Those progressive democrat politicians are making a big mistake encouraging businesses on cultural grounds. They're kowtowing to the extreme cultural minorities in their states and ignoring the the majority of people of all races and ethnicities who just want to live and work in piece.
The old adage "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is at play here, I believe. For the last several decades, the leftist nutjobs have been screaming and threatening and protesting to get what they want, regardless of what most normal people want. For the most part, normal people just kept their heads down and went about their normal lives.
As long as those people left us alone, we ignored them. But that wasn't good enough. They wanted to force their agenda down everyone's throat and make us celebrate their desires.
Well, just as a pendulum swings one way, eventually it reaches its zenith in one direction and as nature intended, must swing back in the other. That's what is happening now and it's about time.
One problem with cultural contests for economic businesses--the current hysteria about global warming, for instance--is that sound economics, which fosters development better than any other system, pushes technological innovation, which itself answers many of the Left's plaints. See the reduction of CO2 emissions in US industries and businesses compared to the reduction rates of other, more centrally directed economies.
Our CO2 emission reduction has very little to do with the imagined ills of atmospheric CO2 (once the acid rain problem had been solved) and very much to do with simply making our stuff more efficient in its operation, because efficiency is economically cheaper until we get to the last few per centage points of efficiency. And that pushes development of other technologies that start out more efficient.
I suspect that the Left's culture wars will always lose on merit--that's why they resort so much to verbal and physical violence as their argument--and economic counters will always win on merit in the medium- and long-run.
The major reduction in CO2 emissions the US has made is almost entirely attributable to switching electric generation from coal to natural gas. That transition, in turn, is almost entirely attributable to the development of fracking for oil because natural gas is (an almost unwanted) by-product of oil production, driving the cost of natural gas down to little more than the price of capturing and transporting it.
Stopping fracking is a double-whammy, driving up both the cost of petroleum products as well as natural gas.
What's going to happen is they'll be competing with each other for the same prizes, once business leaders keen on being in blue states figure out how to play them off against each other.
... natural gas is (an almost unwanted) by-product of oil production, driving the cost of natural gas down ...
It's intersectionality at work. Some factions of the Green activists object to "flaring" or burning the excess gas, arguing that the flares produce the greenhouse gas (GHG) CO2. Other factions object to simply releasing the gas, because it (methane, CH4) is an even worse GHG. And still another faction objects to constructing the pads tanks pipelines etc in the "natural environment" necessary to capture transport and use the resource. So the Biden response simply restricts drilling, fracking, or activity in the Permian Basin, altogether.
5 comments:
Those progressive democrat politicians are making a big mistake encouraging businesses on cultural grounds. They're kowtowing to the extreme cultural minorities in their states and ignoring the the majority of people of all races and ethnicities who just want to live and work in piece.
The old adage "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is at play here, I believe. For the last several decades, the leftist nutjobs have been screaming and threatening and protesting to get what they want, regardless of what most normal people want. For the most part, normal people just kept their heads down and went about their normal lives.
As long as those people left us alone, we ignored them. But that wasn't good enough. They wanted to force their agenda down everyone's throat and make us celebrate their desires.
Well, just as a pendulum swings one way, eventually it reaches its zenith in one direction and as nature intended, must swing back in the other. That's what is happening now and it's about time.
One problem with cultural contests for economic businesses--the current hysteria about global warming, for instance--is that sound economics, which fosters development better than any other system, pushes technological innovation, which itself answers many of the Left's plaints. See the reduction of CO2 emissions in US industries and businesses compared to the reduction rates of other, more centrally directed economies.
Our CO2 emission reduction has very little to do with the imagined ills of atmospheric CO2 (once the acid rain problem had been solved) and very much to do with simply making our stuff more efficient in its operation, because efficiency is economically cheaper until we get to the last few per centage points of efficiency. And that pushes development of other technologies that start out more efficient.
I suspect that the Left's culture wars will always lose on merit--that's why they resort so much to verbal and physical violence as their argument--and economic counters will always win on merit in the medium- and long-run.
Eric Hines
The major reduction in CO2 emissions the US has made is almost entirely attributable to switching electric generation from coal to natural gas. That transition, in turn, is almost entirely attributable to the development of fracking for oil because natural gas is (an almost unwanted) by-product of oil production, driving the cost of natural gas down to little more than the price of capturing and transporting it.
Stopping fracking is a double-whammy, driving up both the cost of petroleum products as well as natural gas.
What's going to happen is they'll be competing with each other for the same prizes, once business leaders keen on being in blue states figure out how to play them off against each other.
Not too smart.
... natural gas is (an almost unwanted) by-product of oil production, driving the cost of natural gas down ...
It's intersectionality at work. Some factions of the Green activists object to "flaring" or burning the excess gas, arguing that the flares produce the greenhouse gas (GHG) CO2. Other factions object to simply releasing the gas, because it (methane, CH4) is an even worse GHG. And still another faction objects to constructing the pads tanks pipelines etc in the "natural environment" necessary to capture transport and use the resource. So the Biden response simply restricts drilling, fracking, or activity in the Permian Basin, altogether.
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