Tag Archives: political economy

Global Warming, Again

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A guest essayist at Watts Up With That has an interesting article. Here’s the closing paragraph (as usual, RTWT):

In summary, approximately 81% of the warming in the last century may have resulted from all anthropogenic influences, as suggested by figure 4 [see the article]. This includes water vapor, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and land use changes to the albedo and thermal mass. CO2 may account for as much as 52% to 56% of the contribution from anthropogenic drivers (See Figs. 1 & 2). Fossil fuel-CO2 represents less than 75% of anthropogenic CO2. If we were successful in completely phasing out fossil fuels over the next 100 years, we would have a reduction of 50% in average CO2 emissions. If the Earth is warming at a nominal rate of 1°C per 100 years from all influences, then we can hope, at best, for a reduction in temperature increase of 20% (0.54×0.75×0.50) or 0.20°C. That is to say, if the world were to phase out fossil fuels in the next 100 years the warming would be 0.80 degrees instead of 1.00°C! Unfortunately, eliminating fossil fuel use will probably not be successful in significantly reducing future temperature increases, even if it can be accomplished.

A whole two tenths of a Centigrade degree, out of a climatista-expected entire one Centigrade degree. Imagine that.

Criteria for Serving as Supreme Court Justice

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Here are President Barack Obama’s (D) criteria for his nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.

…judges who approach decisions without any particular ideology or agenda, but rather a commitment to impartial justice, a respect for precedent, and a determination to faithfully apply the law to the facts at hand….

So far, so good. But.

…a judge who knows that “justice is not about abstract legal theory, not some footnote in a dusty casebook.”

And

It’s the kind of life experience earned outside the classroom and the courtroom; experience that suggests he or she views the law not only as an intellectual exercise, but also grasps the way it affects the daily reality of people’s lives in a big, complicated democracy, and in rapidly changing times.

In other words, Obama still is looking to emphasize empathy over law. He wants the superior wisdom of the wise Latina. He wants the Constitution creatively interpreted and updated. He wants a Justice who agrees with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the Constitution is alterable because it lives through judicial rulings. He wants a Justice who agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts that enacted law is accessible to wholesale rewriting in order to arrive at something then worthy of application.

He does not want a Justice who recognizes that the Constitution lives through Article V and that Constitutional amendments and statutes and their changes are political rulings accessible only to We the People and our elected representatives.

He does not want a Justice who will adhere to his oath of office, which requires the Justice to defend and uphold the Constitution rather than to change it, an oath that also requires the Justice to understand and apply only the text of the Constitution and of enacted law, as they are written.

I agree with some, including Obama now, that the Senate has an obligation to consider his nominee(s), even in the last year of his term—a time frame Obama and his fellow Democrats have said should be exempt from Supreme Court nominee consideration. But the Senate has no obligation to rubberstamp Obama’s nominee, and any nominee who meets these criteria is unfit to serve as any sort of judge, much less a Supreme Court Justice.

Full stop.

A Dangerous Precedent

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I’m hardly a Russian apologist; I’d as soon see the place cleared off and the land restored to the forest and steppe of an earlier era.

However.

Russia is setting up to issue $3 billion in bonds, and they’ve invited a number of European, PRC, and American banks to bid on the issue—a standard government bond issue process, except that these are Russian bonds. Aside from that, the bonds are highly risky, but like many high-risk plays, the payoff can be lucrative. The decision to run a risk of this sort ordinarily is a business decision, made in a free market by the business’ managers and owners.

However.

State and Treasury have

warned some top US banks not to bid on a potentially lucrative but politically risky Russian bond deal, saying it would undermine international sanctions on Moscow, people familiar with the matter said.

Our banks’ participation in the deal is entirely legal with those international sanctions in place. But State and Treasury don’t like them.

This isn’t a President using his bully pulpit to persuade Americans to do this, don’t do that, or support this other, though.

State in particular

warned of “reputational” risks of returning “to business as usual with Russia.”

This is an agency of the Federal government making sotto voce threats against an industry to force it to support a government policy that’s carefully not encoded in law or regulation.

The market, with its understanding of Russia, is fully capable of dealing “reputational” repercussions all by itself in a free economy.

Never mind that State and Treasury each have explicitly declined to set sanctions against Russian banking or the Russian government as a whole, or that either could, if such sanctions were useful. Never mind that Congress could legislate in that direction, if such a thing were useful.

That’s the dangerous precedent. Nice bank you got there. Be too bad if something happened….

Reich’s Analysis

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Ex-Democrat Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has offered his analysis of Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) and of Businessman Donald Trump and their relative values as Presidents of the US. See his two-minute YouTube video here.

Stipulate everything Reich said about Cruz is accurate (after looking past the hype): Cruz turns out to be pretty good. Cruz should thank Reich for the endorsement, and wear the description proudly.

An Empirical Test

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It isn’t often that we get to run a controlled experiment in economics, but one seems to be beginning in Oregon on the matter of minimum wages.

Oregon lawmakers have approved landmark legislation that propels the state’s minimum wage for all workers to the highest rank in the US, and does so through an unparalleled tiered system based on geography.

The legislation will raise the state’s minimum wage to

$14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities such as Salem and Eugene, and $12.50 in rural communities.

This will be complete in just six years, by 2022.

And that’s the experiment. Over the course of these next six years, watch employment rates adjust across the three geographies, and watch small business startup and development across those three geographies.

Hmm….