South Korea announces delay the day after Australia’s carbon tax repeal
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
In a sign that rejection of climate alarm is gathering momentum, South Korea has thrown doubt on its carbon plans. Significantly, the announcement was made the day after Australia abolished the carbon tax. According to the report;
“July 18 (Reuters) – South Korea’s finance minister has called its impending emissions trading market “flawed in many ways”, hinting that he would pressure other ministries to delay the planned 2015 launch, a local newspaper reported.
Choi Kyung-hwan, who is also deputy prime minister, said problems had been found with the scheme, which is due to start in January, and that the government would review them before deciding whether to delay it, modify it or implement it as planned, The Korea Times reported on Friday.”
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL6N0PT3CZ20140718
(h/t to WUWT reader Pat)
South Korea’s courageous stand against carbon madness raises hope that Australia’s rejection of carbon pricing will be the domino which topples any chance of global cooperation on CO2
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dbstealey says:
July 19, 2014 at 9:32 am
John Carter says:
============================
What planet are you from, Carter?
=================================
Fairly obvious
“Printing money” went out with the gold standard in 1934. It’s a gold standard era accounting relic. Money was printed then against gold held at the Fed. The debt limit, installed in 1917, was a belt and set of suspenders to make sure not too much was printed against supply. It, too, is another relic, like the horse and buggy.
Our money since August 15, 1971 is electronic except for physical cash and coin (11.5%-12%) as walking around money dispensed by banks for small private transactions…or gambling. Socialism has nothing to do with it. You don’t understand monetary operations.
PolicyCritic, I understand monetary operations perfectly well. By printing money, whether electronically or physically, the existing money is debased. Your proposal to give out printed money above at July 19, 2014 at 12:00 pm: “In point of fact, every senior citizen should be getting a minimum of $3,000/month—minimum!–to meet the production of the huge Millennial generation so that their output doesn’t lie idle.” is a mixture of Keynesianism and socialism.
In point of fact, the economy is not strengthened by printing money to “meet production”, it is weakened. The reason is quite simple, investors do not invest in new production when they cannot expect money to hold purchasing power over the long run. In the same post above you say “There is production capacity to worry about. When everyone is earning money and there is nothing to spend it on, then the price of those things that are still available for sale—from physical objects to engineering services to houses, travel, schools, landscaping, technology, science, and health care—will soar. That’s inflation. Taxes are used to control that.”
But your solution to control inflation means that producers who invest their money in new production will either see the purchasing power of money reduced, or they will get much higher taxes that are used to depress the economy and thereby control inflation. You are a tiresome Keyensian-socialist troll and you should take your nonsense elsewhere.
Here’s how it works:
(1) Congress “appropriates” spending for a variety of projects, only entity that can under our Constitution. Let’s say $100 billion.
(2) US Treasury tells the Fed to mark up its General Account at the Fed by $100 billion.
(3) The Fed, using keystrokes, marks the US General Account up by $100 billion.
(4) The US Treasury says ‘pay all these private vendors with the $100 billion” that Congress approved.
(5) Fed forwards the $100 billion to the checking accounts of all vendors’ banks at the Fed, and the individual banks subsequently credit the vendor’s accounts.
(6) THEN, the US Treasury issues $100 billion in treasury securities, prints them up out of thin air. [This is what is called, erroneously, “borrowing.”]
(7) The treasury securities are sold at auction on the Open Market on 15th of the month. The Federal Reserve cannot buy them. Only businesses, households, banks, trust funds, universities, pension funds, financial institutions, foreign banks and foreign governments. They are snapped up immediately. Money supply restored to balance.
(8) Once a year, usually August, the US Treasury determines the coming interest owed on treasury securities outstanding. Let’s say that amount is $420.6 billion.
(9) The US Treasury issues treasury securities in the amount of $420.6 billion to cover the coming interest payments.
(10) No debts to children or grandchildren.
This isn’t ‘lefty’, ‘non-lefty’, ‘socialist’, ‘communist’, uppy, downy. It’s how it works. Call the Fed and US Treasury and ask them yourselves like I did. Or read this guy from dailypaul.com, he gets it: http://www.dailypaul.com/279537/how-banking-actually-works-in-fiat-world
Not as good as hoped. See the following article.
http://americanthinker.com/2014/07/australia_still_has_carbon_taxation.html
Then you don’t understand monetary operations, because the USA has been doing that—what you call ‘printing money’—for 80 years.
Hardly. Here is Greenspan schooling Paul Ryan on just that point in a House hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdOsybbBVEU
“The real assets” are the future production of the huge Millennial generation which those social security benefits would purchase. If that production reaches its full output, social security payment need to go up to help pay for it, or it lies idle.
But right now, 25% of the Millennial generation are living at home with their parents with no jobs—therefore, no output in macroeconomic terms–because Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t understand the federal monetary system. He thinks the federal government is broke and has to tighten its belt.
NZ carbon prices fall further as emitters stay away
by Stian Reklev in BEIJING
July 18 (Reuters) – Spot permits in New Zealand’s carbon market fell for the third consecutive week, dropping to NZ$4 ($3.47) on Friday, as traders remained hesitant to take significant positions ahead of the September general election…
“Emitters, in particular, are not keen to step up until they get more direction from the political parties,” one broker told Reuters…
***Traders said Australia’s move on Wednesday to scrap its planned emissions trading scheme had no impact on the New Zealand market, as no link between the two had been planned.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/18/new-zealand-carbontrading-idUKL4N0PT1DS20140718
***not sure i believe it had “no impact”!
I am not surprised, S. Korea has massive investments in heavy industries like steel making and shipbuilding. They are not about to bin that.
policycritic
It is great how you quote Allan Greenspan schooling anyone the man who created the housing bubble in the first place.
It also funny how you just white wash over all of the federal debt held by foreign countries. There is real interest paid there.
You ignore the effect of monitising debt on commodities traded around the world. You ignore the effects of monitising on the basic strength of the currency with trading partners. You ignore the fact when banks have someone as large as the government to lend to there is no reason for them to lend to business. You ignore the fact that government doesn’t create wealth no matter what you do. You hang your hat on wwii but you miss what actually happened and then ignore every instance were government spending and borrowing failed. Even Keynes thought deficit spend should only be used as a temporary measure.
Never mind the will of the people we know what’s best for you Australians.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060003102
Will the non-corrupted governments please step forward.
ferdberple says @ur momisugly July 19, 2014 at 9:42 am “The Federal Reserve is privately owned . . .” Yes, Federal Reserve Banks are privately owned, but the Federal Reserve System is publicly controlled. The control is via the Board of Governors who are appointed by the President and confirmed by congress. The profit that owners get on their ownership is a limited and very moderate rate of return on their investment. Any remaining profit goes to the U.S. Treasury.
policycritic says on July 19, 2014 at 5:52 pm:
“The ONLY entity that can act counter-cyclically and create these sales, these new jobs, and get this economy back on track is the federal government.”
Not so fast . . . millions of private citizens are in a better position to stimulate the economy. The efforts of government action to counter-cyclically create sales has resulted in prolonged periods of dismal performance in the economy. The times that the government has encouraged private sector solutions have been the times of prolonged robust economic performance.
The reasons are not that obtuse. The federal government needs to get money from someplace in order to try to create sales. From wherever that # comes, that place no longer has money to create sales via private investment. The private sector creates sales and jobs when private initiatives increase productivity and add value to customers. The government has no such incentives, and government action will likely result in less productivity, less sales, less income and fewer jobs. At best, government action will be based on political considerations rather than on value added — such as $ for the Bridge to Nowhere. Far more likely, government action will also be accompanied by energy being spent to game the system. In gaming the system, individuals get spending funds without the need to add value — without the need to contribute to what consumers value. This decreases production, income and sales.
The role of government is to force people to spend money or take action in ways that they would not do on their own — the power of the gun. There are cases where such government action is necessary to provide a basis for private investment — cases such as national defense, criminal justice system, and core infrastructure. Wise investment here will add more to productivity than if the funds stayed in private hands. But in efforts to act counter-cyclically, such wisdom is typically forgotten.
policycritic says:
“Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t understand the federal monetary system. He thinks the federal government is broke and has to tighten its belt.”
Where did you get the idea that Obama wants government to tighten its belt? He has been after Congress to spend more on new stimulus plans, jobs plans, and extending unemployment since he took office. The original stimulus plan added almost a trillion dollars to government spending. Because it became part of the baseline budget, the government has been spending that extra money every year since. But what has that extra spending done for the economy? Fewer Americans are working now than at the end of last century, and many of them are having to work part-time. If you think even more government spending will magically solve all our problems, then you are living in Fantasy Land. I suppose you believe the government could put everyone in the country on its payroll, require them to do nothing productive, and then just print money to pay them a hansom salary. What a Utopia! If you can’t see what’s wrong with that picture, you only know enough about economics to be dangerous.
@cynical1, I’m having trouble breathing the 20 ft of water that NYC is supposed to be under. I’m so evil that I actually believed I was shoveling snow this past winter. I was so looking forward to not having to turn the heater on. But my bad self made me, it didn’t want to freeze to death for the sake of the planet. I’m just delusional it wasn’t cold at all. I’m so bad that CAWG models fail.
Something is wrong with your science, but your belief system is intact.
“John Carter says:
July 19, 2014 at 12:31 am
[blah blah blah]
Is it possible that it’s madness, or at least extraordinarily counter productive, to not address the radical change to the long term long lived greenhouse heat trapping gas concentration of the atmosphere [blah blah blah]?
Is it possible that the issue is not being looked at objectively, but instead in a manner focused on finding ways to discredit the idea of climate change, [blah blah blah]?
[blah blah blah]
Is it possible that there is a desire to avoid perceived economic harm, which is the real fear here, possibly among other things, and that is powerfully driving a predetermined resistance to the basic science of climate change, [blah blah blah]?”
Jeff says:
“No.”
@Jeff 10.22 pm
Great post Jeff
My kinda mind!
Yeah, pretty ironic, right? Every once in a while Ole’ Mumblemouth told the the truth.
No I didn’t. I explained somewhere up above that the coming interest on all treasury securities is computed annually (think it’s August) and the US Treasury just issues more treasury securities to cover this interest amount. Nothing more complicated than that.
BTW. Just so you’re clear what this “foreign debt” is: When Walmart pays China $100 million for tires and tchotchkes, Walmart wires the $100 million to China’s checking account at the Fed. That’s the required settlement procedure. China then has four choices: (1) leave it in checking for almost no interest, (2) buy American goods, planes, whatever, (3) exchange it on the open market for Yuan and wire it home, or (4) buy treasury securities (bonds) and earn interest (like buying a CD). So let’s say China chooses (4). It tells the Fed to move the $100 million from its checking account to its savings account at the Fed and it buys $100 million in treasury securities at auction. When China wants to cash them in, it authorizes the Fed to move the $100 million plus interest from its savings account back to its checking account. The act of moving its money from its savings account to its checking account is called “paying off the National Debt.” “Federal debt held by foreign countries” is nothing more than a country parking its money in a savings account at the Fed, although there are fancier names for these accounts.
The Fed and US Treasury do not monetize commodities. Banks, however, are trading in them, and even though it is the Fed’s responsibility to supervise them, it is Congress’ responsibility to say it’s not allowed. Goldman Sachs and the other members of the vampire squid are cornering the markets because Congress allows them to hoard these physical commodities, controlling prices. How many times do I have to say that it is Congress’s JOB to establish the laws on this.
Banks don’t loan to the government! Why would the government need to borrow something it issues itself? The US Treasury issues treasury securities as a reserve drain, and the geniuses on TV call that ‘borrowing’. it’s not.
What??? First of all, the government doesn’t borrow; it doesn’t have to. It issues the currency; it issues treasury securities, the safest financial asset in the world. Everyone who has more than $250Gs in the bank wants them because they are risk-free. The government spends every single day, and sometimes it takes on big projects like the Space Program. Where was the failure in that? The only way that the private sector increases its holdings of net financial assets without government involvement is if someone else reduces their holdings of net financial assets. That’s plain accounting. One person’s asset is another person’s liability. There’s no change in the overall money supply in the system. But if the private sector wants to increase its holdings of net financial assets overall, this desire can only be satisfied by an increase in government deficit spending. Period. Where else is the influx of new money going to come from? Some counterfeiter on Mars? The US government has the monopoly worldwide on creating new US dollars. Banks create credit money.
You deficit spend when the economy is in trouble. You shut off the spiggot when it’s roaring.
How? The private sector can’t issue currency. If it could stimulate the economy, then why hasn’t it done so? Right now, the private sector is either hoarding or paying off debt, but it’s not spending.
The federal government, and the federal government alone, has the monopoly right to issue currency. Worldwide. What I mean by counter-cyclical is that only the federal government has the ability to spend (issue currency) when the private sector can’t.
re the former Chevron scientist, Linda Dismore “Diz” Swift, in the Billings Gazette article i posted earlier.
pity the writer didn’t include the following in the article – it explains her position:
2 July: Billings Gazette: Former Chevron scientist to speak on climate change
For the past four years, she (Linda Dismore “Diz” Swift) has been a guest lecturer on climate change and business at the New York University (Leonard N.) Stern Business School…
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/former-chevron-scientist-to-speak-on-climate-change/article_dd7867c2-aa33-50b5-aee7-0950b3c7e12c.html
The Top Business Schools for Eco-Entrepreneurs
We’ve outlined the hottest areas of opportunity in green business. Here’s where to go to get educated in how to do it.
New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business
New York, N.Y.
Tuition: $43,100
Green Curriculum: Stern offers a specialization in Social Innovation and Impact and features classes like Corporate Branding and Corporate Social Responsibility, Introduction to Environmental and Social Sustainability and Foundations of Social Entrepreneurship…
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219236
The President said it, “just as families have to tighten their belts in tough times, so does the government.” Then he waltzed onto C-Span and declared the US is broke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znZkxN0Ks0M The original stimulus plan was $800 billion, and he used it mainly for tax cuts. But it wasn’t enough to stimulate anything. Besides, who needs a tax cut when you’re out of work and you’re losing your home? You’re complaining about $1 trillion in government spending (which it wasn’t) when the Fed doled out $29 trillion to banks?
None of that stimulus money was used to create a jobs program. A jobs program does NOT mean people go on the government dole. A jobs program means that the government spends to have people working for private companies (who win government contracts) to produce goods and services for public purpose, like fixing our crumbling infrastructure, which needs $3.x trillion, I might add. Designing, creating, and building a national Maglev train system. Installing high-speed broadband across every inch of the country. Improving education by making our kids learn three to four languages fluently so they can compete globally or they can’t graduate high school. Funding scientific research, instead it’s sequestered. Giving Medicare to everyone, not a windfall to the insurance companies. And on and on.
I’m not living in Fantasy Land. The fantasy is believing that federal government accounting doesn’t follow double-entry accounting rules and failing to understand what that means in dollars and cents and operational procedures when you have a sovereign non-convertible currency with a floating exchange rate.
PolicyCritic (July 20, 2014 at 2:59 am) “China then has four choices: (1) leave it in checking for almost no interest, (2) buy American goods, planes, whatever, (3) exchange it on the open market for Yuan and wire it home, or (4) buy treasury securities (bonds) and earn interest (like buying a CD). So let’s say China chooses (4). ”
More ignorance on parade, China is selling US Treasuries. You left of (5): China buys up commodities around the world to our ultimate detriment. And (6) China buys up American real estate creating another unsustainable and ultimately detrimental bubble.
policycritic (July 20, 2014 at 3:41 am) “…Designing, creating, and building a national Maglev train system. Installing high-speed broadband across every inch of the country. Improving education by making our kids learn three to four languages fluently so they can compete globally or they can’t graduate high school…”
Finally PolicyCritic is correct, the government will build mass transit to our detriment. It will waste resources and raise material prices that will starve out the private sector. Mass transit is one of the touted “solutions” to global warming but in fact creates more net CO2. The answer to that is no more mass transit subsidies. Improving education means pushing more global warming propaganda in public schools. The answer to that is probably home schooling, public and private schools are too far gone at this point.
PolicyCritic is a statist pure and simple. Global warming is also driven by statism. Two peas in a pod. Go away PolicyCritic.
Policycritic
How on earth did the us economy ever grow before the government start making investment. You are looking at things like there is a pie and its just how it cut up that matters. If this eas the case we would still be living in caves.
The Chinese don’t have to convert anything into yuan they simple take the dollars and use them to buy goods on the open market. However the as the value of the dollar decreases do to our policy they can buy less. This causes inflation here, have you tried to buy any cloths lately. The other process is they hold on to the treasuries and buy even more to try and keep the money out of circulation this helps keep the value of the dollar up in international markets. What do you think would happen if we followed your system. You can game the system for only so long. The only reason we have been able to do it on the scale we have since the the 80 is because we have enough growth in the economy to offset the down ward pressure on the dollar and because the rest of the world was using dollars which greatly increases the need for dollars. Why in gods name do you think the BRICK countries are pushing so hard to stop using dollars as the international currency. Why do you think the value of the dollar has been shrinking over the last 25 years.
You keep saying the government doesn’t borrow and then you say people earn 6 percent interest on from the safest invest in the world. Which is it, you says the banks don’t cut back on loan to private industries but then you say the earn from the safest investment in the world.
Also treasuries aren’t earning 6 percent it is under 2. Yet we “don’t” pay 400 billion in interest on these non loans, what happens when the economy heats up and interest rises? That’s right we don’t pay interest because we don’t borrow money. Curious why does the interest paid vary on demand then.
Again your view is ridiculous your playing a game in your mind whether it happens directly or indirectly you can’t create something out of nothing.
Apparently the world started in 1940 and its only been government spending that has put us where we are. Yet when I look at the record I see the same thing the government gets out of the way and the economy grows.
When was the last time you think the government actual had good fiscal policy and acted in our best interest and not in the best interest of large corporations and the banks.
Out here in the business world the governments effect on us is tax policy that punishes long term investment. Tax policy that constantly changes and is always retro active. Constant change in regulation do to reactionary government pandering. Constant change in government policy to reward one type of company over another changing the competitive balance for non business reasons. Every company has many employees who’s sole purpose is to work to keep the government and the IRS and regulators happy.
Milton Freedman said it best when in India. Looking at a government run program in India build roads he noticed that they weren’t using a lot of heave equipment and they were using shovels he asked why, he was told “it’s a works program” his reponse was “then why don’t you use spoons”
This is the way government programs work and from your stand point it would make sense to use spoons.
Take a look at India in general, your ideas of government spending where tried there from the 50 until the late 90 with little to no benifit since then they have freed up people to keep the gains of their own efforts and you can see the growth. If it is allowed to continue with it will pull a billion people out off poverty. Growth comes from the private sector the government can have some small effect in regulating the down turn and moderating the up turns but in the end its marginal. When the government tries to be the main player the end result is always the same, gross distortion of the market place leading to down turn then stagnation. The perfect example is the housing crisis. The fed kept interest rates to low trying to stimulate the economy and the government forced banks to lend to people who didn’t have the means to pay off the loans. The end result housing prices rising at ridiculous pace especially in poor neborhoods making people borrowing that couldn’t pay it back. Banks had more and more debt that wasn’t performing so they found ridiculous ways to package the debt and pass it off to unsuspecting fools who were driven to these types of markets because they couldn’t earn enough interest on real investment because of the fed. Distortion of the market because social policy and fear of a recession for political reason. You keep saying it simple but its not the economy is a chaotic system and when the government tries to control it creates distortion some where.
Sound familiar
Weird how this thread on S. Korea’s carbon tax devolved into John Carter’s ignorance and the Federal Reserve. Oh well….