Guest essay by Eric Worrall
How will Joe Biden marshal the private savings of US citizens to address the climate crisis? The UN thinks half of the $75 trillion required to save the world from climate change must come from private investors. The South China Morning Post thinks China’s authoritarian control of private savings will give China an advantage of the West when it comes to green investments, though they believe Biden could catch up with China by appointing a financial system tsar.
As Joe Biden prepares to rejoin the global fight against climate change, who will foot the bill?
To garner the necessary funds to combat climate change, the US needs a financial system tsar who can push Wall Street to come up with products linked directly to long-term investment in individual UN Sustainable Development Goals
Anthony Rowley
Published: 3:30am, 28 Dec, 2020US President-elect Joe Biden has promised to go full tilt into action against climate change from the first day of his presidency on January 20. But, in fighting an impending climate crisis, he and other advanced-nation leaders may encounter an unexpected enemy – a crisis of market capitalism.
The two things are closely connected, but this fact does not appear to have dawned yet on policymakers, investors and others who are raring to go into battle against climate change and other existential threats. Saving the planet is going to cost money, and no one is sure where it will come from.
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So, unless capital markets can come up with some radical new ideas on how to translate private savings into the colossal amounts needed to save the planet and its inhabitants, and do so quickly, state intervention to bypass markets will almost certainly become necessary.
State-dominated financial systems (among which China’s is by far the biggest) seem likely – by virtue of their ability to marshal savings behind mega social and economic projects – to leave market economies behind in the race to “go green” and contribute to saving life on Earth.
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Attaining the goals, the UN said, was going to be very costly. The total bill could amount to US$5 trillion per year over the 15-year life of the SDG implementation period up to 2030, or around US$75 trillion in total – roughly equal to one year’s global gross domestic product.
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It is customary for governments to finance public goods, but the UN suggested that governments would not be able to foot anything like the entire bill. The public sector would be unlikely to supply more than around a half, leaving savers and investors in capital markets to provide the rest.
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Read more: https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3115215/joe-biden-prepares-rejoin-global-fight-against-climate-change-who
China has taken government control of the economy to a bit of an extreme recently. Although the South China Morning Post is not government owned to my knowledge, SCMP’s parent company Alibaba Group has run into a few regulatory difficulties lately, and has accepted a very recent requirement for placement of government employees into management oversight positions in major private tech companies. So I think it is fair to say the Chinese government likely has a lot more influence over the South China Morning Post than they used to.
It is not clear if SCMP is suggesting a similar regime for the USA, but there are precedents; for example its normal for US businesses to temporarily accept the presence of government officials on their premises, if oversight agencies suspect financial irregularities or other forms of non-compliance.
This regime of regulatory oversight could be extended to include a mandatory climate resilience requirement. Corporate consultants already provide climate stress testing services, to help companies understand how their assets and activities could be impacted by climate change, so the infrastructure is already in place should the Biden administration choose to make climate compliance as important as any other form of regulatory compliance.
In Pennsylvania there are 205,000 more votes than voters.
But I don’t suppose facts matter.
https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2021/01/01/fact-check-there-were-not-more-votes-than-voters-pennsylvania/4107576001/
https://twitter.com/i/status/1335443868867829761
To garner the necessary funds to combat climate change, the US needs a financial system tsar who can push Wall Street to come up with products linked directly to long-term investment in individual UN Sustainable Development Goals
Leftists like to spend everyone else’s money for them on things they don’t want or need, accomplishing nothing of worth.
Meanwhile humans are adapting to the glacially slow process of climate change all the time the way they’ve always done it: by modest individual changes as needed, usually over several generations.
Take away Leftist’s toys by never electing them to a position of power.
We are a nation of economic illiterates. Warren Buffett became one of the world’s richest men based on a simple concept, The concept is simple, it is the execution that is difficult. Buffett started with around $150,000 and earned a compounded 20% rate of return over 50 years, and is now worth $80 billion. (This is a greatly simplified version of what he did,) The two critical factors that made him wealthy are his high rate of return, 20%, and the time value of money, 20% compounding over 50 years.
We are planning to run the Warren Buffett model for the creation of wealth in reverse on a huge scale. We plan to take $75 trillion in capital out of the US economy that returns 10% annually over any 20 year period using the US stock market returns as a proxy, and invest in a conversion to solar and wind that has a negative rate of return. We are effectively borrowing at 10% to earn less than 0%.
This intentional economic destruction of wealth on such a massive scale will dramatically lower our standard of living for future generations. Because China and India will continue to build coal fired utilities, the Global Temperature 50 years from now will be about the same had we done nothing, even accepting the AGW theory.
Having spent all of this capital, power will cost three times as much as
fossil fuels, and will be much less reliable.
We are led by colossal ignoramuses.
OK, fine. GoatGuy’s (very seriously considered), equitable speculative investment strategies to ‘solve’ this:
[1] Invest in one’s own community, region, state, nation FIRST. 55%.
[2] Invest in one’s ALLIES next, to the degree of the alliance. 33%
[3] Invest in HIGH UTILITY conservancy, broadly 6%
[4] Invest in MARKETING of the roads and goals met to success 3%
[5] Invest in TARIFFs and Trade Equalizers
And there you go. Pretty much the whole ‘nut’. Turns out that this would really be the winning strategy… since a country like America (or China for that matter) isn’t going to be getting ANY donations from any other country; we’re expected to shell out, not cash in. Fair enough… the above formula works just fine.
Just saying,
-= GoatGuy =-
Of course China is expecting to get money
They are a 3rd world country WRT climate change, don’t forget
The poor dears
Well, “tilt” is right. As I remember from my pinball days “tilt” means – “Game over, you lose.”
Patterns always repeat
Here in Canada various actors have recently stated that we are sitting on our savings, all of us have to do our part to save the country and the world in the great reset
You just know they are thinking of ways to take
Of course, on Tuesday they worry about people having too much debt
Would be nice to see two coherent rational thoughts from our clown based government
But alas, clowns
From the article: “US President-elect Joe Biden has promised to go full tilt into action against climate change from the first day of his presidency on January 20. But, in fighting an impending climate crisis, he and other advanced-nation leaders may encounter an unexpected enemy-a crisis of market capitalsim.”
Biden will also encounter pushback from the Red States.
Here’s a good article:
https://www.wnd.com/2020/12/bidens-green-agenda-facing-big-roadblock-states/
Biden’s green agenda facing big roadblock from states
The United States government long ago figured out how to “marshal private savings.” Just fund what it wants to fund, and both borrow money to cover it, and print new money to cover the shortfall. Investors will buy the debt, if the rate of return is greater than or equal to what they can get in the private bond market. Meanwhile, the new money added to the money supply dilutes that supply, reducing its value. That last is how the government taps into private savings without any action noticed by private savers. If you have $100 saved, and the government increases M1, “the total physical currency and coin, demand deposits, travelers’ checks, other checkable deposits, and negotiable order of withdrawal NOW) accounts” by $1 trillion, your $100 is now worth only $95.87 – whether it is in a 401K, IRA, or just in your pocket.
From October 2020 to November 2020, M1 increased from $5.5799 trillion to $6.0482 trillion, an increase of $468.3 billion. Total US liquid savings was $11.6143 trillion. So your $100 cash on hand (or other savings) was reduced by $4.03, without you seeing any tax bill, or feeling the greedy hand of politicians in your pocket. But that hand was there, and it will continue to be there until you wake up, and stop demanding federal funding for any purpose other than covering the cost of the legitimate functions of government as defined by the US Constitution. Those legitimate costs are way, way less than $3.8 trillion a year.
[A 4% loss in one month…how can anyone think that is sustainable?]
“The South China Morning Post thinks China’s authoritarian control of private savings will give China an advantage of the West when it comes to green investments”
Authoritarian control over “private” savings.
Perhaps what it needed here to clear up the confusion is a definition of “private”. Maybe it’s one of those words that doesn’t readily translate into Mandarin. 😏
But the reality is that based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with the models, the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. It is all a matter of science. The reality is that the AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and is really full of holes. AGW is really a form of science fiction. Money trying to alter climate is money wasted. We do not even know what the optimum climate is let alone how to achieve it.
one of the many reasons for cashless society rubbish was so they could “tax/tariff” EVERY transaction globally a fraction of a cent per$
the accumulation ends up being pretty hefty sums.
think it was the imf n worldbank talking about that some time ago
and its why i try to use cash only as much as I can
Only 75 trillion to save the planet, put me down for a couple of bucks. I really need the money.
“So, unless capital markets can come up with some radical new ideas on how to translate private savings into the colossal amounts needed to save the planet and its inhabitants, and do so quickly, state intervention to bypass markets will almost certainly become necessary.
State-dominated financial systems (among which China’s is by far the biggest) seem likely – by virtue of their ability to marshal savings behind mega social and economic projects”
Here let me fix that for you….
So, unless capital markets can come up with some radical new ideas on how to confiscate the colossal amounts needed to save the planet and its inhabitants, and do so quickly, state intervention to bypass markets will almost certainly become necessary.
State-dominated financial systems (among which China’s is by far the biggest) seem likely – by virtue of their ability to steal private savings behind mega social and economic projects
I think I get the drift, the political philosophy that has murdered more people in the world than any other has the solution to save life on earth! That will fit in well with the green deal.
After China knowingly or perhaps unwittingly unleashed planetary biowarfare, and lied about it, why should we even bother to comment on any “news” article that comes out of the lying Chinese media propaganda machine? SCMP, based in Hong Kong (now part of Red China), is a media corporation that has been gobbling up or gaining strong positions in print media, electronic media and social media for decades, including many familiar (formerly U.S.) magazines and Internet companies. Don’t think for a second that they are objective, independent, honest, fair or balanced.
So they want to take people’s life savings? Confiscate them? Take everything I saved during my life?
And why would I obey any laws if government took away all my property? Why would anyone else?
Suddenly you see exactly why they wanted to ban guns in US. This is their end goal – taking away all private property and instituting global communism and they’re open about it.
Well, communism is, fundamentally, organised theft.
This is competition we don’t want to engage in. Let them spend their money foolishly.