Politics: April 2008 Archives
Speaking of Ezra, he has a nice piece about how our Biofuel subsidies are responsible for about 1/3 of the current global food crisis.
I've said this before.
Seriously. This has reached ridiculous levels. I understand that no one that works in the agriculture industry will agree with me (i.e. the ones that benefit from the $8.9 billion that our government put directly in the pockets of large agra firms last year), but the rest of you, COME ON.
Write your congressman/woman. Tell him/her that you get it. You know they saw "An Inconvenient Truth". You know they watched Al Gore get the Nobel Prize. You know they are really worried about being perceived as doing something about global warming. And you need to tell them, RIGHT NOW, that:
a) You will still vote for them even if they don't pass every damn energy efficiency bill or alternative fuel source bill that comes within ten miles of their freaking desk. Quantity is not Quality.
a) You WON'T vote for them if they keep placing politics above smart decision making. Unintended Consequences really freaking matter. PEOPLE ARE DYING HERE. This isn't a joke, and this isn't harmless pandering to some green-earth hippies.
I am genuinely worried about global warming, really. And I am all about reducing greenhouse gases. I'm in favor of the Pigou Club (I think the $1/gallon proposal of the Pigou Club is too cheap, actually), tolls on freeways, an end to coal-powered electricity, etc. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, and in a way that isn't popular; pay the price at the gas pump every week and you feel it. But if the government just gives your money away in farm subsidies it feels "free" to you.
But get real here. We (yes, we, as in YOU and I) are starving our brothers and sisters. One hundred million people are going to move from "poor" to "absolute poverty" in the coming year. Not "food stamp" poverty. "Death, Starvation, Famine, Disease" poverty. ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE. This must stop! Write your senators and congressmen/women now!
One last addendum.
Good People of Iowa. I understand that much of your economy is dependent on corn (but probably not nearly as much as YOU think it is). But you seriously need to tell Sen. Charles Grassley that shit like this is so not OK:
I've said this before.
Seriously. This has reached ridiculous levels. I understand that no one that works in the agriculture industry will agree with me (i.e. the ones that benefit from the $8.9 billion that our government put directly in the pockets of large agra firms last year), but the rest of you, COME ON.
Write your congressman/woman. Tell him/her that you get it. You know they saw "An Inconvenient Truth". You know they watched Al Gore get the Nobel Prize. You know they are really worried about being perceived as doing something about global warming. And you need to tell them, RIGHT NOW, that:
a) You will still vote for them even if they don't pass every damn energy efficiency bill or alternative fuel source bill that comes within ten miles of their freaking desk. Quantity is not Quality.
a) You WON'T vote for them if they keep placing politics above smart decision making. Unintended Consequences really freaking matter. PEOPLE ARE DYING HERE. This isn't a joke, and this isn't harmless pandering to some green-earth hippies.
I am genuinely worried about global warming, really. And I am all about reducing greenhouse gases. I'm in favor of the Pigou Club (I think the $1/gallon proposal of the Pigou Club is too cheap, actually), tolls on freeways, an end to coal-powered electricity, etc. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, and in a way that isn't popular; pay the price at the gas pump every week and you feel it. But if the government just gives your money away in farm subsidies it feels "free" to you.
But get real here. We (yes, we, as in YOU and I) are starving our brothers and sisters. One hundred million people are going to move from "poor" to "absolute poverty" in the coming year. Not "food stamp" poverty. "Death, Starvation, Famine, Disease" poverty. ONE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE. This must stop! Write your senators and congressmen/women now!
One last addendum.
Good People of Iowa. I understand that much of your economy is dependent on corn (but probably not nearly as much as YOU think it is). But you seriously need to tell Sen. Charles Grassley that shit like this is so not OK:
"If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat and you've got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat, then why isn't it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn to ethanol?" Grassley asked in a conference call with reporters.Are you ****ing kidding me? Write your representative now.
Ezra Klein points out that it would be foolish for John McCain to tap Fiorina for Vice President:
97% of this company does not know that Fiorina was the CEO of Hewlett Packard, I guarantee it. The G.O.P. will make a big deal of her "success in business" and most of the public will probably just shrug and move on. Let's gloss over the fact that CEO skill sets and POTUS skill sets only overlap in very small areas -- it's true that a CEO has to play politics, especially with the board, but let's be real: the CEO can fire the CFO's ass any time he/she wants, and the CFO knows it. Such power never needs to be used, or have its use threatened; its just "out there", and it means that CEOs often have very direct means of getting things done -- it's all very Jean-Luc Picard-like -- "Make it so." Not only can the President NOT fire the speaker of the house's ass, he (or, in 6 months, possibly she) will usually have to spend a great deal of time kissing that ass to get things done.
But, getting back to my point, people won't care. It will be a news item, sure. But Ezra has said before that John McCain would be well-served getting a woman to run for V.P. because, let's face it, the man's a misogynist, and he's going to have enough trouble getting the female vote even with a woman running at his side. I think Fiorina comes with a lot less baggage than most candidates, given that Condie doesn't appear interested.
She's known solely to the universe of people who read The Wall Street Journal, and in no small part because she was publicly and controversially dumped from the company when the board of directors leaked a long memo taking issue with her performance and management style.Um, normally, I think Ezra knows a lot more about politics than I do. But Ezra's forgetting the People Are Stupid law here. Need I remind Ezra that George's W. Bush's record among that very same WSJ readership, who all presumably know that he was the CEO and owner of an Oil company that went bankrupt, and the owner of a baseball club that made money solely because it got taxpayers to pay for some land included in the purchase of the club, was never really a big stumbling block on the way to the white house for him? Why on earth should it be any different for Fiorina?
97% of this company does not know that Fiorina was the CEO of Hewlett Packard, I guarantee it. The G.O.P. will make a big deal of her "success in business" and most of the public will probably just shrug and move on. Let's gloss over the fact that CEO skill sets and POTUS skill sets only overlap in very small areas -- it's true that a CEO has to play politics, especially with the board, but let's be real: the CEO can fire the CFO's ass any time he/she wants, and the CFO knows it. Such power never needs to be used, or have its use threatened; its just "out there", and it means that CEOs often have very direct means of getting things done -- it's all very Jean-Luc Picard-like -- "Make it so." Not only can the President NOT fire the speaker of the house's ass, he (or, in 6 months, possibly she) will usually have to spend a great deal of time kissing that ass to get things done.
But, getting back to my point, people won't care. It will be a news item, sure. But Ezra has said before that John McCain would be well-served getting a woman to run for V.P. because, let's face it, the man's a misogynist, and he's going to have enough trouble getting the female vote even with a woman running at his side. I think Fiorina comes with a lot less baggage than most candidates, given that Condie doesn't appear interested.
The price of food is starting to hurt. I've blogged about this before, but Paul Krugman has brought it up again in his column in the NY Times (Grains Gone Wild), and the mainstream media is starting to pay attention to this. If you travel to poorer countries it can't escape your attention -- my wife recently e-mailed me from southeast Asia and asked "Hey, mr. economist guy, me and my friends want to know why wheat is getting so expensive!" because it is a big story in that area of the world. There are lots of reasons including the fall of the dollar and the rising cost of energy (read: oil), but as Krugman says (and I did in my previous post on this subject), it basically boils down to:
And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.Again, Ethanol == EVIL.
