Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Those computer climate models had better be correct
Not that he did not warn us, but the hits just keep coming:
The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.
A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year. (emphasis added)
Of course, this is in addition to the other tax increases steam-rolling our way, so it is not surprising that the Obama administration did not release this useful bit of information voluntarily.
14 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Sep 16, 01:37:00 PM:
How to make a depression:
Higher taxes, in the face of a financial bubble burst. Check.
Rising trade protectionism and tariffs. Check.
Lower rates of new business formation. Check.
By , at
Wed Sep 16, 04:02:00 PM:
Meanwhile, property taxes in New York are projected to rise 20-30% to replenish the losses to state workers' pensions in the aftermath of last year's financial meltdown.
Because, you know, some people are more equal than others.
By , at
Wed Sep 16, 04:42:00 PM:
Remember where you heard it!! Obama the Kenyan and his thieves on the democrat side of the US Congress will develop the strategy to avoid this problem; they will simply reduce defense spending to cover most of these shortfalls!
By , at
Wed Sep 16, 05:39:00 PM:
The Energy Bill won't cut CO2 emissions. It's likely to increase them, as it'll push jobs to dirtier places. This is insanity.
Link, over
By Brian Schmidt, at
Wed Sep 16, 05:44:00 PM:
McCullagh is a liar. If you actually read the pdf, and I'm sure McCullagh hopes that you don't, then you'll see the $100 to $200 billion figure is from Obama's proposal for 100% auction, which isn't the proposal on the table. Furthermore it's a gross figure that doesn't include the ofsetting tax cut.
Typical quality of information coming the denialists.
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Wed Sep 16, 06:05:00 PM:
Might want to revisit the page again, since it now says pretty much what you just said here in an update.
Of course, this update:
"The bill passed by the House sends the value of pollution permits to consumers, and it contains robust cost-containment provisions. Every credible and independent economic analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (such as those done by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the Energy Information Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency) says the costs will be small and affordable -- and that the U.S. economy will grow with a cap on carbon."
...is fishy.
For instance, qualifying the list of supporting agencies by using fuzzy adjectives like 'non-partisan' and 'credible' artificially reduces the pool of acceptable critics. Not all that different from MSM outlets dismissing valid criticisms from bloggers and other New Media because they don't belong to the right club. It doesn't matter if an outlet is partisan or not if their facts are straight, and 'credible' when dealing with mostly speculative future consequences is at best entirely subjective.
Also, quoting government agencies to support the projections of a government agency is circular logic. It boils down to, 'the government is right about this because the government says it is right about this.'
Further, 'small and affordable' are squishy terms that are without concrete meaning. The dissent here is damned by its lack of numbers. The only numbers in the EDF's complaint are a discounted amount by a Republican that they hate, and "100 percent auction." (I checked) This is especially stupid, since the title of their release is about 'fuzzy math.' If it's so damn fuzzy, they should be able to correct it; I'm not just going to take them at their word.
Lastly, "the U.S. economy will grow with a cap on carbon" is equally questionable. 'Positive growth' isn't all that helpful without a number. 0.1% growth is technically growth. But if the population grows more than than (and it does, by about 25x) then per capita wealth is actually declining. The fact that it technically can 'grow' doesn't mean that it isn't economically counterproductive.
"Typical quality of information coming the denialists."
Most ironic, given what I've pointed out here.
By , at
Wed Sep 16, 06:56:00 PM:
To Brian Schmidt from Link,
Who's in denial?
The Energy Bill on the table won't cut CO2 emissions. It will actually increase them by moving dirty jobs offshore. It favors wind and solar, even though they're proven not to scale. It would kill our nuclear industry, even though it's the only technology that would help on both independence and cutting emissions.
All of the foregoing is before we get to things like "cost per family."
So Brian what's your real agenda?
Link, over
By , at
Wed Sep 16, 11:54:00 PM:
There's been alot of interesting news regarding wind power and Denmark lately.
Anyone care to make a guess what country has the highest electric rates in Europe?
By Brian, at
Thu Sep 17, 11:35:00 AM:
McCullagh shouldn't just post an update with EDF's info, he should post a retraction.
As for getting numbers from EDF, you'll find all you want on their website. Or, as they say, just read the bill.
Link: I'm not especially interested in your ridiculous claims, so I'll stick to the issue that TH raised with this post.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Sep 17, 12:53:00 PM:
Oh really? Where? I saw nothing but propaganda and cherry-picked factoids and made-in-a-vacuum predictions about how wonderful it is to be green and restrict carbon production.
Retarded propaganda at that. Check this out, for instance.
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=41988
This little graphic is 1) based on an unlikely assumption; that putting restrictions on energy producers will cause investors to dump money into them. That's really damn weak. If I were an investor in an industry that was getting clubbed by the government, I'd jump ship. Wouldn't you?
Secondly, it claims that 'jobs will be created' because the suddenly obsolete plant will have to install new windows and a turbine. Because, you know, there are no such jobs now and the dynamic American economy will have to make some up.
Oddly, the blanket depressing effect on the economy at large because of higher energy costs is completely ignored. I guess all the new window installers will be making so much money they won't notice.
So regulating an industry means that investors will jump on board and dump money into it even though the industry will be less profitable, existing 'glass and turbine' industries don't really exist and will have to be created, and there will be no side effects because we'll close our eyes and pretend the cost of energy won't rise. (even though Obama himself promised to bankrupt the coal industry and make energy costs 'skyrocket.' Remember that)
'Ah, but energy costs won't rise! There another graphic here that proves it!'
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagid=43935
Uh huh. 'Local utilities are required to use the value of the permits to benefit energy consumers.'
Really? They're going to what, hand out free money? So people can afford more of a dwindling resource? Genius.
The price of goods rise as their supply falls and demand remains the same or rises. Forcing plants to cut their power outputs to comply with carbon caps reduces the amount of energy available. Therefore, it becomes more expensive. Then, put the fact that the plant now has to re-coup the cost of the permit. Price goes higher. Then you take the cost of that permit, and dump it back into the pockets of consumers. Now, everyone has more money with which to compete for the same limited resource; price can go higher because the consumers are more affluent. (effectively eliminating any benefit of 'spreading around the wealth' in the first place) Stack on top of THAT that the money that was seized from the plant for their permit being handed to their customers in order to pay the plant is utterly pointless. No actual exchange of wealth is taking place (except by the government employees who enforce this idiocy). Money is taken from the plant, given to consumer, which is then given to the plant 'to pay for energy costs.' Costs which increased because of this very plan.
So we ultimately have a plan which will force plants to produce less energy coupled with a weird redistribution scheme that accomplishes nothing.
Finally, let's revisit something I said earlier.
Here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
This is a video of Barack Obama talking about cap and trade. I've taken the troubled of transcribing the important part for you.
"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, even - regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad - because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, natural gas, you name it... whatever the plants were whatever the industry was they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, and they will pass that money [sic] onto consumers."
I am utterly unconvinced by the EDF. In fact, they have actually persuaded me the other direction. So thanks Brian; you've played a part in my political and personal development.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 02:22:00 PM:
Brian lives in a world where he seemingly needn't concern himself with mundane things, like work. Those of us living in the reality-based economy look at news from Paychex, the very large payroll servicing company, who decries the historically low rates of new business formation, and we worry:
"Our served payroll client base declined 3.1% to just over 554,000 clients. It was difficult to watch our client losses due to companies going out of business or having no employees rise by 17% over the prior year. At the same time, our new client sales from new business formation declined by 19%. We believe both conditions were the worst in Paychex''s history, which explains our experiencing negative client growth for the first time in our history."
We have an economy going Galt, we have increasingly intransigent enemies of America feeling their oats while our allies, mystified, watch us abandon each of them one by one to their inglorious fates, and we have a Congress dominated by loonies who think no tax is too high and no amount of spending is too much.
And, through all this insanity, Brian nad his ilk in the "global warming" priesthood soehow find time to worry about quasi-religious absurdities, like "climate models", about faith-based devotion to ridiculous claims that climate change is somehow related to our economy and because of the dictates of their peculiar faith, we as a species must therefore destroy what little we have left of our future. Perhaps we even need to destroy some part of our population too, to satisfy them. Your beliefs are little different than Ted Kozinski's. A crowning achievement in public idiocy.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 02:24:00 PM:
Dawnfire: "
I am utterly unconvinced by the EDF. In fact, they have actually persuaded me the other direction."
You were there long ago, DF. It's been ridiculously clear from all the denialist nonsense you post that TH and I disagree with.
If you concede that McCullagh is full of it, I suppose we could address your new claims. Otherwise, I suggest sticking with TH's post.
By , at
Thu Sep 17, 02:59:00 PM:
Brian, you keep "sticking to TH's post" because you can't deal with these issues.
If AGW is real -- and it may be, but I'm a skeptic -- nothing on the table addresses it. The Energy Bill is an abomination. You only need look at Spain and Denmark to see that wind and solar cost jobs without meaningfully cutting emissions -- and to France to see that nuclear can be economical with 0% emissions. India and China are happy to take our dirty jobs, as they've made abundantly clear.
So exactly which of my claims are "ridiculous" and not worth your interest? I'm convinced you have another agenda. QED
You actually make a great strawman, thanks.
Link, over
By Brian Schmidt, at
Thu Sep 17, 08:15:00 PM:
Gish Gallop: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop#Debates
Glad to see that no one's defending McCullagh. We're making progress.
