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Media Alert

Last week Fox News sent a crew up four hours from LA to my remote summer location on the California central coast to tape a long interview with me on climate change and cap and trade policy for a special Hannity show on the topic that will air tonight on Fox News at 9 pm eastern (the Hannity web site only has a banner listing for it, with no further details).  Much of what I said will surely end up on the cutting room floor, but I'm told I made the final cut, so tune in!

Discussions - 6 Comments

So, who else did they interview to make it "fair and balanced"?

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Misssi--yup, there's Craig, right on schedule.

The fact that Fox News sent a crew all the way up to your summer house for maybe a minute (30 secs?) of on-screen time means that Fox News has quite a budget. This of course means Fox News has quite a viewership to pay for this budget. Not so surprising then that Glenn Beck drew upwards of 100,000 people to his rally in DC. If these folks vote in high percentages...well then we may be underestimating the November results.

Craig I think if they were going for "fair and ballanced" they could have done so by using Rolling Stone.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine/5

I noticed that Hayward was used for quite a bit of the tie-in to corporatism. I actually read it first six months ago from an astute analyst who covers Goldman Sachs (unprofessionally) on Seeking Alpha who suggested that if Cap and Trade passes GS could easily catch a double. (It might be the best derivative play on this legistlation)

Hayward is conservative, and there is no doubt about Hannity who is considerably worse than O'Reilley in terms of being slanted. But traditionally you have to say that Rolling Stone is liberal.

Its plausible enough that nothing on Hannity is "fair and ballanced" But if you watch CNBC owned by GE which is much more "ballanced" on climate change and energy issues then you get an interesting mix of cross currents, depending on the book folks are selling.

I kind of like T. Boones Pickens who obviously has considerable investment in wind and natural gas.

I think if I was writting a missing chapter on the politics of this recession I would entertain the notion that what is good for Wall Street is potentially bad for main street, or at least "good" for certain income and investment levels and bad for other income levels and investment levels.

I mean you can say that cap and trade is tax and trade, but the "jobless" recovery has to be the worst thing for the lower economic class that Obama and democrats claim to favor as a class.

The downturn in the market had to be good for folks in the age range of 25-30 who were considering getting in the market who could buy low with cost averaging. Technically even the recovery in the market was a bit fast, you got your chance to buy growth stocks like Google and Apple, but then you sold them when you caught the short term run up. You know a higher market isn't that great, especially when it comes with a lockstep increase in the price of crude.

Assuming you live and work at the low end, say a relatively stable job at Wendy's making $9 an hour, you really don't invest enough in the market to ballance out the hit you took at the pump just to commute. On the low end a weak economy also puts pressure on prices, forcing firms like starbucks to come out with $1 coffee, Taco Bell's $2 meal deal, and the $5 subwars.

Conversely supposing you are relatively weathy and savvy it just isn't true that Cap and Trade will cost you in terms of higher energy costs.

From a narrow interest point of view I think Hayward could profitably and knowledgably trade the artifical/market socialism carbon offset market, or at least take a stake in GS or otherwise profit, by an understanding of just which firms stand to gain.

Even if Hayward's energy costs doubled, from say $200 to $400 a month he could easily deploy enough capital to recapture this on a single day trading the volatility.

In some sense then I think there is something to the complaints of some that Republicans are being traitors by opposing "market based" cap and trade. Calling it "cap and tax" is really the middle and lower middle class name for it.

The way I see it the rich and knowledgeable would capture a huge chunk of profits which would more than offset the amount that the utilities would pass on to this demographic.

While it is true that companies would pass on the cost to consumers, it would functionally be a highly regressive tax. Those with enough knowledge and capital would actually capture income. I don't see why it couldn't be offsettable on a single derivative trade for anyone with a 250k portfolio. Of course this class of quasi-savy individual investor is small fry, most of the money would go to the richest.

Meanwhile energy consumption doesn't scale all that dramatically with income.

Hypothetically I think it looks like this:

I 20k E 10
I 40k E 12
I 80k E 14
I 160k E 14.5 ((one reason for its income inelasticity), and the wealthier middle class actually have income to protect by buying new windows and taking credits, buying CREE lightbulbs (it isn't quite negative but it dips considerably at the point where tax policy has its effect...

Also when the price of E doubles, those with more money or discretionary E consumption are more likely to buy better lightbulbs, and spend on effeciency. (80k can go to 10 E with much greater ease than 20k can go to 2 E.)

This really ends up meaning that regardless of whether it is a tax, its effect is highly regressive.

But for the fact that some "green" energy solutions focus on Electricity: Volt, Tesla, Leaf. I don't see why thru tax policy it couldn't be the case that energy could become an inferior good in the intermediate and longer term at the middle class upper middle class income level given capital investment in "green" and more efficient homes.
In terms of individual consumption energy could join fast food as an inferior good.

I think from the "left" in terms of being fair and ballanced you focus upon the regressive nature of the policy and you point out that it isn't necessarily hyperbole to point out that Cap+trade transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.

What would that entail, placing a copy of Rolling Stone on a chair beside (or under) Hayward?

Sure, Rolling Stone's liberal, but they don't use "Fair and Balanced" as a slogan, either.

Make your own life time more simple take the home loans and everything you need.

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