22
Jun
Despite all the computation
Serious people continue to believe that any effort to limit carbon emissions will cripple our economy. The numbers (via Matt Yglesias) tell a different story:
On that basis, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or about $175 per household. That figure includes the cost of restructuring the production and use of energy and of payments made to foreign entities under the program, but it does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in GHG emissions and the associated slowing of climate change. CBO could not determine the incidence of certain pieces (including both costs and benefits) that represent, on net, about 8 percent of the total. For the remaining portion of the net cost, households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020, while households in the highest income quintile would see a net cost of $245.
As with all other issues, all that matters is how the wealthy are affected (I know the highest income quintile may not be wealthy per se, but you know what I mean).
TenguPhule
Government by the rich, for the rich and of the rich shall never leave this Earth.
Comrade Stuck
Well, that’s small minded of you DougJ. Who else is going to pay off our politicians. The poor can’t do it, cause they’re, like, poor.
AhabTRuler
OK, I’ll be the bloody-minded one today: it will once we manage to kill ourselves off/degrade ourselves (cf. Galapagos).
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
No, I’m prepared to argue that the top income quintile is wealthy per se.
Walker
I have always considered myself a fiscal conservative. The defining moment of my political life was when I discovered that Republicans have absolutely no concept of return on investment. It was that at that point I learned to ignore just about anything they said about economics.
anonevent
[I]t is time that it was acknowledged that there are now only two choices: one can be either for strong government for the few and the rich, or for strong government for the unrich and the many.
– Henry Fairlie
TenguPhule
Incorrect.
ROI only applies to their
bribesbenefits however.AhabTRuler
No, I think it applies to bonuses as well.
TenguPhule
Bonuses are benefits in Republican World.
dmsilev
@JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN’s Official Stalker:
Per the Census Bureau, the top quintile of household income starts at $88K. That’s certainly a good income, but it’s hardly Scrooge McDuck territory, especially for for a family located in a high cost-of-living area.
Check out the top 5% (minimum $160K/year) or top 1% (~$300K/year) for “wealthy”.
-dms
Martin
Innovation is the gas pedal of any economy, and necessity is the mother of invention.
The GOP isn’t arguing for the economy, they’re arguing for the entrenched players in the economy – the ones that will get destroyed by the Googles and Apples of the energy sector.
When your congressional seat is dependent on carriage and livery lobbyist money, the automobile can’t help but be the worst proposition ever.
2liberal
what would this mean to exxon / mobil?
someguy
Fixed.
Tonal Crow
Much better. Alternatively:
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
No, I’m sticking with wealthy. I think a lot of people have completely lost their perspective on what constitutes being wealthy. Hell, for one, brief, glorious year, I made more than that, and it’s sure as hell how I thought about myself.
MikeJ
Yes, much. The fuckwits at Reason may not be theocrats, but they are mendacious.
Martin
Nothing good. Possibly nothing bad, but the risk/reward balance for change tips increasing toward risk the larger the market share of a company. Essentially, Exxon/Mobile have nowhere to go but down.
El Cid
Sociologist G. William Domhoff:
Get that? The bottom 60% of us lost 5% of our adjusted income equivalent since 1979, the top 5% now makes $1.53 for every $1 it would have made in 1979, while the top 0.1% of the U.S. population made more than the bottom 120 million people combined.
The richest 300,000 people make more than the poorest 120 million.
But wait—there’s more!
Most people have no idea how top weighted the U.S. income & wealth distribution is.
Martin
Depends a lot on the area. Under $88K where I live is pretty close to the definition of ‘not a homeowner’. After my upcoming paycut, my family will qualify for low-income housing and we’ll still be earning >$50K. Move me to Nebraska and I’d feel like Scrooge McDuck even after the cut.
Jeff
You could listen to the Rock and Roll stations…............And it was allll right. Huh! Rock and Roll.
Martin
I sure as hell do. In the 15 years I’ve worked for the state, I’ve earned considerably more off of the housing and stock markets than off of my salary. If I thought I could have scaled my capital income, I would have quit ages ago. Capital gains should never be taxed lower than if they were income. Nothing has stratified the nations earners more than the effect of under-taxing cap gains.
El Cid
@Martin: You’re talking “class war” now. Whenever anything is suggested to be done about the sources of wealth of the super-wealthy, it’s “class war”.
When you screw over the working and middle classes and no one gives a sh*t that decent but slightly lower wage, lower tech jobs (compared to high wage / high skill & professional jobs) just fly away to 3rd world nations and no one even tries to imagine what will replace them, then that’s not “class war”, that’s just the normal, natural process of helping godfather Reagan move our national income upwards where it belongs.
MikeJ
I’ve long yearned for a “Income is Income” bill, that would tax all income at the same rate. Salary, cap gains, “non profit” donations, all taxed the same. If you profit, you pay tax, and it wouldn’t matter where it came from.
Martin
True, how can the homeless ever become real-estate moguls with an oppressive capital gains tax? Why do I hate minimum wage earners by supporting the estate tax?
Joe Lisboa
Every time I put on the radio / You know there’s nothin’ goin’ down at all / Not at all
AhabTRuler
She started listening to that fine, fine music...
OK, I love that version (and this too), but that video was just terrible!
Mike G
Particularly fatuous theocrats continue to believe that any effort to limit carbon emissions
will cripple our economymeans you’re a commie who hates baby Jesus.El Cid
I think that the mere knowledge that liberals would dare think about raising the capital gains taxation rates robs the homeless of the sort of motivation which would allow them to exert their magic free market powers to stop being homeless.
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
With a few exceptions, places are really expensive to live in, because a lot of people want to live there. Most of us don’t. You are getting something very valuable for your money. That’s wealth.
Martin
But what happens when the reason people want to live there is because of high-paying jobs, but teachers and postal carriers and janitors are also needed? The valuable thing for my money is the existence of someone else’s earning opportunity?
I don’t deny that there are other benefits of where I live, but you are arguing for cities full of nothing but lawyers and vice-presidents.
JMN Is Now asiangrrlMN's Official Stalker
No, I’m arguing for some of the good jobs moving elsewhere.
Martian Buddy
“City of Lawyers” would make an excellent dystopian novel.
TenguPhule
An argument for repealing the Geneva Conventions against bombing cities if ever I saw one.
Martin
I agree. You know why we have so many high-paying jobs and South Carolina doesn’t? We have first rate universities and companies can’t get close enough. South Carolina doesn’t. What California invests in their higher education system and places like South Carolina doesn’t is why those jobs are here and not there. Of course, Sanford still thinks that cutting taxes rather than building a highly educated workforce is what matters.
Of course, California is sufficiently large that even that advantage isn’t enough to overcome the idiocy of the state GOP.
R. Schmidt Orren
This is third world shit. I’ve seen the third world firsthand, lived in one of the world’s poorest countries, a country with one of the world’s worst disparities of incomes. And 25 years ago I could see this happening here, knew this same shit was what was going on. And I was so fucking angry I wanted to kill someone. And I recall that at the time those who would be among those bottom 120 million were more worried whether New Coke would totally replace coca-cola classic.
I’m not sure who to kick in the junk, the 0.1% who defrauded 120 million people out of their fair share of the pie, or the 120 million people who seemed to not give a shit that all they had were the left-over crumbs.
goblue72
I occasionally say things to my friends like, “if you could show me that burning down the houses of the wealthiest 10% of households in the U.S. would make the remaining 90% better off, I’d be the first one in line handing out the torches.”
They laugh until they realize I’m serious.
In a former Wall Street-ish life, I was in that category of “Bush’s constituency” – the top 5% of earners. Every two weeks when I got my paystub I thought the same thing – for all the money I am making, I sure as shit could afford to pay more taxes…and should. Unfortunately, most of my former co-workers thought I was a DFH.
Guess that’s why they’re “former.” :)
rumpole
$245?
Sherman didn’t bring enough matches to the south.
Bender
Any CBO “analysis” that starts off with unsupported un-facts like this:
is already laughable on its face.
There are many faulty assumptions, starting with a low-ball of the revenue paid by corporations (and passed on to the consumer, as Obama said). Losses in GDP, which are assured in the short-term, at least, are admittedly ignored by the CBO. The CBO warns that Fed monetary policy to fight the inflation which is inherent in the scheme could shift the burden of cap-and-trade onto investors and corporations even more, resulting in lower wages, job losses, and bad balance sheets.
If there are people who think that US citizens are going to make money off of rising energy prices, they are rubes, and I have a bridge to sell them. Why do you think the Dems are fighting the full disclosure of energy cost increases due to cap and trade on energy bills? They don’t want the people to know how much they’re getting shafted by The Zero to pay off his low-income base (who already pay no income tax and would—allegedly—get most of whatever C&T monies the government—20%? 30%?—deigns to share back with the powerless and gullible and soon-to-be-broke citizenry) and, of course, St. Albert’s Church Of Immaculate Global Warming.
And what do we get for skyrocketing energy prices? Maybe a few hundredths of a degree of cooling (which is already occurring without our “help”) ? Which will save what? A polar bear? Maybe?
Stupidest. Plan. Ever. Supported by the most Gullible. People. Ever.
mvr
Completely not on the merits, but I can’t help being impressed with your knowledge of appropriate lyrics for the titles . . .