Roger Pielke, Jr. Fri Jun 06, 05:24:00 PM MDT writes:
A delightful comment at the NY Times under Krugman’s post:
Link: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/05/energy-choices/?smid=tw-share#permid=11963264
—————–
BlueSky Phoenix, AZ 7 hours ago
Almost every one of you is mistaken. Krugman made up the argument that a percent reduction in emissions translates into a percent reduction in GDP, one-for-one.
Pielke didn’t say anything remotely like that. He never even mentioned any magnitdues or sizes or numbers pertaining to reduction of emissions translating to GDP loss.
What you’re doing now, running for the hills talking about how stupid or dishonest Pielke is, because this guy you like who is on your team said that Pielke is stupid or dishonest — this is bogus. You have no idea what you’re talking about. Neither does Krugman. He doesn’t understand the Kaya Identity. He doesn’t understand Pielke’s argument, and he certainly hasn’t reported it to his readers.
Pielke is saying that we can’t just wave a wand and instantiate some linear growth in technology that costs the same as oil, coal, gas. He said technological progress is not linear. He said technological progress is not completely predictable. These are perfectly reasonable things to say, epecially since they happen to be true. He didn’t make any wild claims.
I think people in the future will have empathy for us. It’s really weird to see Nobel laureates be such terrible sources, isn’t it? It’s unbelievably weird. A Nobel economist should never make the errors Krugman makes, and no human being should so revel in his own malice and hatred that he openly expresses joy at purporting to find out that someone is stupid or dishonest. This is the New York Times??
I see the commenter is familiar with Krugman.:-)
Yes, it is the New York Times.
Just like it has been for 80 years or more.
The same folks who brought you Walter Duranty’s account of Stalin’s bloodless agrarian reforms.
In this article Krugman’s contempt for Pielke was obvious. It was also obvious to me that this contempt precluded any logical or rational discussion in the matter. It is just the sort of bigotry and name-calling we should expect from a group of people who have no evidence to back up their arguments.
Krugman is the NY Times’ Nobel laureate lapdog. They trot him out regularly whenever they have a flimsy argument that needs some “offical-sounding” validation and he obligingly does their biding, no questions asked. Of course there are only (roughly) 14,234 Nobel laureates floating around, it seems, no two of whom agree on anything, it seems. Certainly in his field of economics, where strong, predictive theories are non-existent. How can one be an expert in a field where such beings do not exist, you might wonder.
I wonder how much of Krugman’s income comes from the Times?
It would be interesting to see if the work he did to obtain that Nobel prize has been invalidated by further research.
Yes, this is the New York TImes. All the demagoguery that will fit in print. Krugman’s Nobel work is also a little suspect… it is not holding up very well in light of new work. But a Nobel is a point in time and a bit of a popularity contest lately anyhow.
To your point about Krugman “… making errors…”. I have very reluctantly come to the conclusion that they are not errors. In combination with his wife, he is over the edge of research into proselytizing and has abandoned the constraints of genuine research while wrapping himself in the banner of reliability of work done in the past. That also fits with the way things are now in the husk of the NYT. Things are not as they used to be… truth and reality are discards for their pursuit of the approval of their self-selected peers.
The left is so scared about debating and having their true objectives exposed for all to see. They are very nasty people inside with very nasty agendas. They use the same tactics dictators have used over the centuries: put down any opposition even if it means to kill millions to protect their power and agendas. Krugman is no different in his personality and beliefs along with the rest of the hard left including the Obama. I know WUWT is a science blog, been reading it for many years, but what is going on is no longer about science.
Krugman’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t know economics. His problem is that he’s an ideologue and it badly affects his judgement. He is not concerned with truth.
Paul who today is spinning a fantasy that cutting emissions won’t cut wealth likewise, is a partisan hack and skeevy opportunist:
“In 1999 Paul Krugman was paid $50,000 by Enron as a consultant on its “advisory board,” and that same year he wrote a glowing article about Enron for Fortune magazine. But he would change his tune. After Enron collapsed in 2001, Krugman wrote several columns excoriating the company. (One featured what may be the most absurd howler in the history of op-ed journalism: “I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.”) In most of these columns Krugman worked hard to link Enron to the Bush administration, and in one he actually blamed Enron’s consultants for the company’s collapse — while neglecting to mention that he, too, had been an Enron consultant.”
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/10/10/former-enron-adviser-paul-krugman-joins-progs-war-on-plutocrats/
His FAQ on his Enron payment as he worked too at the NY Times:
http://www.pkarchive.org/personal/EnronFAQ.html
“Pielke is saying that we can’t just wave a wand and instantiate some linear growth in technology that costs the same as oil, coal, gas. He said technological progress is not linear. He said technological progress is not completely predictable.”
“Waving a magic wand” by destroying what works in energy and agriculture and promising government money and support for new developments is what young people are being promised all of the time. But destruction is not profitable; and all of these young people would be totally shocked by products that are extremely expensive that used to be cheap and abundant, shortages, famines, bans, and things that don’t work. The wand is a lie.
Being referred to as an expert in economics is almost an oxymoron and an insult. While some very simple notions largely hold true (reduce the money supply and prices go up and economic activity
suffers) accurate economic forecasts are impossible. Why? Because economic activity is a
result of human activity and human activity cannot be predicted with any precision. There are a million and one unpredictible events that might plausibly occur in the future that will affect human
economic behavior. Even if we knew how the populace would react to a given set of future circumstances (which we clearly don’t) we have no way of predicting the likelihood of such a set of circumstances. For example, from my own recent activities, I have become aware of the proposed new three-wheeled, three cylinder auto called the Elio, a two seat, 84MPG (hwy) costing $6800, hopefully and likely to be built at the old GM Hummer plant in Louisianna, to be serviced and repaired under warranty at Pep Boys. Constructed almost entirely of readily available off-the-shelf parts : over 90% North American content. The car produces 3 times less (carbon) emissions per highway mile than the typical Tesla Model S electric car, which costs $70K (and up, waaa..y up),
receives over $30,000 in govt subsidies and pays no highway road taxes (and wears out our roads likely 4 times faster than the Elio, since it’s 4 times heavier). Now, if this Elio vehicle
makes it into production, and sells in the numbers anticipated, the effects on the economy will
be significant, and probably not predicted by a single economist. Reduction in oil imports, gas prices, personal transportation costs and so forth. While not having the economic impact of the Model T, this car will be sold in large numbers and have a multitude of positive benefits. I
am following the story of the Elio vehicle with great interest, mostly because I think it is both significant and, quite frankly, very interesting. Last week I had never even heard of this car.
See how quickly circumstance can change (and I remember the hula hoop and the twist).
NikFromNYC says:
June 8, 2014 at 10:01 am
“In most of these columns Krugman worked hard to link Enron to the Bush administration, and in one he actually blamed Enron’s consultants for the company’s collapse — while neglecting to mention that he, too, had been an Enron consultant.”
Nik,
I guess he’s left with the Hillary Clinton Benghazi defense:
What difference, at this point, does it make?
Thanks for that insight into Krugman’s ‘integrity’,
Mac
“He said technological progress is not linear. He said technological progress is not completely predictable.”
Technological progress will be a thing of the past, with this catastrophic black mat of bureaucracy laid over every sector of society. Now the EPA wants to get into the business of food portions and packaging!
From my own point of view, I find Krugman boring and predictable. He has one job; to validate the current popular “progressive” position on things from a position of “authority”. He is used as a sort of a bishop in the church of rainbows and unicorns. He denigrates those who need denigrating if they oppose the “progressive” view, he rationalizes things that need rationalizing in order to maintain support in the face of failure. And he does all this by stamping it with the great big red KRUGMAN stamp of approval which is supposed to somehow certify that what has been said is true and good and comes from the words of one who can’t be criticized by the unwashed masses because we are not worthy. His job is to legitimize progressive propaganda. The idea is “hey, if this really smart man buys it, then you should, too!” or “if this really smart man thinks so-and-so is an idiot, then you should, too!”.
He’s a propagandist. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. A propagandist that the rank and file “progressive” would be ostracized by their peers for criticizing. I call him Emperor Krugman.
Arthur4563, have you looked up the Messerschmidt KR200?
There is something that both Krugman and Pielke are doing here that annoys me …
Krugman quotes Pielke: “Carbon emissions are the product of …” Pielke is being lazy there, referring to carbon dioxide as “carbon” because that’s what everybody else is doing in the popular media. But it’s just wrong and confusing. How do you distinguish “carbon emissions” from emissions of black particulate carbon?
It’s dioxide, Pielke. Come on … don’t be lazy about it.
Out of masochistic curiosity I decided to google Krugman’s name, and I discovered this:
‘Paul R. Krugman
Professor of Economics and International Affairs
Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544-1013’
Well, that explains everything doesn’t it? Any institution that prides itself in calling itself the ‘Woodrow Wilson School’ is definitely right up Krugman’s alley as a progressive. It’s quite arguable Woodrow was the US’s first instrumental progressive before the term ‘progressive’ rightfully acquired a bad name and was changed (inaccurately, of course) to liberal. Then, after having given that term a bad name our progressives, hoping people would forget Woodrow’s legacy, returned to the progressive label.
Let us remind them what the progressives, under Woodrow Wilson, wrought. One of the first acts of his presidency was to sign legislation initiating the federal income tax: the goose that laid the golden egg for the massive federal government we so very much enjoy today. Since an income tax was not authorized in the Constitution (I wonder why) an amendment was added to overcome this limitation. To be fair it must be noted that this legislation was in the works before Woodrow plopped his academic behind in the Oval Office. Nonetheless it was Woody who signed it. Oh, and the Federal Reserve was also created during the Wilson presidency. Having lived with the Fed for so many years it might be humorous to note that it was created to stabilize the banking system (you’ll have to tell that to Bonnie and Clyde and the rural folks who cheered them on) and … ready? … to counteract inflation. One thing I would recommend, before continuing, is that any time the reader has an argument with a progressive (or liberal, or progressive, or global warming, or climate change, or, what the heck, it’s always changing) on any subject they remind them that every major war that the US was involved in; every single one of them except Desert Storm; was initiated by a progressive Democratic administration. And, it’s quite arguable that Woodrow Wilson’s involvement in the first truly major one, World War 1 [the war to end all wars (ok, for about 20 years)], was the harbinger of the other ones to come. And it’s also quite arguable that US involvement in WW1, unlike WWII, was elective. May we also remind progressives that Woodrow Wilson was the first university president to occupy the Oval Office (tells you something, eh?); had no use for the US Constitution, openly calling it outdated (Al Gore calls it a living, breathing document – essentially the same thing); brought segregation to the federal government; supported the Klu Klux Klan; and, oh, one more thing…
… presided over the start of Prohibition.
Good alma mater Paul!
Jim Hodgen – “To your point about Krugman “… making errors…”. I have very reluctantly come to the conclusion that they are not errors. ”
Wrong, Pielke never claimed a one to one relationship, this isd the primary error identified.
I made a mistake (I know it’s not the first, or second, or third, or…) in my comment. It should read:
One thing I would recommend, before continuing, is that any time the reader has an argument with a progressive (or liberal, or progressive, or global warming, or climate change, or, what the heck, it’s always changing) on any subject they remind them that every major war that the US was involved in, IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY; every single one of them except Desert Storm; was initiated by a progressive Democratic administration.
In his article Krugman mentioned the Japanese scientist Koichi Kaya. In fact the Japanese Aerospace Agency(JAXA) released their IBUKU climate satellite evidence a couple of years ago. This showed that the net carbon dioxide coming from the US, EU and UK norther4n industrail countries was zero, while all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was coming from high vegetation equatorial regions of the earth and also from South Americas a result of natural temperature inspired releases.. add to that the natural releases from the oceans as a result of the Medieval Warm Period and it is clearthat human based contributions to carbon dioxide levels is minimal
Not everyone can be blind to the irony… “and no human being should so revel in his own malice and hatred that he openly expresses joy at purporting to find out that someone is stupid or dishonest.”
krugmans an ass.
simple.
Almost every one of you is mistaken. Krugman made up the argument that a percent reduction in emissions translates into a percent reduction in GDP, one-for-one.
Except Krugman never said that. Not in the article and certainly not anywhere else. This is the most cynical straw man argument I have ever seen.
Given how Krugman was hip deep in the Enron scandal, it’s amazing to me that anyone, anywhere, ever uses his opinion for anything other than a birdcage bottom.
The whole notion of “Carbon Exchanges” was cooked up with Al Gore and Enron. Kyoto was supposed to create a vast market for CO2 exchanges. Enron was the leader in those sorts of “exchanges” and was going to make a boatload of money. Krugman was brought in to give the KRUGMAN stamp of approval. The US did not adopt Kyoto, Enron went out of business, nobody seems to remember Krugman, and Gore disclocated a Chakra.
In the UK until about a year ago the BBC used to regularly trot out Krugman to explain how dangerous and plain wrong our Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne was in pursuing an austerity policy to bring our economy under control and generate a recovery. He said on many occasions this policy had never worked and had no chance of succeeding this time. Now that we are one of the fastest growing economies in the developed world we never see Krugman this side of the pond. Good riddance.
“Our source was The New York Times.”
– USSR Ambassador in Dr. Stangelove.
It’s pretty obvious to, I would assume, just about everyone but Krugman that Pielke meant we either have to ramp up energy source research to a very high level to find a non-CO2 but energy-dense source of energy OR continue to burn fossil fuels OR suffer economically.
Krugman is a shill for the left.
jbenton2013 says:
June 8, 2014 at 11:41 am
That hasn’t stopped the BBC. Just read their report on the IMF visit last week. Read it ? Now read the actual report.
The predjudices are showing aren’t they. Liberal rabble the BBC.
Brute says:
June 8, 2014 at 11:21 am
Not everyone can be blind to the irony… “and no human being should so revel in his own malice and hatred that he openly expresses joy at purporting to find out that someone is stupid or dishonest.”
=====================
Yep, it reads too much like Schadenfreude, disguised as journalism.
So here we are.
This is the New York Times??
========================
Yes, and has been for years.
“This is the New York Times??” Absolutely!
Progressive liberals will always put Politics over Science as they are for the most part are non-science educated individuals. It seems to be the Gaia effect . . believe it then it will happen.
Pielke is correct – technology can not be forced it can be helped by more research money as America did with the nuclear bomb.
America had a international Fusion scientific study project with international scientists and funding participating – ti was making progress but Bill Clinton cancelled the project.
We have been researching fusion for 50 years but all uneducated are afraid of the BOMB the BOMB – nuclear is our only near term solution of AGW if it is real. Dense energy products are few and there is no serious data that indicates that wind or solar can be anything but a small player and at a very high cost.
The wind and solar projects have been installed – closed down – sold – repaired – closed and they still can not function with the current generation of the systems. It has been 50 years and almost no advancement in cost – density – environmental costs – it is all about we wish it could be free. Really it cost 3 to 10 time what the loaded with legal, studies, more legal, delay with more lawsuits but nuclear even with decommissioning costs is under $ .05/KWH – solar is over $ 30/KWH and wind is around $ 15/KWH – yes that includes the land cost and offsetting millions of bird and endangered species.
California is littered with closed down wind farms and solar farms – even geothermal plants.
Krugman is beyond belief. A mathematical identity is a simple concept and it is always true. There is nothing to discuss about it, like there is nothing to say about a=(a/b)*(b/c)*c, or in other words, a=a.
The fact that a Nobel in economics cannot seem to understand elementary maths says a lot about the quality of Nobel Prizes in economics.
Pielke’s response:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/clueless-krugman.html
“This is the New York Times??”
Yes
I quit reading Krugman some time ago. As was said above he one of the ” useful tools” of any far left program needing propping up. I think being ignored is the deepest cut.
All the News That is Left to Print.
=========================
Jai Mitchell said:
(From BlueSky Phoenix)
“Almost every one of you is mistaken. Krugman made up the argument that a percent reduction in emissions translates into a percent reduction in GDP, one-for-one.”
Except Krugman never said that. Not in the article and certainly not anywhere else. This is the most cynical straw man argument I have ever seen.
________________________________________________________
False. 7th paragraph of that very article written by Krugman. In writing.
“All these choices would impose some cost, and reduce real income to some extent — but the effect wouldn’t remotely be that real GDP would fall one-for-one with emissions.”
Krugman is trying to insinuate that PIELKE is saying that, which Pielke is not. Krugman is lying/misrepresenting Pielke’s argument. Hence Krugman built the strawman here.
Jai Mitchell said:
(From BlueSky Phoenix)
“Almost every one of you is mistaken. Krugman made up the argument that a percent reduction in emissions translates into a percent reduction in GDP, one-for-one.”
Except Krugman never said that. Not in the article and certainly not anywhere else. This is the most cynical straw man argument I have ever seen.
________________________________________________________
False. 7th paragraph of that very article written by Krugman. In writing.
“All these choices would impose some cost, and reduce real income to some extent — but the effect wouldn’t remotely be that real GDP would fall one-for-one with emissions.”
Krugman is trying to insinuate that PIELKE is saying that, which Pielke is not. Krugman is lying/misrepresenting Pielke’s argument. Hence Krugman built the strawman here.
This is The New York Times?
Same as it ever was, all the news that’s printed to fit.
I have been mad at Krugman for decades.
From 2009, seems like a parody now…
As you all know Krugman got his Nobel for fierce Bush bashing not because he was the most deserving.
As for the fellows comment.that “it is really weird”. Teenagers use this word “weird’ because the only have a 300 word vocabulary. But so has he.
Why hasn’t any one but me noticed that carbon free means no ethanol or methanol or bio gas methane or wood chips or firewood. Basically to really be carbon free requires returning mankind to before fire. That would certainly end AGW – and mankind. Maybe that’s the point.
I’ve read both Pielke’s letter and Krugman’s critique. What Pielke seems to be saying is that future reduction in carbon emissions can only occur if we either have new low carbon energy technologies or accept substantially lower economic growth (he doesn’t say it is a one to one tradeoff, but does imply that the tradeoff is substantive and not minor). Krugman argues that Pielke is being way too pessimistic, and that lower emissions are possible without assuming major technological breakthroughs that cannot be predicted or planned for. Certainly, any international regime which requires poor countries to remain poor and rich countries to go into recession is a non-starter. On the other hand, there are many rich countries with substantially lower per capita carbon emissions than the US. Energy efficiency of GDP varies widely, even between states in the US. Existing technologies such as high mileage vehicles, nuclear power, and gas rather than coal are all practical and proven. The rapid decline in both solar and wind price over the last 30 years bodes well, we are nearing grid parity in both, and thorium based nuclear power is certainly feasible and carries no weapons risk and much less waste and accident risk than current nukes. If Pielke is arguing that more R and D of low carbon power is needed, I agree, but companies and countries will not invest in that unless there is a political reason driving them to do so. I think both Krugman and Pielke agree that there are costs associated with decarbonizing energy use, the dispute is whether those costs are mild and manageable in the long run, or so large and burdensome as to make a political decision to limit carbon emissions globally impossible. The Chamber of Commerce report on that question would seem to side with the optimistic view, as would I.
Mr. Schroeder is being facetious or doesn’t understand how the carbon cycle works. Burning fossil fuels adds net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the use of wood or any other biofuel does not, because those biofuels were created by plants removing CO2 from the atmosphere and turning it into carbohydrates. They cycle back into atmospheric whether we burn them or eat them or they are decomposed by bacteria. There is no net effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration.
I see a lot of people here making the mistake of calling Paul Krugman a Nobel laureate. Lets get it straight. There is no Nobel price for economics. Not really, anyway. It’s the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. It’s not the Nobel Prize. It’s a prize awarded “in memory of” Alfred Nobel. It’s not funded by the Nobel endowment, but by the Swedish Central Bank. They give the medal at the same ceremony, but that doesn’t make it an actual Nobel Prize.
*Prize, goddammit
Can we debate the issue and not the person? The vitriol directed at Krugman is unnecessary. Either his position is right or wrong or in between, but ad hominem attacks are not a badge of intellectual integrity.
stockdoc77 says:
June 8, 2014 at 3:22 pm
Can we debate the issue and not the person? The vitriol directed at Krugman is unnecessary. Either his position is right or wrong or in between, but ad hominem attacks are not a badge of intellectual integrity.
===============
But, we already knew that.
Stockdoc77. Kudos. As I pointed out on this blog yesterday, I detest seeing climate change arguments on economic blogs, and I detest seeing economic arguments on climate science blogs. The shallowness of both of them reeks.
Ad hominem attacks are attempts to discredit someone’s ARGUMENT or STATEMENT by discrediting/ attacking the person, rather than the argument. Statements directed at Krugman all on his own, without any reference to a particular argument/statement made by Krugman do not qualify as ad hominem.
Insinuating that others lack intellectual integrity because you find the tone of their remarks to be unsavory could be categorized as poisoning the well.
arthur4563 says:
June 8, 2014 at 10:17 am
Being referred to as an expert in economics is almost an oxymoron and an insult.
—
“Ever met any rich economists?”
– H. Ross Perot
stockdoc77 says:
June 8, 2014 at 3:22 pm
We can debate the issue: the issue is that Krugman is lying. The vitriol is not only necessary, but also richly deserved. Your imbecilic statement that “Either his position is right or wrong or in between” is stupid, tautological nonsense. The term “ad hominem attacks” is stupid & nonsensical as well: “argumentum ad hominem” is valid Latin term which has nothing to do with what you are trying to say: You see, when Krugman lies, calling him a liar is a valid & perfectly correct statement. Pointing out that Krugman has a habit of lying is also valid, since he lies an awful lot. & in English we have a term called “personal attack[s]” & another term called “abuse”, both of which are extremely useful techniques for changing persistently stupid behaviours, such as Paul Krugman’s unfortunate habit of lying about things, or certain people’s habit of trying to derail some hard earned abuse with puffed-up nonsense.
Stockdoc77-
Biofuels are not carbon neutral-
http://www.energyfuturecoalition.org/biofuels/benefits_env_public_health.htm
“Engines running on biofuels emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, just like those running on gasoline. However, because plants and trees are the raw material for biofuels, and, because they need carbon dioxide to grow, the use of biofuels does not add CO2 to the atmosphere, it just recycles what was already there. The use of fossil fuels, on the other hand, releases carbon that has been stored underground for millions of years, and those emissions represent a net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. Because it takes fossil fuels – such as natural gas and coal – to make biofuels, they are not quite “carbon neutral.”
___________________________________________
As far as thorium based nuclear energy being feasible, that depends on what you think feasible means. There’s no infrastructure in place, nor regulations etc, and “Pure uranium-233 can be derived from the molten salt coming out of thorium reactors “which is easier to make bombs with than plutonium.” And the waste, Makhijani added, contains carcinogenic radioactive materials.”
Dr. Alvin Weinberg, the “guru” of thorium nuclear technology, called it a “Faustian bargain” and said it was “a great energy source, but you’ve got to worry about proliferation and waste,” Makhijani replied.
(http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Thorium-Reactors-Nuclear-Redemption-or-Nuclear-Hazard)
There are things out there that are FAR WORSE than Co2 that we could be introducing into our environment, and no one has even proven that increased C02 WILL cause a planetary crisis of any kind.
_______________________
Wind and solar are great technologies, as long as the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. But storage of the energy produced by them is a problem. And why build windfarms and solar systems when the mining and production requirements cause damage to the same environment we’re supposedly trying to save?
We lay people think it would be so easy to just shut down one form of energy and start relying on another, but the only reason our current fuel costs are as low as they are is because we’ve been refining the technologies involved in them for almost a century. We are nowhere NEAR being able to rely on renewables as even a major portion of our electricity requirements. That is just a fact.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/september/curtail-energy-storage-090913.html
Corn biofuels add more C02 to the atmosphere than petroleum.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ethanol-made-from-corn-stalks-spews-more-co2-than-gasoline-1.2616571
I would like to say that Krugman is the stupidest man to win a Nobel Prize, but that honor goes to Al Gore. All I can say is that Krugman may be the stupidest man to win the economics prize, but that is saying a lot.
The problem facing the Church of CAGW Warmists is that in their religion, they have gone from the concerned onlooker to the irrefutable fact believer phase without having any miracles martyrdom or ascension stages,
So guys, time to pick one messiah I reckon!
Hint Mann wont pass muster nor will Gore, perhaps Carl Sagan’s devoted disciple?
Excepting the nonsense in episode 12, Cosmos is a very nice multimedia program for schoolkids and those that have let science pass them by entirely.
Tom J – while we’re trying to use accurate terms, eg. Carbon Dioxide not Carbon, please can you use regressive or repressive instead of progressive.
Well, it *is* The New York Times. They published Walter Duranty’s stuff and were proud of it.
“I think people in the future will have empathy for us. ”
I will posit that “people in the future” given the 4.5 billion year history of the planet earth will NOT know who we (homo sapiens) are. I left out the expletives and pejoratives. 😉
And I am happy that we will be forgotten and undiscoverable. The entire “Anthropocene” is a layer not even one nanometer in depth in the rock formations to come !
Ha ha (to the “Anthropoceners” lurking outside the multiplex Cinema, nudge nudge wink wink).
“This is the New York Times??”
Yes indeed.
Jayson Blair, anyone?
Stock Doc: ” The rapid decline in both solar and wind price over the last 30 years bodes well, we are nearing grid parity in both, and thorium based nuclear power is certainly feasible and carries no weapons risk and much less waste and accident risk than current nukes.”
No we are not anywhere close to grid parity. Because if I need the coal or gas or nuclear plant’s power, I simply turn it on. If I need a wind or solar power plant to turn on, I first have to hope that the wind is blowing enough, but not too much or hope the sun is shining. Then, when it turns out the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, I have to turn to the back-up coal plant I built – which means the cost of wind or solar is always at least double coal or gas because I always need 100% back-up.
I would contend that a number of the posts here about Krugman are ad hominem in nature. Leave it at that. It is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about carbon emissions and AGW as it has become such a right/left litmus test. My own views are fairly straightforward.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it is also an essential input for plant life
human burning of fossil fuels is raising atmospheric CO2 concentration
Business as usual would suggest that we will at least double and perhaps triple CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere
This is a giant geophysical experiment,the outcome of which is unknown
There is reason to believe that this addition of CO2 will raise average global temps, but we don’t know with precision how much, and how much impact that will have on humans and the environment, it could be very little and could be a lot
The global climate models should be viewed with a grain of salt, all models in science are merely hypothesis generating, not hypothesis proving
As we only have one planet we cannot run a randomized controlled trial to answer the question beforehand as to what the rise in CO2 will do to the climate
It would be prudent public policy given the above to pick the low hanging fruit, and put us in the position both technologically and politically to rapidly decarbonize if that becomes necessary in the next few decades. This would mean pushing up gas mileage, investing in energy efficiency across the board, developing the capacity for a non carbon emitting electric grid, solving the issue of energy storage for solar and wind power, looking at developing various nuclear options etc. We don’t need to destroy the economy to take some prudent actions.
With regards to biofuels, I think they are mostly a waste and a boondoggle for ADM. In a world where some are still starving it seems insane to burn food. My only point is that the carbon in the biofuel is not a net addition to atmospheric carbon. Now if fossil fuels were burned in the process of creating the biofuel, that has to be entered into the ledger, but then the question becomes what is the net CO2 emission per unit energy for biofuels vs fossil fuels. Varies on the source and what you are comparing it to. Bottom line, while biofuels mostly are less carbon intense than fossil fuels, I don’t support the whole biofuel concept.
The Nobel prize ceased to be relevant the instant the Nobel committee awarded Europe – a political entity – the peace prize.
Any one of critical thought who has followe the Krugman Follies of the past 5 years would realize Krugman is a charlatan and an egomaniac. And those who refuse to admit Krugman’s dishonesty is a fool. History will not be kind to Krugman for his endless fount of stupidity.
Krugman was right about the Iraq war.
He was right that monetary policy, which has normally been sufficient to end prior recessions, will not work this time as we are against the zero lower bound.
He was right that the stimulus was insufficient in size.
He was right that with the economy in depression even very low interest rates and high budget deficits would not be inflationary.
He was right that quantitative easing would not result in a collapse of the dollar.
If you want to attack him, go right ahead, but I have not seen anything in this thread that would a critique of his argument rather than an attack on his person, his character, or credentials, all of which are irrelevant.
The thrust of the attack here is that Pielke did not literally claim that cutting emissions would have a one for one reduction in GDP, which is true, but Pielke did clearly imply that the reduction would be so large and substantial as to prevent any possibility of such a reduction from a political standpoint. Krugman attacked that, and as Pielke did not spell out an exact mathematical relationship (because of course there is none) Krugman took liberty in assuming he meant 1 to 1. Does it change anything if Pielke meant .8 to 1 or .9 to 1? Don’t think so. What did Pielke mean then other than the truism that any change in energy policy will have some cost?
Disclaimer: I was unable to access Pielke’s piece directly and read it in full.
I normally consider Krugman to be a pontificating idiot just proving his ignorance, but I can see where a hostile reading of Pielke’s piece would lead to the belief that Pielke had implied a “1-for-1” relation: Pielke described a cessation, not slowing, of growth. Without the growth of technology, there would be such a cessation in the rise of production per capita one the changes in choices Krugman describes are all made and the energy/production term in Kaya’s Identity ceases to drop. However, Pielke used current conditions as a rationale for why some countries can’t afford caps, so I can see how Krugman might have read his piece to imply that the rise in production would cease immediately, as though that term and the emissions/consumption terms cannot be changed without changes in technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaya_identity
Is not really useful as the terms are dependent on the mix of energy generators. So it is not even an identity. Oh. Well.
But it is a good excuse for killing off a LOT of people. So there is that.
What did Pielke mean then other than the truism that any change in energy policy will have some cost?
Germany doesn’t like the cost. It is hurting their economy.
http://notrickszone.com/2014/04/27/angela-merkels-vice-chancellor-stuns-declares-germanys-energiewende-to-be-on-the-verge-of-failure/
Linus Pauling was a double nobel prize winner who contributed to some of the greatest discoveries in biochemistry. He was one of the founders of molecular biology. There was no doubt that he was brilliant. He also advocated mega doses of vitamin C as the cure for the common cold, among other crank beliefs. Mega doses of vitamin C did not cure the common cold. There was no doubt that he was a very foolish man who sometimes believed what he wanted to believe.
Hence the paradox.
And another cautionary tale about argument from authority.
dmacleo says:
June 8, 2014 at 11:24 am
“krugmans an ass.
simple.”
You forgot “Hole”. Ass… You also forgot “Five-Star” and “Flying”, and slang term for act of procreation.
stockdoc77 says:
June 8, 2014 at 7:05 pm
Did Krugman ever point out that if interest rates go up service on the debt will kill us without a greatly expanded economy? But a quickly expanding economy will drive interest rates up. So the only way out is an nonperforming economy.
Mega doses of vitamin C did not cure the common cold.
But it is an excellent anti-biotic with few side effects except copious methane production. I use it that way when needed. It works. BTW I don’t think I have had a cold since I started keeping my C levels up. But of course that is just anecdotal. Still….
“But of course that is just anecdotal. Still….”
Yes and of course I know lots of people who refuse to take flu shots because they had a bad experience once. It’s anecdotal of course…
For solar to reach grid parity it has to cost roughly 1/4er to 1/6th what a burner costs per watt. Capacity factor. For the best wind sites 1/3rd. And that does not take into account storage. Dollars per watt is not a good measure. Dollars per watt-hour is better.
Will,
I have used vitamin C to cure internal infections. Bad infections. It works for me. In fact I have had doctors suggest putting it on infected wounds. It worked.
Simon, I think the point Krugman has consistently made is that once the economy is no longer in depression that is when the budget should be brought into balance. The point Keynes made 70 years ago still holds, the time for government austerity is the boom not the bust. The Europeans have certainly proved that again in spades. Because of both growth and inflation, the debt to gdp ratio collapses rapidly if you balance the budget, over a 12 year span the nominal economy will double in size given 6% annual nominal growth (real plus inflation), if no new debt is issued by keeping the budget balanced for that stretch, the debt burden is slashed in half. If you run a surplus as we did for the last few years under Clinton, the ratio collapses even faster. Hairshirt economics is silliness, and Krugman has attacked that relentlessly and I believe effectively.
“stockdoc77 says:
June 8, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Business as usual would suggest that we will at least double and perhaps triple CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere”
There is no evidence anywhere that supports your claim. ~1200 – 1600ppm/v, really? How long would that take given we know ~50% is absorbed by the biosphere annually?
The point Keynes made 70 years ago still holds, the time for government austerity is the boom not the bust.
But the spending was supposed to be done out of accumulated surplus. According to Keynes. Adding debt adds drag to growth. Besides – government is a worse judge of investment opportunities than the obviously inefficient free market. What you get is crony capitalism. Sometimes also called oligarchy. The friends of the regime get rewarded. The enemies punished – by taxes if they are lucky. By special visits from the taxman if they are not.
Economics – although some arithmetic is involved – is a political science.
@M Simon
“I have used vitamin C to cure internal infections. Bad infections. It works for me. In fact I have had doctors suggest putting it on infected wounds. It worked.”
It doesn’t matter if it works for you or not. It has to work in double blind controlled experiments. Since it has no measurable effect in double blind controlled experiments, it’s not science. I’m glad you think it works for you though, or maybe it really does work for you. But that’s not of any help to the rest of us.
The Krugman effect is merely what I call the Friedman effect, named after Tom Friedman, who has come to think of himself as a climate scienitst.krugman is merely a cheap copy of Friedman, who has been hectoring and boring people for about 6 years.
Or maybe the Kerry effect also has some pizazz?
I think they all should be sent to the phantom zone for a few lifetimes as in Superman 1.
I’m glad you think it works for you though, or maybe it really does work for you. But that’s not of any help to the rest of us.
Could be placebo effect. Could be body chemistry. I didn’t get good healing from my body until I upped my intake of C well above the common recommendations. Up until I read Pauling on the matter small cuts often turned into large infections.
What we know about how bodies work is quite generalized. We will do much better when the knowledge is particularized.
Double blind tests are better than nothing. But they are not particularly good when individual body chemistry variations determines outcomes as much as the particular medicine involved.
BTW I’m not aware of any double blind tests on infections vs C levels. Or using C on wounds. OK I did some looking and found this:
http://www.surgerysupplements.com/the-role-of-vitamin-c-in-wound-healing/
These physicians noted that spontaneous breakdown of surgical wounds in the absence of infection occurs with relative frequency in many patients, and they connected this to the patients having low levels of vitamin C. Their recommendation was administration of vitamin C based on their observations that wound healing becomes faulty when vitamin C levels are inadequate (Dr. Rath Research Institute, July 28, 2008).
Another early study from 1941 recommended saturating the body with large doses of vitamin C daily (1,000 mg) for three days before surgery, and then keeping these high levels maintained with supplemental doses during the healing period. This study concluded that large doses of vitamin C are of utmost importance to wound healing (Hunt, Alan H., January 1941).
So Pauling may have been mistaken about colds. But there seems to be a fair literature on the efficacy of C for wounds. I haven’t found anything yet on direct application. But it did work for me on a badly infected wound.
@jim2 June 8, 2014 at 11:53 am
No need to ramp up energy source research to a very high level to find a non-CO2 but energy-dense source of energy, such source was already identified many decades ago. It is ordinary granite, the default stuff continents are made of, one ton of it having the same useful energy content as 50 tons of coal (+ 133 tons of atmospheric Oxygen). Of course there are thousand times better ores than that, plentiful for millennia, it just shows we’ll never run out of fuel, at least not for the rest of Earth’s lifetime, a timeframe not regularly considered by economists.
Even the technology to extract it safely &. cheaply was all but developed decades ago, then shelved for political reasons.
Not all nuclear technologies are created equal. Our current industrial base is hopelessly outdated, plutonium factories in pressurized vessels with energy as a byproduct at less than 1% fuel efficiency are Cold War relics, an absolute no-go. We could use a highly efficient fuel cycle instead at low pressure with passive safety, no chance for weaponization &. no long half life isotopes left in waste. It is only a matter of legal regulation and a little bit of R&D effort, with no insurmountable engineering issues ahead, RTFM mostly.
stockdoc77 says:
June 8, 2014 at 2:47 pm
///////////////////
If so, why not simply burn coal/gas AND plant trees? Much of the globe has been de-forested, and much of it could be re-forested. To a large extent, it was the industrial revelotution that saved what little forests that remain in developed countries from the chop. But for the use of coal, in these countries, they would have disappeared long ago.
Greens like to talk about CCS and seek to push this as a requirement when building modern power generating stations. And yet, the best form of CCS are trees. Nature got that one sorted long ago. It is a tried and tested ‘technology’ and very simple to introduce!
Burning of biomass (because of its low calorific value) produces far more CO2 than does either coal or gas. It is not as ‘green’ as claimed. So using conventional fuel AND planting trees would result in a greater reduction in CO2 than using biomass. But the Greens like to conceal that fact since they do not favour the use of coal or gas.
Other renewables presently do not result in any reduction in CO2 emissions because of the need for backup by conventionally fueled power generation. Until the back up problem is overcome, ie., until an effective cheap and reliable mass storage device exists, our present renewable technology can never result in any significant reduction in CO2 emissions. PERIOD.
The only low CO2 power generation presently available is nuclear. But the Greens do not like that.
stockdoc77
June 8, 2014 at 7:05 pm
says:
‘He was right that the stimulus was insufficient in size.’
Are you not aware that stimulus money was used to fund the Fast and Furious operation that we still don’t know very much about?
‘He was right that with the economy in depression even very low interest rates and high budget deficits would not be inflationary.’
Are you aware that the government has removed items from the basket that had been used in the past to determine the overall price of consumer goods?
stockdoc77 says:
June 8, 2014 at 7:05 pm
“He was right that quantitative easing would not result in a collapse of the dollar.”
QE = money printing; so let’s rewrite that as
“He was right that money printing would not result in a collapse of the dollar.”
Money printing worked pretty well for the Weimar republic as well, until it didn’t.
https://mises.org/daily/3661
commentary on
“Exchange, Prices and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920 – 1923, by Frank D. Graham (Princeton University Press, 1930)”
fascinating series of comments. thanks to you all (well almost all) for your thought and care.
“If you run a surplus as we did for the last few years under Clinton…”
You should check your numbers.
Total federal debt
Jan 19 2001 – 5.728 trillion
Jan 19 2000 – 5.727 trillion
Jan 19 1999 – 5.619 trillion
Jan 19 1998 – 5.496 trillion
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_debttothepenny.htm
Federal revenue exploded at the end of the ’90s (following the Repubican’s takeover of Congress). With the divided government, they couldn’t agree to ramp up spending quickly enough to outspend the increase. This changed with the election of Bush, at which point there was a ‘double whammy’ of increased spending combined with decreased revenue following the tech boom crash.
A key reason that neo-Marxists like Krugman are so nasty is that they have nothing else to fall back on when their inability to convince people of their false claims are not working. That’s because:
– They failed to develop a proper method of knowledge, which has to start from a good perceivable view of reality before proceeding to abstractions.
– They have built their life on superstition, they’ve been at it so long they don’t know how to start over.
– Their beliefs come from emotions, so they’ll use emotional methods to defend them.
– The ideology they have adopted, whether consciously or not, teaches use of force. (Neo-Marxists try to pull a scam of niceness, but their beliefs are rooted in a views of humans as untrustworthy (hence their drive-to-the-bottom/dog-eat-dog economic theories).)
Couple of points. Keynes never suggested that countries needed to accumulate surpluses, his view was that balanced budgets during good times and deficit spending during bad would be the path out of the great depression, he was right. Such a policy would result in rising debt to GDP ratio during recessions and falling ratios during booms, in the long run keeping it acceptable. Britain’s debt to GDP ratio was 250% after WW2 btw, and ours over 100%. The government never needs a surplus, it doesn’t know what to do with the money (invest in the stock market not a good idea for the government). Jim’s comments don’t take into account the difference between total federal debt, which includes debt assets held by the Social Security Trust Fund, and net federal debt, which is debt held by the public. Even in the late 90’s the gross debt still rose slowly because social security taxes were in such surplus over benefits, the surplus was and still is “invested” in government bonds, but those bonds are held by one arm of the Federal government and owed to the other, they do not add to net publicly held debt, which is the metric that is used by most. If we count the bonds held by Social Security as a real debt, then Social Security is solvent for decades, and there is no need to cut benefits.
Vitamin C is used to aid wound healing, and most patients with bedsores are given it routinely. Whether supra therapeutic doses are of any benefit or only create expensive urine is another question.
As to whether government spending could have mitigated this recession just look at total government employment, which rose by 250k per year under every President from Carter to W. Under Obama we are down 700k government jobs (almost all at state and local levels such as teachers, police, transport workers etc) from 2009. If the Feds had run a deficit and given the money as block grants enough to allow the state governments to avoid layoffs and expand workforce at the historical rate, another 2 million people would be off government assistance and working and paying taxes, and their economic activity would generate higher sales for private sector which would then expand in response, depending on the framework used that would give us another 1-2 million jobs. As state economies improved, and tax revenues returned to normal, the Feds could ease off on the temporary support. Another 3 million employed people would be good thing, given that we have slashed the deficit much too quickly (10% of GDP to under 4% in 4 years).
Krugman is, as often, being sloppy. Pielke did refer to the Kana Identity, which Krugman might have mistakenly thought translated into one-for-one equivalence between GDP and emissions. That’s a mistake, as one of the terms in the identify is emissions as a ratio to energy consumption. There’s nothing in the identify which constrains that to be a constant.
In fact, that is part of Pielke’s point, it is precisely that ratio we need to reduce, if we do not want to constrain growth. However, I disagree with Pielke when he glibly claims there is no such thing as a carbon cap because technological innovation cannot be dictated by fiat. He’s partially right, but that doesn’t mean a carbon cap cannot exist.
As an aside, I once tracked down Kana’s original paper which refers to emissions, but does not specifically refer to carbon. Many subsequent papers invoke Kana and replace emission with CO2 emissions. It may not be a big deal, except that people talking about carbon constraints should be careful about invoking Kana, who did not mention carbon directly, if I recall correctly.
Wound infection = bacteria. Cold = virus. Vitamin C impact on bacteria has zero relation to vitamin C impact on viruses.
Please don’t get confused – I’m Patrick Boyle. I’m not the commenter Patrick nor am I the commenter Patrick B who have posted here.. I politely urge those two gentlemen to change their names. Perhaps to stockdoc77 or M Simon.
For example Patrick B (not me) wrote “Then, when it turns out the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, I have to turn to the back-up coal plant I built “. The idea is right but the details are wrong. Coal powered boilers are not appropriate for solar or wind backups. They take too long to start up. The wind dies down and it takes a couple hours to get the coal fired boilers up to temperature and back on-line.
That’s why T. Boone Pickens made all those wind mill commercials a few years ago. The best back ups for wind or solar power are natural gas turbines which come on line almost instantaneously. Mr. Pickens is heavy into natural gas.
Krugman left his credibility far behind a while ago.
He is now busy tarnishing his reputation.
Krugman lies constantly and is a celebrated NYT columnist. WUWT kicked out Steve Goddard for being considerably less tendentious.
Krugman was right about the Iraq war.
He predicted we would successfully remove Saddam install a democratic regime at historically low costs in lives and money? That Iraqi GDP would quintuple? That millions would gain access to water/sewer/electric service? That most Iraqis would support the invasion?
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/centers/saban/iraq%20index/index201207.pdf
What did Pielke mean then other than the truism that any change in energy policy will have some cost?
No, obviously some changes would result in lower costs.
Between Krugman’s hit piece on Pielke, and John Holdren’s comments on Pielke earlier, I’d say that he’s hit a nerve with the establishment. Quite the target on his back, and quite a few willing to take their shots while they still can, even if they have to lie to discredit him.
It’ll be interesting if there’s a regime change in the next election, and Pielke is given a prominent role, He’s shown that he’s tough enough for big league politics, taking the best that partisans can shoot at him and is still standing tall.
Stockdoc, you’ve really knit the kangaroo this time:
“He was right that monetary policy, which has normally been sufficient to end prior recessions, will not work this time as we are against the zero lower bound.
He was right that the stimulus was insufficient in size.
He was right that with the economy in depression even very low interest rates and high budget deficits would not be inflationary.
He was right that quantitative easing would not result in a collapse of the dollar.”
It’s one thing to be ridiculously and diametrically wrong, like Kruglitz and Stigman were about their purported areas of expertise. It’s quite another for someone to quote their wrongology approvingly even AFTER history has demonstrated the precise opposite.
And then we have the true beclownment where someone in the thread above has already made the point in relation to the hugely outperforming UK economy that discredits the argument.
Since space doesn’t permit a full declownification of your claims, let me just point to the scoreboard for 2 stats:
1) by what % of GDP has the US budget deficit come down since the GOP said “enough” to Obama’s wasteocracy? (Let’s call it 8% of GDP?)
2) by what % has the unemployment rate fallen during this process?
Then you could compare it to what your idols predicted would happen.
The difference between a lapdog (Krugman) and its master (the Administration) is that the lapdog will take all the ill-deserved awards and praise it is offered and the master will actually issue scorn (to the Norwegan representative) when the praise is ill conceived and factually premature.
Just as Suzuki has long abandoned scientific objectivity, Krugman has abandoned those critical faculties which won him the Nobel Prize. Suzuki and Krugman are now thoroughly political animals, intolerant of dissent on any front.
Is it not all about the money? here is where a lot of it flows through to these GRANT SCIENCE supporters.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/exclusive-investigative-reports/who-funds-the-radical-left-in-america/
stockdoc77 says:
June 9, 2014 at 8:58 am
“Couple of points. Keynes never suggested that countries needed to accumulate surpluses, his view was that balanced budgets during good times and deficit spending during bad would be the path out of the great depression, he was right. Such a policy would result in rising debt to GDP ratio during recessions and falling ratios during booms, in the long run keeping it acceptable.”
In the long run? Keynes said, In The Long Run, We Are All Dead.
Which is of course an entirely logical thing to say for a homosexual without children like him; yet less than satisfactory as a perspective for people who take the burden upon themselves to bring up the next generation and actually creating a future for human society.
DirkH,
Keynes rejected his theory before he died – he endorsed Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.
Postwar[edit]
After the war, Keynes continued to represent the United Kingdom in international negotiations despite his deteriorating health. He succeeded in obtaining preferential terms from the United States for new and outstanding debts to facilitate the rebuilding of the British economy.[55]
Just before his death in 1946, Keynes told Henry Clay, a professor of Social Economics and Advisor to the Bank of England [56] of his hopes that Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ can help Britain out of the economic hole it is in: “I find myself more and more relying for a solution of our problems on the invisible hand which I tried to eject from economic thinking twenty years ago.” [57]
The aliens that Krugman hoped would invade have in fact invaded already. They’re secretly turning his brain to mush so they can suck it out with a straw when it finally dissolves completely. Because this invasion of his gray matter renders him senseless, his columns are now being written by an alien ghost writer who’s in orbit in the mother ship.
So who was it that claimed this board is full of high-minded critics and not just ad hominem attacks? Dirk does not understands Keynes and then adds an irrelevant aside about his lack of children as though that should be the basis of evaluating an idea. How interesting an approach, I’ve never used that one.
For Dirk’s benefit, Keynes was arguing against the classical economists who assumed that all recessions were inherently self-correcting and that no change in government policy was necessary despite the Great Depression going on year after year (the US spent 10 years below full employment). The classical economists had no answers to why the Depression dragged on other than to say in the long run it would end. Keynes agreed that in the long run it would end, that would be very long time indeed, and if economics could not address the great challenge of its time then it was a useless discipline. He argued that action should be taken immediately to end the Great Depression, and not rely passively on the system eventually self-correcting in the long run.
“This is the New York Times??”
Yes. That is why I quit reading it a couple of years ago.
I think people are mispronouncing [trimmed] York Times
[Please. The New York Times has enough credibility problems as it is now. .mod]
Hayek thinks Keynes knows nothing about Economics. And he’s right. Keynesian theory is a blight on Economics
The corn growing ( and other “plans” such as algae) for fuel is patently ridiculous. Have any of these advocates ever been to a plant that builds a 175 hp John Deere Tractor and all the other equipment needed to work the land? And then the fuel it needs to till the land, plant it, grow it and harvest it and mill it?. The roads (and all of the infrastructure needed to maintain that alone), railroads, trains locomotives, ships and the containers to move it around the world, add then the people that have to drive to work to do all of this? The concept is far away from reality and then to add that wind power and solar is “closing the gap” it makes my head spin. As someone else said there will eventually be a break through but it is not one of those two. There are many bright people working on solutions but those two are not it, to me me it is a “feel good” approach that is blinding millions of people.
“In the UK until about a year ago the BBC used to regularly trot out Krugman to explain how dangerous and plain wrong our Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne was in pursuing an austerity policy to bring our economy under control and generate a recovery. He said on many occasions this policy had never worked and had no chance of succeeding this time. Now that we are one of the fastest growing economies in the developed world we never see Krugman this side of the pond. Good riddance”
Although the austerity policy has led to a dramatic increase in the UK deficit!
Maybe George has been consulting economics laureates?
When population growth is taken into account, GDP growth looks much less impressive.
And look at benefits paid to people working, up from around 11 billion £ to over 30 billion/yr in a few years.
The flack Pielke gets for simply pointing out the obvious is a reflection of the degree to which climate has become a religion and one reason my lack of trust for anything alarmists say became exponential.
Krugman received his Nobel Memorial prize for Economics for his work
on international trade. This work was largely done between 1979 & 1991.
The concepts he put forth were received significant empirical support
and were viewed as transformative in analyses of international trade patterns.
In recent years, it seems that Dr. Krugman has taken advantage of his
Nobel Memorial award reputation to simply put forth opinions on any subject
even vaguely related to any form of economics. He doesn’t limit himself
to the area he made his reputation in–international trade–and thus he frequently
makes himself sound as ridiculous as a cow attempting to play the violin.
Bah. Delete the first “were” in the first paragraph.
stockdoc77 says:
June 9, 2014 at 8:58 am
Jim’s comments don’t take into account the difference between total federal debt, which includes debt assets held by the Social Security Trust Fund, and net federal debt, which is debt held by the public. Even in the late 90′s the gross debt still rose slowly because social security taxes were in such surplus over benefits, the surplus was and still is “invested” in government bonds, but those bonds are held by one arm of the Federal government and owed to the other, they do not add to net publicly held debt, which is the metric that is used by most. If we count the bonds held by Social Security as a real debt, then Social Security is solvent for decades, and there is no need to cut benefits.
====================================================================
You have two choices. You can count the intragovernment borrowing as real debt and claim that SS is solvent for slightly less than 2 decades, or you can claim that only debt held by the public is real debt but then SS is insolvent today since payroll taxes do not cover current outlays and haven’t for a few years now. What you can’t get away from is the fact that all of that SS spending is going to turn into real public debt as the liability isn’t going away. Incidentally, the cash accounting methods used by the government do not conform to GAAP standards and would probably be illegal if practiced in the private sector. Certainly the SEC would want to have a very long and detailed talk with you.
To think about it another way, borrow and spend your entire 401k balance and then come back and tell us how solvent your retirement is. After all, you owe yourself that money, and you’re good for it, right?
Paul Krugman? You mean THE Paul Krugman? The guy who’s never wrong?
““The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in “Metcalfe’s law”–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” – Paul Krugman 1998
http://the-libertarian.co.uk/paul-krugman-quotes/
NikFromNYC says:
June 8, 2014 at 10:01 am
Incompetent fool though Krugman may be, he received his $37,500 from Enron before he worked for NY Times:
http://www.pkarchive.org/personal/EnronFAQ.html
–AGF
I used to read Krugman’s blog daily as a way of keeping apprised of “liberal” views. I stopped doing so after a few months as it became abundantly clear that he was so blind to opposing viewpoints and so intolerant of any ideas but those he supported. If you disagree with liberal ideas, you aren’t just different, you aren’t “just” wrong, you are EVIL in the eyes of Dr. K. I rarely read him anymore. My view is that he is on a mission to save the world through denigrating conservatives. I do think, in his own mind, he is fighting the good fight, but then, that was also true of Bin Laden (no direct comparison intended). He seems child-like and oddly naive in some ways. I am a long way from being able to judge his economics, but I am comfortable rejecting his politics.
Arthur4563:
“(reduce the money supply and prices go up and economic activity suffers)”
How does that work? Less money chasing the same amount of goods causing their prices to rise?
Less money will need prices to fall in order to clear the market. Prices tend to rise with the inflation of the amount of money in the market.