Green New Deal

[mspohr]

Green New Deal: what is the progressive plan, and is it technically possible?
Green New Deal: what is the progressive plan, and is it technically possible?

A look at options and technical and political reality.

 

[mspohr]

Will the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis have any real power?

Gutless?

If Pelosi has just created a gutless committee to deal with the most serious threat facing our civilization, that move should not be a surprise to anyone who has watched the leadership of the Democratic Party at the federal level.

 

[SageBrush]

Will the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis have any real power?

Gutless?

If Pelosi has just created a gutless committee to deal with the most serious threat facing our civilization, that move should not be a surprise to anyone who has watched the leadership of the Democratic Party at the federal level.

Yup.

The Dems are not evil like their counterparts but they are most certainly corrupt, bought, and ineffectual. Obama was very unusual.

 

[Brando]

Speaking for myself, I am quite a bit more progressive and activist than your average progressive activist but I'm not in favor of massive pork barrels. I just want the externalized costs of fossils to be exposed and accounted for. Spend the money on efficiency and clean energy infrastructure in the form of a national grid and high power transmission to resource rich areas of the country.

Pork Barrels:
- Defense - if you include secret off the books national security about $1 trillion per year
- Afghanistan started in 1979 with Charlie Wilson getting congressional funding to train bin Laden - $1 trillion
- How many governments CIA over thrown? You could start with Iran 1953, most of S. America, both dictators in Cuba Batista and Fidel were funded/trained by CIA (which is why Cuba relations never normalized while now even Vietnam is "most favored Nation status)
- Bankster (yes, including the world's largest banking cartel the so called Federal Reserve)
- you get the idea, you can add more barrels of your own.

 

[SageBrush]

Pork Barrels:
- Defense - if you include secret off the books national security about $1 trillion per year

There is some truth to this (see: Dick Cheney) but it flourishes due to externalized costs of resource wars.

The Repukes sold the Iraq war as a "spreading democracy" but the dog whistle Americans heard loud and clear was "we get their oil."

 

[mspohr]

Ocasio-Cortez slams Dems for deeming climate goals 'too controversial'

Apparently the climate disaster is too controversial for the Democrats.

 

[S'toon]

Ocasio-Cortez slams Dems for deeming climate goals 'too controversial'

Apparently the climate disaster is too controversial for the Democrats.

Remember, the leadership of the Democratic Party are old, and have been battered over the past 60 years saying that progressive policies are "communism," and that those policies won't appeal to the public. Their electoral strategy for the past 30 years has been to appeal to the middle, in order to attract "moderate Republicans." Polls over the past decade have shown time after time that progressive policies are popular, but the leadership's fear of the press is instinctive at this point.

 

[mspohr]

Remember, the leadership of the Democratic Party are old, and have been battered over the past 60 years saying that progressive policies are "communism," and that those policies won't appeal to the public. Their electoral strategy for the past 30 years has been to appeal to the middle, in order to attract "moderate Republicans." Polls over the past decade have shown time after time that progressive policies are popular, but the leadership's fear of the press is instinctive at this point.

I think the last election shows that progressive policies can win. Unfortunately the leadership doesn't realize it.
Now that we have a President in bed with the Russians, you would think that the Communism label would lose some of its sting.

 

[mspohr]

Opinion | Hope for a Green New Year

Krugman weighs in on GND. Carbon tax is difficult but other policies could be successful. Just don't expect any action until 2021.

 

[mspohr]

House Dems formalize climate committee plans without Green New Deal language

House Democrats have formally proposed creating a new committee on climate change, without many of the main factors that progressives wanted in the panel’s structure.
The panel will not have the power to subpoena or depose, nor will it have the authority to vote on legislation and send it directly to the House floor for a vote.

It also is not being explicitly charged with developing Green New Deal legislation, which supporters envision as bringing the county to 100 percent renewable electricity and decarbonizing major industries over 10 years, as well as a universal jobs guarantee and other ideas.

“This committee, if it turns out that the rumors about it are true, sounds about as useful as a screen door on a submarine,” Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, told The Hill last week. “As it’s portrayed it’s going to be completely incapable of solving the greatest threat to human kind.”

 

[SageBrush]

It also is not being explicitly charged with developing Green New Deal legislation, which supporters envision as bringing the county to 100 percent renewable electricity and decarbonizing major industries over 10 years, as well as a universal jobs guarantee and other ideas.

I wish they would just focus on decarbonization. That is a big enough task

 

[mspohr]

Opposing Green New Deal Could Cost Popular Democratic Lawmaker Her Job, Poll Shows | HuffPost

Surveys show broad popular support for Green New Deal.

 

[Brando]

So far China is the leader in green energy policies - solar/wind and electrification of transport.

side note:
Medicare for all [in other words, single payer]
Stop all 8 wars and other JSOC conflicts.
College tuition for anyone that can qualify.

I don't see these ideas in either parties platform. BOTH parties have failed us all.

side note: last big tax cut ~$1.5 trillion - could have paid off ALL college loans in the US.

 

[mspohr]

Medicare for all [in other words, single payer]
Stop all 8 wars and other JSOC conflicts.
College for anyone that can qualify.

I don't see these ideas in either parties platform.

side note: last big tax cut ~$1.5 trillion - could have paid off ALL college loans in the US.

Looks like we do have education and universal health care:

1. provide all members of our society, across all regions and all communities, the opportunity, training and education to be a full and equal participant in the transition, including through a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one;

1. include additional measures such as basic income programs, universal health care programs and any others as the select committee may deem appropriate to promote economic security, labor market flexibility and entrepreneurism; and

Nothing about war. Huge problem. When you consider that most of the wars are in support of resource extraction, they certainly relate to a Green New Deal.

I like the idea of paying off all college loans. Many students will be in debtors prison for most of their lives.

Of course, to pay for it we could rescind the tax cuts.

 

[SageBrush]

A a job guarantee program is a non-starter. I think of myself as a progressive and even I oppose it.
Switzerland, and I think one of Scandinavian countries took the idea seriously and then discarded it. And Switzerland at least has a very high work ethic culture.

 

[nwdiver]

A a job guarantee program is a non-starter.

Agreed... but only because I can see that leading us down the path of putting a $5k robot that costs $15/mo to operate in a closet so we can pay a person $15/hr to do whatever task the robot was performing. Just let people decide how they want to spend their time and pay them ~$2k/mo to buy stuff so the robots aren't idle.

Elon may have overestimated the ability of automation... but it keeps getting better and it's unlikely there's an upper limit to its abilities. Eventually... Humans need not apply. Gonna be really silly if our capacity for production is virtually limitless because of automation but our capacity for consumption is constrained because there are no jobs left....

 

[mspohr]

Agreed... but only because I can see that leading us down the path of putting a $5k robot that costs $15/mo to operate in a closet so we can pay a person $15/hr to do whatever task the robot was performing. Just let people decide how they want to spend their time and pay them ~$2k/mo to buy stuff so the robots aren't idle.

Elon may have overestimated the ability of automation... but it keeps getting better and it's unlikely there's an upper limit to its abilities. Eventually... Humans need not apply. Gonna be really silly if our capacity for production is virtually limitless because of automation but our capacity for consumption is constrained because there are no jobs left....

So you would prefer a universal basic income?

 

[nwdiver]

So you would prefer a universal basic income?

That would work. We need something to ensure ~300M people have purchasing power when there are fewer and fewer jobs due to automation even as there is more and more available to purchase due to automation....

 

[mspohr]

That would work. We need something to ensure ~300M people have purchasing power when there are fewer and fewer jobs due to automation even as there is more and more available to purchase due to automation....

I think a UBI would be a good idea to provide a basic level of assistance without a lot of bureaucracy. It would also be a boon to the economy. However, some people have a very deep seated aversion to the concept in spite of the fact that we already have a cumbersome patchwork of similar programs (food stamps, housing assistance, AFDC, Social security, etc.)

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I like the idea of paying off all college loans. Many students will be in debtors prison for most of their lives.

I think that would be a horrible idea. Some of those loans are the result of people paying stupid amounts of money to go to expensive private colleges (I live in an area that benefits from that, but I still think it's stupid) or adding unnecessary expense by going out of state.

Standard path should be community college and then state colleges offering bachelors. You don't subsidize beyond that.

But there are other things that need to be done structurally to lower cost.