Trade-Offs, TP, and Green Politics

I have been putting off writing a longer post about green politics generally because frankly I'm afraid the thing might turn out to be about 6578 pages. But slowly it's becoming more difficult to avoid. First we get the "Tax and Trade" plan from yesterday. Then today the Times tells us we have to use sandpaper on our asses or we hate trees.

It seems that the manufacture of softer toilet paper requires the use of older trees rather than recycled material. This is not a new issue for the National Resources Defense Council, which first published this report in 2005 on the topic. What's changed is that Obama's call for Cap and Trade has sent the major papers scrambling to find stories like this one.

Setting aside for a moment the fact that the NRDC's main point person on this stuff has a Ph.D. in an unknown field that 10 minutes of Googleing cannot determine, I again return to the trade-off's theme I've been harping on lately. Check out this quote from an interview with him in 2003:

Looking for the "post-consumer" label helps support and reward the billions of dollars in infrastructure investments made by local governments to collect the paper that has been used by consumers and that would otherwise be sent to costly and dangerous landfills or incinerators. That's not the case with paper that's not marked "post-consumer." It takes a little more effort to look for that label, but the environment deserves as much.

The key part for me is the bit about "billions of dollars in infrastructure investments." As if simply paying for the "billions of dollars in investments" is not enough, this guy wants us to "reward" those investments? What the hell does that mean?

Roughly translated "investments" for these folks means about what it means when the agriculture industry talks about farm subsidies or the GM talks about bailouts. It means "billions of dollars in YOUR tax money to support MY GOALS AND INTERESTS that might be used more productively elsewhere in society." The idea that the goal of recycling should be compared to other goals, say sending money to eliminate malaria in Africa or buying everyone 143 hands of "Death's Icy Grip" shaped out of popcorn, is what needs to be discussed.

Billions of dollars in "investments" means billions diverted away from something else. It's not like it's a free lunch. And using coarser toilet paper versus softer is also a trade-off. Anyone who's traveled a lot knows that on long flights home in airline seats.

Even for the Times, this story is so unfair it's silly. Everyone, EVERY-FRIGGIN-ONE makes decisions about how to reconcile the broad goals they support and the lifestyles they lead. I know very few people who want to give us everything that has adverse environmental impact in order to save the planet, but apparently the folks at the NRDC would like us to think that this "sacrifice" is not a big deal:

All toilet paper should be made from recovered, second generation fibers. No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper. Toilet paper made from trees should be phased out in the same way we're phasing out the use of incandescent light bulbs starting with our schools, theaters, auditoriums, office buildings, and of course our homes. A little "sacrifice" on the "need" for three seconds of softness vs. a whole lot of healthy forests left standing, providing habitat, inspiration, clean water, and soaking up carbon would be a very good change for this New Year. Let's stop flushing our forests down the toilet.

What exactly are acceptable uses of forests? Can I hunt in them? Should we just "let them be" and not try to conserve them? Can we even hope to achieve that?

Tell me what it costs, provide me with alternatives, and explain to me your real agenda - full stop. If it's simply, "Hey, this is stupid; the trees are pretty, and the toilet paper won't chafe your butt too much" I might consider it. If it's more like "You should become a vegan, join PETA, live in a recycled packing peanut house and give up your car to walk to work through forests of old growth trees and pay through the noses in taxes to achieve all of these goals through `investment'" You can count me skeptical and count me out.

Democrat Proposes Tax and Spending Increase.........This is News?

Lots of freaking out on right wing blogs today over Obama's proposed tax and spending increases. I'm sorry, did I miss something during the campaign? Was there some speech I didn't hear in which he argued for cutting the size of government and reducing taxes? He was elected to do this; he said he was going to do this; now he's doing it. You don't have to like it, or the amounts, but this is hardly surprising.

And let's face it - it's not like Republicans have any leg to stand on after 8 years of the biggest spending president in history. So please, save me the histrionics.

In two related thoughts I have yet to see any constructive conservative/libertarian response to this health care stuff. There's lots of screaming about "big government" which I predicted. But I continue to search for the alternative right-wing plan on health care. I'd be grateful to any reader who can point me/us to that proposal.

Secondly, in the spirit of full disclosure, the Fundhousehold is not directly affected by the proposed increases, although we will of course be indirectly affected like everyone in ways we simply cannot predict.

Whole Lotta Huburis Going On

Uncle Ben Bernanke and Barney Frank are playing with fire. It's one thing to be a popular president who throws out a vague set of plans about bailing out people stuck in their homes and claiming you won't help the ones who acted in bad faith. It is a whole other animal to stand before Congress, dismiss the moral hazard concerns, and say we need to bailout those who did act in bad faith.

I'm not an economist, so my particular understanding of the economic arguments here are limited. But sites like this ought to make everybody on the Hill and in DC realize this issue is radioactive. Go into a bar (like this one). Ask some of the 92% of Americans who are not defaulting through tough economic times what they think about this plan, and they'll tell you - loudly - about how they did not choose teaser rates, saved enough for a down payment, and played by the rules. Remember when Democrats talked about helping people who played by the rules, not people who broke them?

In the 1950's and 60's large Northern cities were hit with a large migration of African-Americans from the South. The response of political machines throughout the Midwest and Northeast was to place those people in massive, isolated, stigmatized government public housing. That policy effectively created two Americas and produced a ton of racial tension that divided us. It said to most of America "these people are different - not equal."

In sort of the same way, giving subsidized loans and bailouts to people in some homes will divide us again. Everyday when people drive past the homes of folks they know who were bailed out their anger will simmer a little more until next November. Careful gentlemen..............we don't need more division based on perceived need. We need to discourage foolish behavior, level the playing field, and not create social tension. Isn't that what this whole "hope" thing is supposed to be about?

Cap, Trade, Bait, and Switch

Mrs. Fundman and I bought a new car last year, and while we love it, I wish we had waited until the financial armagedon of the past year to get a really awesome deal.

We hit a couple of local dealerships including one in which the fastest talking, most unscrupulous, slimiest car sales manager I have ever encountered tried to talk us into leasing, not buying, our car. This despite the fact that on about 35 separate occasions I told him we weren't leasing.

He was trying to get us confused with the numbers. He kept pulling out alleged dealer cost sheets, depreciation charts, showing us different discount offers, all the time pushing the leases. I felt like Homer Simpson with Cowboy Bob selling me an RV. I started to find it really entertaining when he begin telling us how proudly his dealership supported NPR, which meant he read us as leftie greenies. Then he told us the lease would be really great when electric cars came out in a few years and we could give him back the leased one for a new plug-in.

I suspect his schtick has changed some since gas is now $1.68 a gallon. However, entertainment value aside, I think our President may have trained with this sales manager because last night he tried, and may have succeeded, in pulling off an awesome "bait and switch." Folks, if there was one thing to take away from that speech last night it was this - get ready for much higher utility bills, food prices, and prices on manufactured goods. Why? We are going to get a "cap and trade" scheme in this country.

You cannot pay for all of the goodies he wants, balance the budget, and give out ponies unless you are going to generate revenue. Raising taxes on the richest 2% of people, who are now not very rich, won't raise much cash. Electronic medical records is going to save billions and pay for this? If you believe that, buy yourself a beer tree and plant it in your back yard.

So then how is he going to pay for the Christmas list we got last night? Hell even the NYT called his plan to pay for health care reform "vague." The same way that state governments are coming up with increasingly "creative" ways, like casinos, to pay for things. Obama is going to give us all a hidden tax - cap and trade. In fact he's counting on 300 billion bucks in new revenue to come into federal coffers through this program.

So what exactly is "cap and trade?" As the Oracle of Internet information tells it, it's a way that polluters pay the government for permits that provide a "right to pollute." If the right number of permits are issued for the right price (and yes, the government is supposed to do that pricing) it should help to put a premium on pollution and limit emissions to the most valuable polluters. In theory it decreases marginal pollution and improves environmental quality. And it provides the government with a new source of cash.

BUT it also inevitably raises prices - that's a given because it imposes costs on businesses that they will pass onto consumers. So imagine inflation that's government mandated. And as the government tries to limit the issuance of more permits (to lower carbon emissions) the demand for permits raises the prices and increases costs even more.

In theory, the upward pressure on prices should promote innovation to develop new cleaner technologies. In practice when the Europeans did it, they issued too many permits and carbon output friggin increased in some countries. But, good news, the EU got a nice wad of cash from the companies for the permits and consumers paid higher prices.

Now we are being asked to pay what amounts to a tax during a bad recession, a banking crisis even the left sees as bad, with lots of future inflation coming from printing trillions in new money. All of this to save us from global warming, opps climate change, during one of the coldest winters in recent years.

Yipee.................

You can make a case that better health care coverage and lower costs would be beneficial to the economy. But as I noted earlier today, this is about trade-offs. Are 218,000 Iraqi widows worth a democratic system? Is a very costly cap and trade system with undetermined effects, worth increased accessibility to health care for people who are currently uninsured or under-insured?

I can't really answer that question because I'm neither a climate scientist nor a doctor. However it would really be decent of the President to be honest to people and pose the question, and the trade-off involved, properly. Otherwise he's no better than a car salesman pushing leases on people who want to buy.

If DC Were Republican........

Would the Wall Street Journal have written this editorial opposing the creation of voting House seats for its residents? Probably not, but what's a little hypocrisy among partisan mouthpieces?

I mean it's not like, just friggin yesterday, the Journal attacked the NYT's coverage of civilian deaths in Iraq. The Journal seemed to argue that 218,000 widowed Iraqi women was an acceptable trade-off for the creation of a democracy rather than having Saddam Hussein in power. Now it's an interesting question if democracy is worth that cost of human life, but the Journal's position appears to be that democracy is worth a very high price.

IF the Journal is really willing to defend democracy to the tune of more than 200,000 killed in civil war, why not defend the right of people in DC to get representation even if it leads to more support for the opposition?

Michael Lewis has the Second Coolist Job

I have the first. I actually had never had heard of Michael Lewis until I went to visit my late Uncle Lou who had played minor league baseball, very well, in the St. Louis organization in the 1940's and 50's. He led the Pacific Coast League in hitting for the Padres and was called by Ted Williams as one of the best right handed hitters he'd ever seen.

Anyway, he loved baseball and he loved the A's, so every once in a while we'd go to A's games especially since he could go for free with his Old Timers Card. We'd get horrible seats, and then move down to the Lower Deck. He's smoke cigars (because you could in public places in California then) and explain the game to me. Fun times.

So one time I'm stopping by to visit him and my Aunt, and I see this book sitting on the kitchen table called Moneyball which I'd heard of from some of my economist baseball friends. He told me how cool this book was and I had to read it..............and Uncle Lou was right.

Now I love reading just about everything Michael Lewis has written. His first famous book was about his time as an investment banker in the 80's and was widely hailed as excellent - because it is. After that success he's decided to focus on the intersection of statistical analysis, sports, and finance.

So here's this guy who gets to write stuff about the end of Wall Street, baseball in Cuba, NFL Left Tackles, and now the NBA. And he gets paid.

But do I let him blog here? Nope. Still not the coolest job in the world.

We Have Returned

Loyal readers may have noticed a dearth of posts lately. Mrs. Fundman, Fundbaby and myself decided we needed to defrost in the midst of all of this global warming we've been getting in the Midwest lately and so we exited to warmer climates last week. Apologies as I had hoped to post a couple of things during the week, but golf and the hotel pool prevented any such actions. One is up this morning, and another will be up later today.

Also, as you can imagine, I have a lot of pent up "thoughts" I'll be sharing this week. I appreciate your patience and continued interest.

Many thanks to La Cheapa Chica for her outstanding recommendations for activities during the holiday. And kudos to my boss for not firing me while I was away.