it to Soviet socialism, but that is not what American’s want. Even millennials don’t really want true socialism, they just reject the disparities in income, wealth and opportunity created by free market capitalism.”
These disparities aren’t created by capitalism, they are permitted by capitalism.
What creates the disparity is human differences. Differences in both ability and drive.
Your millennials want to be rich, but they don’t want to do the work necessary to become rich. So they decide that it is governments job to take money from those who have been successful and to give it to them. To ease their consciences, they convince themselves that the system is broken and that those who have wealth have somehow cheated.
(With apologies to Martin Niemöller for changing his words)
First they came for the billionaires………
It will take some time to reach my level of monetary injustice but they are persistent so I fully expect a knock on my door to ‘reallocate’ my pension.
This is propaganda, too: “The planet would obviously be better off if we all had Soviet levels of consumer choice. While we were standing in a queue for half a day to buy a loaf of bread, we would not be driving our cars.”
No – that’s reality-based sarcasm countering propaganda.
Kristi, you seem very young. I hope you live long enough to discover how silly and naive you are. Remember when you thought there really was a bogeyman lurking under the stairs?
The Soviet system is the obvious alternative to abundant consumer choice Kristi. You might believe in magic, I prefer economics.
It may be propaganda when applied here, however bread lines were a fact of life for most Soviets. At least those Soviets who didn’t run the government.
However, the wishes of way to many of those prominent in the Global Warming scam, to dismantle capitalism have been made quite clear over the years.
Kristi,
if you don’t believe the history we can always show you the models.
/sarc
Kristi,
In the USSR, if people saw a line, they got in it. It didn’t matter what product was at the end of the line. As everything was in short supply, it was worth getting whatever there was.
“While we were standing in a queue for half a day to buy a loaf of bread, we would not be driving our cars.”
Kristi is right. That is propaganda. Who would choose to stand in line when they could sit in their cars spewing emissions while waiting to go through the drive-through?
What exactly is a biblical scale anyway? Two thousand years? Hardly a terrifying rate of anything?
The events described in the bible were for the most part concerned with very local or at most regional happenings. The exceptions were the descriptions of the Exodus and Flood which clearly can be blamed on the explosion of Santorini and the breaching of the Black Sea Barrier, unless of course you wish to blame God for otherwise natural events.
“The world faces environmental disaster on a biblical scale.” As we told you again and again. Shame on you for not believing our scientifically consensual warnings. /sarc
Luke is plain clueless and is trying to rid himself of his own guilt. It is the consumers’s fault that these guys are rich – the consumers give them money because in return these billionaires give them what they want. Things like cars gasoline and buildings and fantastic phones and electricity and … No demand, no billionaires. There is no script for the future of humanity but one thing is certain – humanity wants to constantly improve its standard of living and billionaires find the ways to do it.
Comparing the modern hoax of climate change with Bibical stories of nasty things to happen, is a case of comparing one to another.
MJE
As the CAGW charade continues to fall apart at an increasing speed, the finger of blame gets cast about wildly, in a desperate and futile attempt to explain why. First it’s individuals, then it’s corporations, then billionaires. Of course, Trump, and the US get lots of blame too. They still don’t get it. Lies can only work for so long, before they begin to unravel.
So what’s the solution? Kill the rich and the weather will get better? Or less worse, slower? In a world where everyone is poor, I suppose there will be fewer floods, droughts, storms, plagues, ticks, skeeters, and such. No less ice, but no more ice, either.
A return to Eden? No worms in the apples?
How about a world with no pretense, hypocrisy and sham? No jumping to conclusions on scant data and using it as an excuse for tyranny. That would be a paradise, too, eh? But probably too much to ask for.
The rise in global atmospheric CO2, surface temperature, and sea level from emissions traced to major carbon producers
Setting aside the fact that oil companies are not “carbon producers”… Here are the “Worst of the Worst”…
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1609"]
Figure 2 from Ekwurzel et al., 2017.[/caption]
And they’re US Public Enemy #2 in the Climate-Wrecking Industry? US Public Enemy #1, Chevron, only barely edges out ExxonMobil. And the Climatariat wonders why we laugh at them.
Notice that Nuclear Power is not listed.
Lacking is – Who is BUYING these Fossil fuels. Like drugs, No Market, No Sale.
“This week, the United Nations released a damning report’, published just before the crucial midterms, coordinated with genocidal geo-engineering that flattened a republican stronghold, with thousands of people still missing. Yet WUWT has yet to examine the full capabilities of geo-engineering, only quoting the big lie that it will mitigate AGW’. So expect another October superstorm, massive flooding, a new ‘firenado’ or two and endless media fear porn. According to the unriggable Zip poll, most Americans just aren’t buying it, but until the sinister depths of this fraud are fully exposed, it will continue to threaten us all.
https://zippollusa.com/category/politics/
Jerry Brown vs. Trump- “Climate Change is a Hoax”
September 2018
CA Governor is scolding the president for denying climate change after CA saw the most destructive season on record last year. Should the president care for the upcoming season?
86%: No, scientists are wrong
14%: Yes, open your eyes
TOTAL: No, scientists are wrong 86%; Yes, open your eyes 14%
MALES: No, scientists are wrong 85%; Yes, open your eyes 15%
FEMALES: No, scientists are wrong 89%; Yes, open your eyes 11%
The Trump Administration Predicts Climate Change Will Be Catastrophic
October 15, 2018
Scientists are saying the Trump admin issued a statement predicting the planet will warm by 7 degrees by 2100, and effects would be catastrophic. Do you believe this?
88% No, scare tactic
12% Yes, will happen
TOTAL: No, scare tactic 88%; Yes, will happen 12%
MALES: No, scare tactic 89%; Yes, will happen 11%
FEMALES: No, scare tactic 85%; Yes, will happen 15%
the complete list of Zip polls is compiled here: http://astrologicaltools.com/zip
Climate change trough feeders are causing climate change by jetting off Copenhagen, Paris and warmer climes for confabs. Or confibs.
There’s one less Billionaire causing climate change. Rip Paul G. Allen.
To these guys, the solution is always for everyone else to live in poverty.
The only realistic means of acheiving massive reductiona in CO2 , namely nuclear energy,
was avoided by the same green morons now clamoring for crappy and expensive renewable
energy.
That article by Luke Darby in GQ magazine has been peer reviewed.
I am down with reducing pollution. Conservation.
The tabloids would rather have a columnist blame someone so as to not do journalism on reducing pollution, or on how to conserve energy. Their gig is to blame carbon based life forms and cry global warming due to man made climate change loudly in text and so shrillly that a carbon tax starts to make sense to me and you?
Gwynne Dyer and Lana Payne write for global bosses not the people – my bias. They would argue otherwise.
https://wp.me/p1Y35Y-37z
Daddy Warm Bucks?
“The people who are actively cranking up the global thermostat”
is nothing but a hate campaign.
Have not done any analysis, however, IMHO a graph of size of CO2 footprint (removing any purchased credits) vs Income would definitely increase with income. With the top 3-5% of income earners generating the majority.
Biting the hand that feeds them. Yep, a Soviet style government sounds great! Now which billionaire is going to put all their money up to ” Save the Planet “…. Michael, are you there? Didn’t you pay for the US commitment for the Paris Climate Agreement. Too bad the watermelon people think that its a treaty. I suppose they don’t know how the US works. I can see them lining up now to put themselves in poverty.
A Soviet style government with a command economy is/was/will be rejected universally. Nobody wants to live like that. These morons pushing for that, that’s the only idea they have?
I am sorry, but why would anyone take anything written in a soft porn rag like GQ seriously? Wait til it appears in the National Enquirer.