One of the joys of this blog community is that we are not afraid to tackle big problems. My belief is that this Progressive-Libertarian coalition that we are experiencing in extraordinary dialogues like Iraq Five Years Later could actually contribute some new ideas to rescue us from what I think could be a deep financial crisis. To do that I will need the help of the community intelligence in the next couple of weeks to make the notion of The New Federalism (also here ) and all the “Innovation at the Edge” understanding we seem to be coalescing around–to make them real.
To level set about how bad the financial crisis could get, I recommend two articles. First, a recent post from Prof. Roubini at NYU. One of the reasons Roubini’s scenario might materialize is that there are potential limits to growing our way out of the problem–i.e. printing money and lowering rates to 1.5%. The second piece is in a Wall Street Journal article entitled “New Limits To Growth Revive Malthusian Fears”. (As usual WSJ.com is a subscription site). Some excerpts:
As the world grows more populous — the United Nations projects eight billion people by 2025, up from 6.6 billion today — it also is growing more prosperous. The average person is consuming more food, water, metal and power. Growing numbers of China’s 1.3 billion people and India’s 1.1 billion are stepping up to the middle class, adopting the high-protein diets, gasoline-fueled transport and electric gadgets that developed nations enjoy.
The result is that demand for resources has soared. If supplies don’t keep pace, prices are likely to climb further, economic growth in rich and poor nations alike could suffer, and some fear violent conflicts could ensue.
Some of the resources now in great demand have no substitutes. In the 18th century, England responded to dwindling timber supplies by shifting to abundant coal. But there can be no such replacement for arable land and fresh water.
The need to curb global warming limits the usefulness of some resources — coal, for one, which emits greenhouse gases that most scientists say contribute to climate change. Soaring food consumption stresses the existing stock of arable land and fresh water.
“We’re living in an era where the technologies that have empowered high living standards and 80-year life expectancies in the rich world are now for almost everybody,” says economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, which focuses on sustainable development with an emphasis on the world’s poor. “What this means is that not only do we have a very large amount of economic activity right now, but we have pent-up potential for vast increases [in economic activity] as well.” The world cannot sustain that level of growth, he contends, without new technologies.
* * *
One danger is that governments, rather than searching for global solutions to resource constraints, will concentrate on grabbing share.
China has been funding development in Africa, a move some U.S. officials see as a way for it to gain access to timber, oil and other resources. India, once a staunch supporter of the democracy movement in military-run Myanmar, has inked trade agreements with the natural-resource rich country. The U.S., European Union, Russia and China are all vying for the favor of natural-gas-abundant countries in politically unstable Central Asia.
Competition for resources can get ugly. A record drought in the Southeast intensified a dispute between Alabama, Georgia and Florida over water from a federal reservoir outside Atlanta.
* * *
In 2005, China had 15 passenger cars for every 1,000 people, close to the 13 cars per 1,000 that Japan had in 1963. Today, Japan has 447 passenger cars per 1,000 residents, 57 million in all. If China ever reaches that point, it would have 572 million cars — 70 million shy of the number of cars in the entire world today.
China consumes 7.9 million barrels of oil a day. The U.S., with less than one quarter as many people, consumes 20.7 million barrels. “Demand will be going up, but it will be constrained by supply,” ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer James Mulva has told analysts. “I don’t think we are going to see the supply going over 100 million barrels a day, and the reason is: Where is all that going to come from?”
This is a tall order for a completely new approach to growth, resource allocation and technological innovation. So here is what I’m going to start to write about over the next month. What would a truly decentralized American Governance Scheme called New Federalism look like? How can we give states and municipalities much more money and freedom to innovate by removing Federal duplicative and expensive bureaucracies in HUD, Transportation, Agriculture, Labor, Education? To do this we will need to still keep growing our economy, though hopefully along these much more efficient lines. If Jeff Sachs is right (and just in case he is) we are going to need new technologies to create higher living standards at much less conventional energy cost.
Here are a few ideas I want to explore.
Question 1-What will those new transformational technologies be and how can we accelerate them?
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Greentech & Alternative Energy
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Extreme Improvements in Communications technology-(HD Video conference vs. long distance travel)
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The building of an Industrial Water desalinization capability and leave the fresh water aquifers to human water consumption
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What others?
The History of technology innovation shows that this kind of rapid innovation must occur at the edges, in same way that DARPA fed the birth of the networked computer age. Given that we want more responsibility and tax revenues directed to the states without Federal intervention–
Question 2-What would the tax structure look like in a New Federalist world?
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VAT?
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Lower Fed income tax?
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Higher state income tax?
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Patriot Gas Tax?
Question 3-What would the regulatory structure be?
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My sense if the FCC, FDA, Fed, EPA should set the standards, but this is quite tricky. Market sense would say there would not be a race to the bottom to cut education, because business would not want an uneducated work force. However, markets do fail as we have seen in the last week. What is not needed is a patchwork of regulations. California won the right to deal with tailpipe emissions on its own, because it recognized the problem long before any one else. But going forward this is going to be the most important balancing act.
27 responses so far ↓
Another Jon // March 24, 2008 at 11:49 am |
Jon, this is an excellent direction to take this discussion and is right in line with my way of thinking. ‘New Federalism’ is a strong idea as it relates to a model of de-centralized, bottom up growth. If there is one thing that this discussion has taught us already though, it is that words are impregnated with meaning beyond the basic idea. So although ‘New Federalism’ is a way to describe it now, I hope it can begin to take on a new vocabulary to avoid needless rhetorical arguments.
If I could offer you some fodder to get the brain spinning some more….there is an excellent book called “1000 Years of Non-Linear History” by Manuel de Landa that I think would be right up your alley. That is….if you have not read it already.
Morgan Warstler // March 24, 2008 at 12:18 pm |
Looks like we “may” be able to stop worrying about the global warming part tho…
“When they were first deployed in 2003, the Argos were hailed for their ability to collect information on ocean conditions more precisely, at more places and greater depths and in more conditions than ever before. No longer would scientists have to rely on measurements mostly at the surface from older scientific buoys or inconsistent shipboard monitors.
So why are some scientists now beginning to question the buoys’ findings? Because in five years, the little blighters have failed to detect any global warming. They are not reinforcing the scientific orthodoxy of the day, namely that man is causing the planet to warm dangerously. They are not proving the predetermined conclusions of their human masters. Therefore they, and not their masters’ hypotheses, must be wrong.
In fact, “there has been a very slight cooling,” according to a U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) interview with Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a scientist who keeps close watch on the Argo findings.
Dr. Willis insisted the temperature drop was “not anything really significant.” And I trust he’s right. But can anyone imagine NASA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the UN’s climate experts — shrugging off even a “very slight” warming.”
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=8926a1d3-f43f-4f8b-811d-0a0daa3e1012&k=39580
Granted it is just another data point, burt indeed a strong one. In light of it, and to further the new federalism discussion, how about we take off the table carbon footprint reduction as a universal goal, and agree it should be left up to the states and cities.
Jon Taplin // March 24, 2008 at 12:39 pm |
Another Jon- I will get the de Landa book today.
Morgan- I’m not willing to take global warming off the table based on one small data set. Needless to say we both agree that we need to reduce our consumption of oil, so for practical purposes, we are going to lower our carbon footprint. As to the use of coal, I still think it needs to be cleaned up big time.
thegiantsnail // March 24, 2008 at 12:48 pm |
What I see coming is a radical sociological change. The agrarian to industrial transformation valued labor above land. However, we are on the edge of a revolution in robotics. We will see a sharp drop in labor prices and a great increase in land prices. Energy will also be critical.
Malthusian fears do need to be revisited, but also Marxist fears. A man is most vulnerable to abuses when he is least capable of providing a definite good. If we value humanity, we must give an equal voice to everyone. Some degree of economic equality is needed in addition to democracy. I think the latter will take care of the former to some degree, but what needs to be clarified and made bolder is our common valuation of each other.
An open source robotics movement may be enough to fulfill the basic needs of everyone- provided we accept a certain level of planning with regards to resource consumption and allocation.
Kevin // March 24, 2008 at 1:37 pm |
Morgan – why are you citing old information about the Argos data?
As far back as April of 2007 the cooling from Argos was identified as the result of bad data from faulty floats. Removing the bad data removed the cooling indication.
From the Argos site (December 2007 newsletter):
In the spring of this year, it was discovered
that Argo profiles from SOLO floats with FSI CTD from the WHOI Argo Program had incorrect pressure values. Profile data may have been offset upward by one or more pressure
levels, resulting in a significant cold bias for these instruments.
http://www-argo.ucsd.edu/Frnewsletter.html
More info on the Argo problem at Real Climate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/ocean-cooling-not
Danny Kenny // March 24, 2008 at 2:04 pm |
John,
Roubini’s analysis is correct, but his solutions to the problem are incorrect. Like Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them,” aka, Keynesian economics. I think a synthesis of both your ideas of a ‘new federalism’ and a solution to the current credit crisis is put forth by George Reisman:
http://georgereisman.com/blog/2008/03/our-financial-house-of-cards-and-how-to.html
Not a big fan of environmentalism (nor am I), but his economics is sound (although Keynesians would disagree, I don’t think they are in any place to critique anyone right now)
Morgan Warstler // March 24, 2008 at 2:56 pm |
Kevin, huh?
I’m not citing data to claim the oceans are cooling, the point is the early conclusions of global warming are more in doubt. Do we need more data? Sure! But still this is good news. It buys us some more time to wait before any radical actions are taken. I like this Argos thing, it is groovy science.
Jon,
I’ll only go along with the lower oil thing. I like coal. And if Kevin is wrong about the ocean bobbers, we should be willing to burn lots and lots of it.
But yes, if we can first set a total amount of taxes you wish to take from the populace, and set that amount in stone, I’m very much interested in using that policy to promote energy independence.
Danny Kenny // March 24, 2008 at 4:00 pm |
Sorry, two typos…
Jon (sorry, bad habit)
‘his economics are sound’
or
‘his economic theory is sound’
Kevin // March 24, 2008 at 5:12 pm |
Argos is indeed good science, because they can correct their mistakes. There are NO studies showing a cooling ocean. So there is no good news from Argos.
Further more data is NOT required to show the earth is warming and the primary cause is carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere by mankind. That data is in, from multiple sources, and unlike the claim that the oceans are cooling, hasn’t been refuted despite decades of study.
More data collection is always good, but always waiting for the one study that will justify your beliefs just wastes time and money.
In the previous thread you were always pushing for an exact tax rate. Why don’t you put some exact numbers behind your “waiting” how many studies must there be before global warming is “proved”? How many climate scientists must agree that global warming is caused by man?
Jon Taplin // March 24, 2008 at 5:23 pm |
Danny Kenny- I read the George Reisman piece. What I don’t understand is how can the Fed by Fiat value their gold holdings at $12,500 per ounce, when the market price is $1000 per ounce? My general sense is that any return to a gold standard is probably pretty far fetched.
kevin // March 24, 2008 at 5:31 pm |
Ah, I see the issue. You seem to equate no show of warming from Argo with a possiblity of no global warming (or at least a leveling off at current temps).
That point was brought up, and answered, by several commenters in the Real Climate link I provided earlier.
There are several studies (linked to in the Real Climate article) that show the ocean’s warming over a longer period of time than Argo has existed. So which studies do we believe?
Well according to actual observed ocean heat, it isn’t common but it has happened where there are multi-run years of decreasing heat content. But the relentless trend upward continues soon enough.
http://www.realclimate.org/figure2_hansen05.jpg
If you see smoke pouring from a house do you really want to wait until the roof is on fire to call the fire dept?
Danny Kenny // March 24, 2008 at 6:23 pm |
Jon,
The reason they can do it, is because it won’t be freely convertible standard. Meaning that it would simply be a means to keep the money supply constant, by attaching it, temporarily, to something of value. Rather, it is a temporary segway, to avoid the devastating effects that deflation would have on our economy. I have not read any other satisfactory solution to this problem, without a country wide acceptance of deflation (accepting wage cuts, price cuts, etc.), or the hyperinflation route, which would be to raise every other price level in the US to that of housing. Neither option is appealing, and both would probably have devastating effects on the national psyche, while also stagnating growth, and increasing unemployment.
I do not think inflation at this point is a worry, and I think Bernanke knows this. We absolutely must prevent deflation. The peg that Reismann mentions is simply to eliminate the evaporation of money/leverage/credit that is currently happening, which could lead us into a deflationary spiral.
This solution gives us properly functioning banks, which will have the capital necessary to issue credit to help us start growing again. You also don’t have the government coming in and buying toxic mortgages, adding onto its massive debt, while also setting the solid groundwork for future economic growth.
Is this an ideal way to re-introduce a gold standard? Certainly not. It is artificial, but temporarily stabilizing. House prices would be allowed to reach a clearing level/equilibrium, banks would be able to issue credit while still being punished for their risk taking (while I see the Fed as the ‘great enabler’, I do not empathize with most of the bankers), and, most importantly, we will avoid the havoc that deflation would do to our economy by creating a backstop for the money supply.
I think the main conceptual problem that people might have with this is that they assume that this gold would be backing the currency. But it is, and it isn’t. It would be an artificial gold standard, and for conceptual purposes, I would still say it’s a fiat currency. It is not technically backed by the gold, because the gold isn’t worth that much in the open market. But how is that any different from the current system? Our current fiat money is backed by the willingness of foreigners to take our debt, and now, toxic mortgage backed securities, both of which are declining in numbers and value respectively.
Now, I’m not sure how well I’ve explained it. I was unlucky enough to never have an Austrian as a teacher, although my background is a haberdash duo of keynesian economics and classical liberal political philosophy, the former of which I have come to reject. I’ve only read a few Rothbard books, but he is quite good, and probably has the best diagnosis of the great depression that I’ve read.
Morgan Warstler // March 24, 2008 at 6:40 pm |
Well, just by my gut, before we go any further, I want Argos to show some kind of actual real Ocean warming.
That Nasa’s satellite atmosphere thing looks pretty good too. Maybe watch that for a year or two, if nothing happens, watch for a few more, if something happens, watch for a few more. We’re only getting better at watching. Let’s get soem more data. Right now, as I’ve said before, it sounds like socialists screaming we must appease the weather gods.
Now, before that, before we take “more government” action because of warming, we can agree I think on zeroed-out tax policy to decrease oil dependence.
Thats something, right? Any ideas other you have that hire no new government employees, or even better, fire them, I’m interested.
Danny Kenny // March 24, 2008 at 6:41 pm |
A couple quick things:
I agree with you that a gold standard is pretty far-fetched. Even Reisman admits this himself.
Also, I think this really needs to be emphasized, and points to the backward thinking that is currently going on right now at the Fed. Lowering interest rates has done nothing, will do nothing, and is harming the economic situation here. Japan tried it in the 90’s, with a 0% interest rate for many years, and they had a population that actually saved money. You cannot force the banks to lend money. You can, however, make foreign investment into the US attractive again by raising interest rates. This will not really affect the banks, as they already have their TAF, PDAF, etc etc, but it will stop the capital flight that is occurring, and act as a temporary floor under the dollar (it will rise in relative terms against some other currencies, but not in real terms, because we have a spendthrift congress with no understanding of economics, point in case, former Senator/McCain advisor, Dr (in econ) Phil Graham, advocate of the removal of Glass Steagall, and current board member of UBS).
This just shows how terrible ‘in the box’ thinking can be. Our ‘greatest scholar’ of the Great Depression, is repeating all the errors that originally caused the great depression, because he believes in an economic framework which is totally incapable of explaining either the Great Depression or the stagflation of the 70’s and 80’s. And there is absolutely nothing innovative about what he is currently doing, all of his ‘tricks’ have been tried before, and have failed miserably. Look up ‘Operation Twist’. I’m waiting for the revival of Carter’s WIN (Whip Inflation Now).
STS // March 24, 2008 at 8:14 pm |
Make that Gerald Ford’s Whip Inflation Now.
Agreed our understanding of the 1930’s economic crisis is rather imperfect. That said, I’m not too impressed with Reisman’s idea. If you don’t make the dollar convertible into gold, what would a “price” of $12,700/oz. signify? Why would anyone take any notice?
Jonathan Putnam // March 24, 2008 at 8:33 pm |
Jon,
Thanks for the interesting discussion. This topic is something I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about over the past few years. In general I mean the problem of adequately understanding complex, global issues and then forming proper solutions.
Before I dive into my thoughts on the matter, I want to briefly describe a pivotal summer of reading. Around 2001, I read Buckminster Fuller’s Critical Path, Natural Capitalism, and Edward G. Griffin’s The Creature From Jekyll Island. Any one of these books alone would have been a relevant read, but together, they presented a revelation.
Fuller is well-known and hugely influential. His central premise is that we have the technological know-how to provide an adequate life for every person on the planet. True, this was published nearly 30 years ago, but his insights still stand, and should be required reading for those looking to solve the huge problems facing our world. Fuller’s chapter “Leagally Piggily” outlines many of the themes present in Griffin’s work. Namely, the systematic perversion of free markets and sovereign nations by cloaked financial interests. To keep this comment short, I will not elaborate, other than to say I find many of Griffin’s conclusions and projections rather wrong. Still, his book accurately documents the genesis of our money system and casts a focused light on the history of capital bailouts that continue to this day.
Natural Capitalism has rightly fallen in favor with both the general public and Big Business. Essentially, the authors cast the environmental problem through a dollars-and-sense lens: eliminating waste will ultimately boost the bottom line. It’s heartening to see many of their recommendations gaining widespread support, however belatedly.
I only mention those books as a way of illuminating what I view as the central problem facing us: Information Management. It is clear that many solutions to our problems lay scattered before us. With that knowledge, the real problem is that we have no systematic method to evaluate these disparate solutions and judge them qualitatively.
Initially, I envisioned some type of souped-up Slashdot-style modertion, combined with a twist of Amazon’s recommendation system to help navigate the signal to noise onslaught that is the net. After a little searching (2002?) I came across Nooron, which seemed interesting.
Nooron is (was?) the project of a Vancouver-based software developer who became increasingly frustrated by the difficulties inherent in complex communication. I highly suggest you peruse the site, especially the overview, How to Build a Global Brain.
Sadly, it seems the software has been at a standstill, but we can see the fruits of such thinking in services like flickr, del.icio.us, digg, last.fm and others. In their own specialized ways, these sites are about filtering the enormous flow of noise on the net into signal that we can act upon.
The problem is that currently, these services are fairly rudimentary, and offer little in the way of communicating our tastes and interests amongst each other. There are literally millions of different competing systems, and little underlying mechanism to communicate information flow between these systems.
What we need is an effective, interoperable way to attach associations to information based on a nominal identity. Sorry to be so obtuse. Let me explain a little:
I tend to read my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I really like the “share” button on each post. I also like that you can tag posts. However, the fact is that Google’s tags are not nearly up to the ease of use and convenience available through the del.icio.us Firefox plugin. Also, Google Bookmarks, which I tend to use from time to time, are not easily reconcilable with either system. Although aggregators are starting to crop up, the fact remains it is rather difficult to synthesize the various useful features.
What we need is a uniform set of hooks that we can cast our lines into. Also, it would help to have a fixed location to associate this disparate information to (XDI . . .?) This will eventually improve our democracy and, as a result, the global politic. I have glossed over many points, but hope I have done something to help your Question #1.
As for number two, why not add a pollution/waste tax? This is one of the suggestions in Natural Capitalism and it seems to jive with me (granted, there is the possibility of bureaucratic malfeasance/confusion)
As for Question 3, I am certain we need to adhere to a minimum global standard. The bar should not be set low, in any domain. You’re right, this is probably the trickiest . . .
I hope the info in this comment somewhat counteracts the length
ps-if you’re going to invite these conversations (and I think you should!) you may want to consider adding the subscribe-to-comments plugin. Preview would be nice too ( I’m not sure if I screwed up the links!)
Danny Kenny // March 24, 2008 at 8:56 pm |
STS,
Thanks for the correction. I always forget that Carter actually wasn’t as bad domestically as people want to make him out to be.
I will get back to you tomorrow afternoon on the gold. It’s late here in NYC…
Jon Taplin // March 24, 2008 at 10:20 pm |
Danny- I think you are right that the current Fed bag of tricks is not going to solve the problem. It is after all a solvency question not a confidence question as the lunkheads on CNBC claim. That’s why the pushing on a string metaphor is so descriptive.
Like STS,I just can’t see how the Gold Peg would work
rhb // March 24, 2008 at 10:26 pm |
As I read the article on Malthusian fears I couldn’t help but think of this:
Space . . .
Robert Ardrey posed the question for the ages
When he offered up his treatise on rats in cages.
As space recedes, said he, the pace of life leaves us no
Time to breathe, crowds in, forces us to cross against
The yellow to red light, doesn’t wait nor hesitate.
The breath of fresh air becomes the fetid exhale.
Heat, the result of speed,
Expands each encounter
Press
Sure as a cavein cuts off
Light
Turns day into night, begins the claustrophobic fright.
Crushed against each other, each instant seems longer and so the
Press
Sure grows
We move
Race against
The red light or even more (maddeningly)Cruise through it at the end of the line obdurately refusing to look left or right.
You know this truth even as you sit in denial waiting for the last car to hurtle
Past and the cars behind you begin their honking cry
All ready to race to where the next lights lie.
And even each recognition of this act of speed compressing,
Instead of giving us peace,
Becomes another form of the press
Sure to push us even faster.
Ever closer to the edge of that despair. Consumed, subsumed . . .
Our terror turning ist.
And meanwhile, there it is blinking, the cursor light winking,
With its only eye telling us
That it’s
Pentium (Trademarked) process can take us there,
Race us there out into inner space,
Our gameboys palmpiloted.
Our implanted synapses
Imploding at Warp 8.
Which seems great, until
We realize like the Star Trekkers we so wish we were,”Beam me up Scotty”
That that is the speed at which our universe begins to disintegrate,
Begins to un relate.
And only
Super (the person that is) can reverse our fate,
Can retract the boarding gate,
Can reinvent the late great time when we all had a little SPACE . . .
rhbee 2008
pond // March 25, 2008 at 9:55 am |
Jon, you write:
“To do this we will need to still keep growing our economy, though hopefully along these much more efficient lines.”
This after you quote some illuminating statistics about how much the average Joe in USA consumes vs. the average Wu in China.
It just strikes me as bizarre. The whole point, as far as I can tell, of the WSJ article, is that we are running out of some things that are vital to life. And you want to ‘grow.’
One thing that would be of great help to any future life here, whether it is a New Federalist or the New Fascist society, would be a people that are educated, committed, engaged, rational. It would also help if we were plain old *sane* — if we could go back to some of the virtues of our ancestors, like saving money instead of spending more than we make and digging deeper into debt, and like honesty, and reason, and respect for science, and like not treating the world as if we owned it.
We could make a big step forward by embracing a New Isolationism, which I realize is anathema to every mainstream politician out there.
I would also raise tariffs across the board both nationally and regionally, to support local industry. The New Federalism you suggest must depend upon local solutions for local problems, even where those problems are also present in other regions.
Losing ‘arable land and fresh drinkable water’ is no joke. I’m afraid the libertarians and conservatives would hate the idea, but payments should be made for degrading the environment. I see no evidence that free men working for profit have ever been able to thrive when they took care of the environment.
A paper mill owner who spends the money to clean up his waste water will always be at a cost disadvantage to one who just dumps his toxic wastes into the river. When I go to Staples to buy paper I don’t know, and can’t know, which brand is a good one in this regard. I can and do know which costs less.
Sorry for the wandering comments.
STS // March 25, 2008 at 11:05 am |
The problem we have is what Kant once called Cosmopolitan Law. Habermas expounded this problem (in his usual nearly-incomprehensible manner) in a lecture
last year.
Kant’s vision was essentially world federalism. Blend GHW Bush’s “New World Order” into Jon’s “New Federalism” and you have a rough sense of the concept.
pond,
Your vision of an autarkic America has a long history, but the walls we would need to build wouldn’t be able to hold out the wider world. (How’s that fence on the Mexican border coming along…) There is no Walled Garden we can retreat into.
Bush & the Neo-cons have a specific vision of the New World Order — a monarchy with the President of the United States as king. The Unitary executive theory makes the President king of America, and the Project for a New American Century combines arbitrary world government (by right of conquest) by the United States with the imperial presidency.
Napoleon Buonaparte, eat your heart out!
Unfortunately, the United States is headed for a predictable bankruptcy — simply can’t afford to be a king who must “live of his own“. So instead the imperial American President will have to go back to Parliament (the UN, or larger world community) to raise funds and support for the project of world governance.
Sorry, Morgan. I know royalist swashbuckling narratives make for better movies than Prime Minister’s Questions, but the latter is a better picture of America’s foreign policy future.
Jon Taplin // March 25, 2008 at 1:16 pm |
Jonathan Putnam-I agree with your thoughts about Bucky Fuller and Hawken’s Natural Capitalism. I thought they were both important attempts to look at the big problems. I would add “Small is Beautiful” as another key text.
I think both ideas you put forth–Better Information Management and the pollution/waste tax should be considered.
Pond- You are absolutely right. We cannot push “growth” as the solution to our problems. How do we create surplus wealth and not chew up the natural capital that Jonathan Putnam was referring to? This is the tough one.
I am intrigued by your New Isolationism. Maybe David Ricardo was wrong? Could you tease this idea out a little further?
STS- I tend to agree that the New American Century Project is headed for Chapter 11. What I’m trying to figure out is how to save California (the world’s sixth largest economy) from being dragged down with the Bush Bankruptcy. Since we only get back 39 cents for every dollar we send to Washington (as opposed to Mississippi getting $1.15 for every dollar) , I figure we need a better deal.
Danny Kenny // March 26, 2008 at 3:05 pm |
Not having a PhD in economics, or nearly a strong enough understanding of what Reisman wants to do exactly, I am going to read his explanations, which he said would be following.
I just happen to think it sounds a lot better than anything being proposed right now. When the editorial board of the WSJ, the supposed free market paper, advocated government knocking down houses to put a floor under prices, it remind me of how the New Deal ’solved’ the Great Depression, when FDR destroyed food to keep its prices high. These are the same economists who think that Katrina ‘helped’ our economy because we had to pay to reconstruct New Orleans.
And so called ‘free-market’ advocates, now welcoming regulation with open arms (so they can get bailed out now), not realizing that regulation is what got us here in the first place (banks storing depreciating assets in off balance sheet to avoid regulation).
Jon – Schumacher is one my favorite reads. A guide for the perplexed was one of the books that inspired me to get into philosophy.
STS // March 26, 2008 at 3:34 pm |
Danny:
From my reading of what Reisman has posted so far, this was my main objection:
If it’s reasonable to augment the current exchange value of the Fed’s 260m oz. of gold (now about $900/oz) by $11,800/oz to match the gold supply to the total money supply (I think he’s referring to M1), how is that different from simply “printing” the required $3T ($11,800/oz * 260 million oz. = $3.068 Trillion)?
As with most arguments about a gold standard, the shiny yellow metal is being introduced as a constraint on money supply. The real issue is disciplining the tendency of the money supply to grow faster than the economy does. If you don’t force the banks to exchange the gold for dollars fairly freely, it isn’t clear to me that anything significant has been accomplished. You might as easily declare a fixed limit to M1 by statute.
But of course, the goal isn’t constant M1 (or M2 or your favorite measure) anyway. Keeping the price level steady means expanding the money supply at a pace which matches economic growth.
Morgan Warstler // March 26, 2008 at 7:33 pm |
Jesus, I keep saying this, but why not allow anyone who buys a home here, and learns to speak English, a Greencard on the path to citizenship?
Besides, instantly our H1-B issue goes away. The housing problem is not an issue, we just need more people.
Bruce Nash // March 27, 2008 at 10:27 am |
I’m a little late to this conversation, but thought I’d throw in some thoughts, in answer to Jon’s original questions:
1. Transformational technologies
I think we need to look at this from three perspectives: production, distribution and consumption. In each area, we should seek to both make the energy we use more clean and to reduce the overall amount of energy we use. Reducing energy consumption by 10% (which might be easy) is as good as reducing pollution by 10% for each unit of energy (which might be hard).
So, Jon, I think your list is a good start, to which I’d add:
- Reducing energy consumption per mile for transporting humans and goods.
I think trains are good in this regard. A new personal transportation infrastructure would be hugely ambitious, but is worth exploring. (See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit ).
2. Tax Structure
I think a consumption tax based on the true cost of a good would be ideal. I recognize that this might be incredibly difficult to implement, but factoring in the environmental, health and military costs of a good would have a number of benefits. e.g., Tax junk food more steeply than healthy food; tax gas in proportion to our military spending in the Middle East and other oil-rich regions; tax cars by weight (to reflect their damage to the roads) etc.. This seems to me like the best approach from a market perspective — if you look at the economy at a truly macro level.
I think leaving income taxes to the states is an interesting idea. I’d also have an inheritance tax that specifically funds educational programs, with the schools/buildings etc. named after the people who get hit with the tax.
Bruce
Malthus Redux? « Jon Taplin’s Blog // June 16, 2008 at 8:08 am |
[...] Back in March, I posed the question of whether the growth of a new middle class in the developing world was going to stress the world’s capacity to provide food and fuel. At that time Light crude (above) was selling for $85 a barrel and there were no food riots in Egypt, Pakistan, India, Thailand and Sudan. Yesterday, The New York Times weighed in on this question. They presented a balanced view on both sides of the story, concentrating more on the food issue than the fuel. The whole world has never come close to outpacing its ability to produce food. Right now, there is enough grain grown on earth to feed 10 billion vegetarians, said Joel E. Cohen, professor of populations at Rockefeller University and the author of “How Many People Can the Earth Support?” But much of it is being fed to cattle, the S.U.V.’s of the protein world, which are in turn guzzled by the world’s wealthy. [...]