[Vision2020] Economics, Science, Anthropocene & Tax Cuts During War?

[Ted Moffett]

Chas et. al.

Vision2020 has sufficient "dangerous living" at this time. Good grief!  I
don't want to add more...

Economics is a discipline that is very complex, multidimensional,
simultaneously involving law, politics, culture, ethics, the psychology of
expectations, and the mathematics of the functioning of economic systems, a
subject that is not a hard "science" in the same sense as chemistry,
physics, biology, or climate science. That's partly why I used your clever
phrase "unqualified pronouncements" to describe my post on "rebate checks."
In this case, the phrase indicated hesitation to pontificate on a very
complex issue, that is sometimes a matter of value judgements more than
science (witness some local libertarians apoplectic fits over the
enterprising free market top free car wash, while they label concerns over
the science based environmental and economic impacts of long term resource
and energy depletion (fossil fuel), regarding local water use and sprawling
energy and resource intensive development, as "socialist")

However, my posts on climate science, in the context of which you first (as
far as I recall on Vision2020) used the phrase "unqualified pronouncements,"
involved questions of hard science, apart from law, politics, culture, or
ethics, on a subject I have researched considerably.  My posts were usually
based on the scientific consensus, involving the work of thousands of
scientists worldwide.

It is understandable that economics would be a very politicised subject.  It
is amazing how politicised the science of climate change has become, similar
in some respects to how politicized the science regarding evolution has
become (at least in the US), with petitions of contrarian scientists
circulated, denying the scientific consensus on evolution and anthropogenic
climate change, in our new age of the Anthropocene (the Holocene, the period
of about 12,000 years since the last ice age, is now over, as humans are
rapidly altering the planet's biodiversity, ecosystems and climate, on a
vast scale).

Let's follow Nobel Prize (for atmospheric chemistry) winner

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/

Paul Crutzen's pontifications on this subject:

http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=geology&cdn=education&tm=82&gps=339_580_796_455&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Anthropocene.pdf

http://geology.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=geology&cdn=education&tm=1247&gps=83_188_796_455&f=00&su=p504.1.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/%7Eair/anthropocene/Text.html

-----------------------
In the "rebate checks" thread, unless I missed it, there was no discussion
of the Bush administration policy of pushing for continuation of tax cuts at
a time of war and national debt, as the US government spends, according to
some professional estimates, over a trillion dollars on the Afghanistan and
Iraq wars and occupations, continuing to borrow billions from other nations.
 I can understand libertarian Milton Friedman oriented economists advocating
tax cuts.  But the Bush administration is opposed by many economic
conservatives for its fiscal policy of continuing national debt, combined
with tax cuts, at a time of billions in open ended war spending with no end
in sight.

Some conservative anti-tax economists will accept tax increases at a time of
war to pay for national defense.  The so called "tax rebate" checks might in
part be allowing the public to live on borrowed government money (future
generations will pay?), while hard decisions about either raising taxes or
cutting the federal budget, at a time of war, are not being fully addressed;
and the increasing costs of diesel and gas, with projections of 5 dollar a
gallon fuel this year, may absorb much of the rebate.

A "temporary feel good" rebate check will not solve fundamental long term
problems.  The US needs an aggressive long term energy policy to
facilitate roll out of alternative energy, that can also be applied to the
world's developing nations (China, India, etc.), both to address fossil fuel
depletion and climate change, and end the global over dependence on Middle
East oil, costing billions in war spending.  The next administration, even a
McCain presidency, according to the candidates statements, will address the
energy crisis/climate change issue far more than the Bush administration,
though McCain differs on the continuing the Iraq war with business as usual.

Ted Moffett

On 5/9/08, Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Given on this subject I am making "unqualified pronouncements," given I
> have
> > no professional qualifications in economics, no doubt there are mistakes
> in
> > what I write below:
>
> I hereby sack myself as "Unqualified Pronouncements Adjudicator," and
> dissolve the post.  There, Ted.  Make as many "unqualified
> pronouncements" as you wish, especially on those topic in which you
> have no professional qualifications.  Live dangerously!
>
> I, for one, will read them with unqualified absorption.
>
> Chas
>
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