I’ve been reading, “Earth, the Sequel” by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn. They seem to have some kind of a notion that free market capitalism might work even for as daunting a problem as greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Krupp was the instigator behind the Environmental Defense Fund who in the mid 80s approached George Bush Snr. and said, there's this problem, see, acid rain, caused by SO2 emissions, which is bad for the environment, and that means ultimately, bad for people. Course Bush was about to toss him out on his ear for using the cuss word environment before a Republican, but wait, said Krupp, there's a market solution here. Bush Snr. was about to call security but paused a moment. A market solution? To an environmental problem? I could use a laugh; this I got to hear.

So Krupp laid out this notion of a cap and trade program for SO2. The game we've been playing, see, where Democrats make well intended laws, and then Republicans come along and pick administrators based on their willingness to fail to enforce those laws, that's just an idiotic waste of time and resources and, worse, is ineffective. SO2 emitters, yes, are in a helter skelter sort of a way being required to install clunky SO2 scrubbers that are an afterthought at best and expensive and don't work and are correctly perceived within industry as being imposed by government bureaucrats who don't have too good a grasp on actual reality. Instead of the government imposing well intended specific solutions, instead, see, the real remedy that’s needed is to help the market place become more, not less, but more realistic. At its heart, see, what we have here isn't that greedy capitalists are bad; what we have here is a market distortion. The market place of the mid 1980s is not realistically reflecting the true costs of using the atmosphere as a free and open sewer for SO2. There are real costs to that. Those costs are real and they're becoming increasingly apparent to those capable of and willing to see that reality for what it is.

The SO2 cap and trade concept, he explained, isn't an assault on the market place. Its intent is to bring realism into the market place so that the market place can work. In order for the market place to work toward the goal of seeking real low cost enterprises instead of false low cost enterprises, the costs to society of SO2 emissions have to be represented within the market place. To do that, you impose a total emissions cap on all SO2 emitters, and you allow emitters to trade their allotments. Ok, so it’s not complete leave it alone capitalism; government, yes, is putting its oar in. On the other hand this concept does have some appeal to Republicans. One, this concept takes government out of a business in which its track record is abysmal, that of selecting the most cost effective means of reducing SO2 emissions. With this new concept, the players themselves are free to figure that out, which they are far better at than government bureaucrats, a very Republican concept. Secondly, once there are profits to be made in reducing pollution, capital flows where capital is supposed to flow, toward seeking the lowest cost, also a very Republican concept.

Bush Snr. actually bought into this wild scheme. Next thing you know, investment capital, I mean big amounts of actual dollars American investment capital, started flowing toward better cheaper ways of reducing SO2 emissions. And, next thing you know, SO2 emissions were on a downward trend.

And, miracle of miracles, this did not wound capitalism. On the contrary, what capitalism is, see, it’s a flow of capital. Capital doesn’t exist except that it flows. As capital flows toward the goals of seeking the lowest costs, wealth is generated. Livings are made. Bills are paid. People stay in business. Genuine reflection of true costs of things isn’t the enemy of capitalism but the heart of it. Costs are the feedback mechanisms by which capitalism tends toward least cost. Kidding yourself about true costs of things actually prevents that from working.

Fast forward 20 years and George Bush Jnr. He might have learned something from his father’s experience and applied this same successful model to the problem of CO2 emissions as was applied to SO2 emissions. The Bush administration, oddly enough, has preferred the top down approach of picking promising technologies for reducing CO2 emissions and then subsidizing them.

Much as I’m thrilled with the government subsidies that have paid for close to half of my solar panel on my house, I have to admit that the both government and I might have it completely wrong in assuming this is a genuinely low cost means of reducing CO2 emissions.

Another pick by the Bush administration for lowering CO2 emissions has been to heavily subsidize corn ethanol. Seems to me this sort of a decision is counter-Republican. It quite likely has more to do with rewarding good buddies of the Bush administration rather than having anything remotely to do with seeking low cost or reducing CO2 emissions. About the best thing you say for it; it might help capitalize the ethanol industry and help it actually one day develop sound ways to produce energy.

Wouldn’t a CO2 cap and trade program be a better more Republican way to capitalize promising technologies for reducing CO2 emissions than taking our tax dollars and applying them to G W Bush’s guesswork and/or God knows what drives his decisions? As long as markets are grounded in reality, and reality in this case involves taking into account the physical properties of CO2 and its influence on climate, then markets will tend to make good decisions. This applies to solar energy, nuclear energy, and even coal energy. Yes, coal energy, if it is indeed the cheapest energy after considering its true costs, then by all means, let’s knock ourselves out with more coal power. With the true costs being represented, then, yes, the market place seeking the lowest cost energy will make better choices than government bureaucrats and/or tree huggers.

What Krupp has done, he seems to have found a way to combine being a tree hugger with being a Republican. The common thread, low cost. Republicans want low cost. Tree huggers want low cost.

If we tree huggers have been of any use at all, it’s that we’ve called attention to market distortions by which markets were missing the target of true low cost. For that we have been accused of being anti-market socialists. No. Market places that deliberately kid themselves and fail to recognize missing the target of true low cost don’t tend to have good track records.

Good old leave it alone and if it aint broke don’t fix it capitalism is all the Brits were trying to promote in the Boxer Rebellion in China of the late 19th century. After all, all the Brits wanted in life was free and open access to China’s opium market. Is that too much to ask? All they were about was providing customer satisfaction at a reasonable cost with a product that really hit the spot for that. There was no harm whatsoever to this product provided you didn’t try to stop using it. And it’s not against any religion. What could be wrong with that? What, you don’t see the merits of a free and open market place? No? Well, see, we have this new steam powered navy and we also have these new really superb cannons. I’m afraid we’re going to have to insist upon our right and proper Christian right to sell opium in your country. Which they did.

The problem for the Chinese, though, is that the price of opium British businessmen charged reflected only a small part of its true costs, kind of analogous to our nickel a killowatt-hour coal energy of today. The artificially low price of opium was an example of a market distortion. The market wasn’t reflecting reality. The true costs were that it wrecked and impoverished their country. And worse, kind of analogous to how a stressed organism is more vulnerable to invasion than a healthy organism, as fate would have it, their neighbors, the Japanese, were wanting to join the club of great imperial powers and saw China in a very stressed out weakened condition and invaded. They wanted to demonstrate that, compared to themselves, the Brits were amateurs in the brutal empire business, which they sure did in China. And then we wonder why Chinese people for quite awhile tended to be suspicious of, one, the West, and, two, wide open free market capitalism.

In conclusion, market distortions, bad. A gram of prevention can be worth a kilogram of cure. You don’t do yourself any favor by allowing a market distortion to flourish without intervening. Course the Chinese had it imposed upon them. We here today of the U.S. of A., we don’t have that as an excuse.

It just seems to me a no-brainer that a CO2 cap and trade program ought to be applied similar to how it was applied to SO2.

What is with the U.S. these days anyway? Have we completely lost the will to succeed in the world? Why have GM and Ford been dragging their feet so heavily on alternative vehicles? I say this as a person who’s struggled to remain loyal to GM, because I have this notion that manufacturing is still important to our economy and future as a nation. I’m not so sure selling one another real estate at ever inflated prices is entirely sound a business model for the U.S. as a whole. Therefore, my last auto purchase was a Geo Metro, and I’m hoping my next auto purchase will be a Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid. And I say that even with the negative experience I had with GM dealerships with respect to my geo metro. To go into a GM dealership with a geo metro is approximately what it must be like to be a leper. GM sure made it apparent that the geo metro was their red haired step child they only touched with a ten foot pole in order to comply kicking and screaming with CAFÉ standards. That sure was shortsighted on their part, I think, as evidenced by that Toyota has recently surpassed them as the number one auto manufacturer of the world. I hate to say it, but they fully deserve it. Course, yes, their short sightedness was only pandering to the short sightedness of us consumers in the spirit of true blue American capitalism. No, we can’t just blame GM and Ford for their poor performance. It took a nation of shortsighted consumers too to make that happen.

It’s surprising to me how we’ve seen this situation with oil coming for decades and we’re still taken by surprise by it. Oh wow, high oil prices. Who knew? Who to blame. Who to blame. You might start with the mirror. Shortsightedness has always alarmed us tree huggers, but these days, shortsightedness is proving to be downright bad for business. Which kind of bears out what we tree huggers have been saying. Ecology and economy really are two aspects of the same thing.

The one thing I enjoy just a tiny tad in a perverse sort of a way, shortsighted consumers of America of today are getting precisely their just deserts in the form of 4 dollar gas. My gosh, how you so deserve this. We tree huggers who are suffering much less because we used our noggins to see the writing on the wall, we so deserve that too. I just want you to know that we’re not laughing with you; we’re laughing at you. I hasten to add, though, that we tree huggers are only getting a temporary pay off here for our wise planning ahead. In the long haul we tree huggers are in the same boat as you, which is why we keep jawing at you to wise up. Your stupidity could actually have a negative impact on me. That’s what I’m worried about.

I’m not looking for tree huggers to defeat Republicans but rather for Republicans to become tree huggers. Fortunately, that seems to be happening now and not a moment too soon either. I highly recommend “Earth, the Sequel” by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn. They’re tree huggers, yes, but wait. This isn’t the usual doom and gloom scenario you’ve come to love and expect from us tree huggers. They talk about a lot of market driven things that are happening right here in the U.S. of A. that are actually quite far sighted and adaptive to reality. They also present some sound ideas, I think, for building upon that toward some kind of actual future for our country and the world. It’s not business as usual; it’s better.

By the way, not that you care, but the reason I’ve come over to being a free market Republican is that it’s rather the default position after everything else has failed. For thirty years I’ve sought to find the correct way to appeal to people to do the right thing, the right thing in this case to consider the well being of future generations. Doesn’t seem so very radical on the face of it, but boy oh boy what a miserable failure it has been. I have tried everything. I’ve appealed on the basis of calm reasoning; I’ve appealed on the basis of evidence; I’ve appealed on basic laws of physics that have been vetted from centuries of rigorous vetting; I’ve appealed on the basis of ethics; I’ve appealed on the basis of your grandkids – surely you care about your grankids; I’ve appealed by going over the top screaming at people. What I’ve accomplished through this is that I have actually motivated a few to do the exact opposite because they’d be damned if they’re going to be told what to do by some whacko tree hugger. I’ve done everything but burn crosses on peoples’ lawns. I’d do that too if I thought there was a chance in hell it’d do any good. Here’s the surprise of my life: none of that matters to people. Not at all. People go to church out of habit and to socialize. Period.

Finally, I have wised up and have seen the light. Free markets. Yeah. Free markets. Free markets work precisely because they don’t appeal to people on the basis of any those high minded ideals. Lucky for us there is something that does get peoples’ attention, price. $4 gas has got peoples’ attention like magic. As long as free market prices represent reality and people pay a reasonable up front price for being reckless or stupid or shortsighted, then knock yourselves out. Have at it. Over time, people seeking the lowest cost will somewhat in a general sort of way tend toward less stupidity and shortsightedness. Provided, and it’s a big provided, markets reflect reality.

So I’ve wised up. I still maintain, however, that there are also some areas in which many of our Republicans of today also need to wise up and sooner than later. You need to get over this contradiction in your attitude: You have complete faith in free markets for optimal everything, but you’re not allowing free markets to represent reality. You cling to this notion that by clinging to non-reality, you’re doing the market place a big favor by helping it to forestall facing painful realities. You’re not doing it any favor in that; you’re only setting us up for bigger pain later on. You think $4 gas is a nasty surprise. That’s nothing. That’s nothing.

You seem to think that free markets excuse you from having to think about the challenges of living. No. Ultimately, I’m sorry, but there’s no way around having to do the right things, and by right things I mean to consider the well being of future generations. Free markets are wonderful but they don’t do the right thing automatically necessarily. Ultimately, actual living breathing people have to choose to do the right things in order for markets to work their magic. The free market is only your servant. Your choices steer that servant toward sustainability or toward ruin. Let me say that again. Your choices steer that servant toward sustainability or toward ruin.

[QUOTE=chaster,Jun 20 2008, 11:51 AM] Well, let me see. What would our Republican icon, Adam Smith, have to say

But I digress. [/QUOTE]

Adam Smith is it ? Well maybe some feel he is the father of economics , Some time ago I tried pawing through his book , Wealth of Nations , I don't recall much of it , to say I didn't care for it would be a understatement , my loss I guess. LOL.

But I do think there is allot of truth of his feeling towards self interest as a motivation and because of this self interest others benefit . Kinda makes sense when you think about it for very long . How ever I kinda think his Quote you listed when he mentions a un seen hand isn't about a God but more of human nature or instinct we all have .

But Chaster , I didn't ask Smith what he thought , I ask you . I really don't think he'd have much of a opinion about socialized health care the way you would , I mean he's been dead well over a hundred years .

So if you can , newest of Republicans , forgo the obvious dodge of your past following and lets hear what you think today and stay away from 150 + year old quotes shall we and talk in specifics , you remember socialized health care ?

[/QUOTE]I mean the truly Republican approach to health care would be to discard modern medicine. [QUOTE]

Your joking ---Right ?

Got some good news and some ambiguous news.

The good news: Adam Smith’s unseen hand principle, where unfettered economies tend toward the best of all worlds, that is a well proven principle, proven not just by people but by nature too. The natural world has a built-in genius for economy by which non-polluting industries and renewable energy and recycling and sound management of the environment in general occur without any sort of government interference whatsoever.

The ambiguous news: There’s no guarantee whatsoever that this best of all worlds assured by this principle will include human beings in it. See, the principle only works on the basis of allowing losers to fail. When you have a player who pollutes the system and who is better at making excuses for this than coming up with non-polluting ways of doing business, that player goes out of business. The result of this is that the natural world tends toward systems that are free of chronic polluters. It’s a beautiful system.

The good news is that we can sit back and relax. The best of all worlds is an assured result. We only need to be concerned if we have some kind of preference that humans will be included within this best of all worlds.

Health care.

I’ve been googling along trying to get some figures on, one, comparing the U.S. and Japan on health care costs per vehicle for vehicle manufacturers , and two, comparing the U.S. and Japan on average life spans.
http://www.uaw.org/solidarity/05/1005/feature07.cfm
“U.S. auto manufacturers pay about $1,500 per vehicle for health care coverage. In Canada, with its publicly financed single-payer insurance system, health care costs per vehicle are $120.

The U.S. health care system is first in the world in just one category: cost. No nation pays more for health care and gets less in return than we do.
In 2003, the most recent figures available, health care spending per person in the United States was $5,635. The next highest country was Norway whose costs were $3,807. The Canadian single-payer health care system spent $3,003 per person.
And what do we get for our increased spending?

While health care spending takes 15 percent of our gross domestic product – compared to an average of 8.6 percent for the top 30 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations – our infant mortality rate is 37th and life expectancy ranks 29th.

Compared with the United States, life expectancy is three years greater in Canada and six years greater in Japan.

“The United States has fewer physicians, nurses and hospital beds per person, and fewer MRI and CT scanners than the OECD average,” according to labor journalist Holly Sklar.

So where do our health care dollars go if they’re not going toward keeping us healthy? Following the money is easy.

Private insurers take anywhere from 13 percent to 30 percent of premium dollars for overhead and profit, while administrative costs for Medicare are less than 2 percent.

Processing forms for hundreds of different insurance policies, excessive insurance industry and prescription drug profits, advertising to convince consumers to buy one brand of insurance or drug over another and huge executive salaries consume gigantic amounts of dollars that could be better spent on actual health care.”

Well of course I’d pick that site, because it validates what I was already thinking, typical human bad habit.

Maybe this provides some kind of balance:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-0...alth-usat_x.htm
“The carmakers have been slowly building a case for health care reform, talking about the subject whenever there's an opportunity.

The cost of providing health care coverage for workers adds $2,000 to $2,500 to the price of a car, they say. It's a cost their foreign competitors often don't face because their home governments help pay the price of benefits or take care of them altogether.

"Health care is the 500-pound gorilla in terms of those costs," said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. "Our contention is this is not sustainable. Without some form of action, we're going to see some train wrecks."
Wagoner has said he doesn't believe a national health care plan is the solution. And there won't be one silver bullet, he says: The problem will be solved with a patchwork of ideas and solutions. “

Ok. For the record, Canadian health care (forgive me for butting into this conversation, guys ) is AWESOME. At least the part that I know about is. And that part would be the maternity leave. In America, you get three months maternity leave. Unpaid. This is mandatory for the company so they don't appear racist. In Canada, they get 17-52 weeks at half pay. That's four months- to a year with half pay. If I ever have another kid (please God, no!) I am going to defect to Canada. http://pregnancy.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Canad...ernity_Benefits

Yankie,
Do you know who is making up the difference, or do you just have an educated opinion? You've got me very interested now...........

Ok, Yankie,
You have me sufficiently convinced it costs more for the average Joe in America to go to the Dr. than almost anybody else.
I agree that there must be a change and that that change needs to be within the government.
However, did you consider the countries you compared America to?
France and Canada.
France is and older country with a violent past that seems to have finally gotten some things right. It took them hundreds of years. They have been at it longer than we have. Back in the day when the peasants in France didn't like the way things were going, they executed the people in authority and replaced them with new ones. (But we can't do that now days....).
Canada is a new country like us as well, but they had England babying them and holding their hand for a long time. England is an old country who, also like France, has finally gotten some things right. So the Canadians learned their wisdom.
America, in my opinion is still bumbling proudly along......
Do you think we'll ever get it right?
I'd like to hope so.