You all thought the Green Leap Forward was economic lunacy, but not so fast. It turns out that it's really good economics: the logical next step after the enemies of mankind crushed our hopes for the carbon tax. It's an "economic stimulus package for the planet." You love the planet, don't you? For you unsophisticated types, here's how it works. It's simple, just pay attention and shut up.
[T]he challenges and costs of relying solely on current technologies to address climate change are prohibitively high. We need investments in clean innovation to make it cheaper to reduce emissions in the future. . . . While carbon pricing is the most cost effective way to reduce emissions today, government subsidies are the most cost effective way to advance clean technologies tomorrow.
We know this, because government subsidies consistently produce cost-effective results. You have to spend money to make money! You can't afford NOT to buy this! We'll lose money on every transaction, but make it up in volume.
A cautionary note, because, you know, these guys are serious and sober, not just snake-oil salesmen:
Of course, the effectiveness of the proposal at spurring innovation will depend on its design, the exact details of which have yet to be ironed out.
Now a nod to opposing arguments, to show we're considering all sides of the debate:
Opponents will also claim that the government is a bad venture capitalist, and that a Green New Deal will pour taxpayer dollars into clean energy boondoggles. While concerns about government waste are certainly real, they can be avoided through smart policy design.
Now that makes me sad. Who would say such mean things about the government's record as a venture capitalist? They're doing the best they can. Anyway, we're going to avoid any problems by going out right now and getting us some smart policy design. Not those old bad policy designs.
It's just like Communism! It just hasn't been done "correctly" before! Just put our New Smartset (tm) in charge, and I'm sure we'll get it right this time!!
ReplyDeleteYeah... how about no.
It's too expensive to rely on existing technologies! That's amazing. I imagine the Medievals felt the same way, which is why their government programs to reach the moon went so well.
ReplyDeleteThey gave it the old college try, but smart policies hadn't yet been invented.
ReplyDeleteThey gave it the old college try, but smart policies hadn't yet been invented.
ReplyDeleteGiven the level of thought that went into this, say, rather, they gave it the new college try.
Eric Hines
I would give government credit where due: IIRC, it was [D]ARPA that initially conceived the ARPANET and global positioning satellites, among many other things dreamed up for defense & national security purposes.
ReplyDeleteWhere things really happen though, is through commercialization. Without the thousands of individual & joint risk-taking entrepreneurs and venture capital to fund them, we don't get personal computers and iPhones, laser eye surgery, today's internet (remember the World Wide Web & Tim Berners-Lee and CERN?), and/or GPS* for Garmin and TomTom and Google maps and Google Earth.
I think there's a place for the former, and a place for the latter, and each should stick to what it does best. The challenge is finding and recognizing the dividing line, which is likely to be quite fuzzy.
* again IIRC, the initial GPS opened to use by the public was offset by some number of meters, to avoid giving means for exact measurement & location finding to our enemies (or something like that. Anyone remember?)
the initial GPS opened to use by the public was offset by some number of meters
ReplyDeleteNot offset, just limited in the precision of the data available to the public--initially 20(?) meter spacings, then 10m, then 3m. Today, of course, much finer than that. Keys were needed to be able to receive the GPS data, which could be had for a small remuneration to the government. By the time I was working for a small defense contractor, precision data were pretty much generally commercially available (precision: 3m, and that was scarce because the mapping hadn't been done yet), but it was deucedly expensive.
Eric Hines
Thx for the clarification!
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking that much innovation and discovery was done in pre-venture capital days by corporations like 3M, and Dow Corning in chemicals, and Hewlitt-Packard, and Bell Labs. When did that all switch to "private" venture capital funding? The first I think I remember hearing about anything like venture capital was in the Michael Milken & KKR leveraged buyout & junk bond days...
I think the move to private venture capital came with a tipping point a few years ago (Obama's tour of duty, but the thing had been building for some time) with regulations governing the various aspects of venture capital funding--for both the venturors and the venturees--became so onerous that it was easier and cheaper simply to do all of this on the private market rather than venture capital companies as public companies. As I recall, the final straw was when a regulation or suite of regulations was instituted that priced venture capital out of reach of most small startups.
ReplyDeleteAnd, no, I don't recall the specific regs, except they had (I think) to do with really onerous and picky reporting requirements.
Eric Hines
We need more earnest young people, preferably minorities, majoring in Smart Policy Design.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think that's what some of them think they are majoring in already. Maybe I should shut up.
I'm not familiar with the details of their Smart Policy Design, but I love their enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase (perhaps loosely) Marshall McLuhan, "The enthusiasm is the Design."
ReplyDeleteEric Hines