Presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Monday called for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent of the 1990 level by 2050. His proposal would force power companies and other businesses to pay for all their pollution.
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He proposed a modified “cap and trade” approach to reducing emissions that would require businesses to buy allowances to pollute, creating an incentive to reduce energy usage.

Under a traditional cap and trade system, power plants or businesses that exceed pollution caps must buy or trade for additional capacity, generally from plants that have taken steps to reduce their emissions. Unlike some of his rivals, Obama said he would auction all allowances rather than grandfathering some to big emitters such as oil and coal companies.

“No business will be allowed to emit any greenhouse gases for free,” he said. “Businesses don’t own the sky, the public does, and if we want them to stop polluting it, we have to put a price on all pollution.”

Sweetness. Of course, Obama is still listed as a co-sponsor of Lieberman’s “big business owns the sky, so give allowances for free to the big emitters” bill, so we’ll have to see what he does in terms of walking the walk. But for all my cynicism, hearing the right talk is an unexpected pleasure.

Meanwhile, I’m surprised to see this statement in the Washington Post “campaign 2008″ blog:

Most legislation offered to reduce carbon emissions takes this form [cap total emissions and allow trading of allowances within that limit], even though many economists believe a carbon tax would be simpler, if more difficult to sell politically.

Which “most” economists are they talking about? When you have a specific target you are trying to reach, taxes are a blunt and inaccurate instrument. Plenty of the nerdiest economists can whip up a quick model to show how a cap-and-trade system is more economically efficient (using the terms of market economics) than a tax system in this kind of scenario. Maybe someone needs to do a survey of economists or something. Anyhow, I badmouthed Congress the other day for being (or acting willfully) ignorant of simple economic principles.* But now, if the Washington Post is right, I’ve got to badmouth “most economists” and give credit to the politicians for getting this one right.

*”which is so Econ 101 it’s plain pathetic that most of Congress seems to be dismissing it out of hand“

Trickle-Up Economics: New Report Reveals Staggering Global Wealth Concentration

A new business study on global household wealth documents how the world’s wealth is continuing to concentrate in the pockets of the awesomely affluent.

The world’s non-wealthy households haven’t done so well over the last half-dozen years, says a new report released last week by a major global business consulting company.

From 2001 through 2006, reports the Boston Consulting Group, the non-wealthy of the world — those households holding less than $100,000 in financial assets — saw the total value of their assets slightly decline.

Over those same years, the consulting group’s new Global Wealth 2007 documents, total world wealth actually increased, up a brisk 7.5 percent just last year alone

So where did all that new wealth end up? At the top. So far this century, the 16.5 percent of global households with at least $100,000 to invest have seen their assets soar 64 percent in value, to $84.5 trillion.

[cont’d]

I’ve only skimmed the Sanders’ bill so far, but frankly I’m finding it rather confusing. Well, maybe not confusing, but overly vague. (That’s something Lieberman’s has less of; it proudly wears the badge of corporate welfare on its sleeve.) The heart of it seems to be with Section 704 (f) (2), where it directs the EPA Administrator to establish a market-based program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The vagueness lies in the fact that the Administrator is not obligated–as far as I can tell–to use an auction for distributing the pollution permits (”emissions allowances”) to industry. This seems to leave open the possibility of a give-away. If that happens, then this bill will turn out to be not much better than Lieberman’s. While Section 704 (f) (2) (A) tells the Administrator to distribute any leftover permits to “households, communities, and other entities,” this is only an after-the-fact distribution. First industry gets a crack at the permits (through a give-away? an auction?), and only after that do households and communities get a chance to participate in the program. I’m sorry to say, that sounds like something paving the way towards a give-away.

Also, if I understand it correctly, Section 704 (f) (2) (D) grants the Administrator the ability to issue extra pollution permits (or by some other means to give relief to industry) if the cost of permits rises too high (according to the Administrator’s understanding of “too high”). That’s a dangerous loophole. Again, I find the law-speak a bit confusing, so the size of this loophole isn’t entirely clear to me. It does seem–thankfully–to be limited, because the Administrator is required to begin reducing the number of permits available after a maximum of three years of stalling the program. Still, all this vagueness and potential loopholiness has got me feeling more cautious than optimistic.

That’s it for now.

Using the COCOMO model to estimate the cost of producing computer code of specified length and complexity, a linux enthusiast estimated the actual cost to produce the software in the Ubuntu repositories. The Ubuntu software repository contains over 121 million lines of code, and the estimated cost to produce it is over 7 billion dollars.

Is this a lot?

On the one hand, it’s an incredible achievement for volunteered, uncoerced, even joyful labor. And the COCOMO approach seemed like a clever way to value this important part of the intellectual commons.

On the other hand, Microsoft’s market capitalization is 280 Billion, and in my opinion, Ubuntu does almost everything that Microsoft can do. (Well, not really; Ubuntu does not compete with the Microsoft X-Box gaming system or the Microsoft network, but Ubuntu does offer a complete computer system, including office software, web browser, operating system, multimedia viewers, etc.) So why do the valuations differ by a factor of 40?

Thanks to Kristian Hermansen of the UMassLUG (UMass Linux Users’ Group) for the lead.

I’d heard about Barnes proposal before–in fact, Nancy Folbre, James Heintz, and I used it as the basis for a bit of the Field Guide to the US Economy. What I hadn’t realized was that there is currently legislation working its way through Congress that would implement a different variation of cap-and-trade on greenhouse gases. The leading version is Joe Lieberman’s S.280 in the Senate and the near-identical bill fostered by John Olver, H.R.620, in the House. (Part of my ignorance stems from the recent birth of my daughter Susannah. I haven’t been keeping up with the news very much.) (But she sure is cute!)

“Wow,” you might be thinking, “Congress might actually pass a bill that deals seriously with global warming. Will miracles never cease?” Well, um, don’t get too excited just yet.
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Further down in his essay, Andrews raising the question of how unequal racial power might force its way into scenarios that seem to be so wonderfully egalitarian, like the proposed “Sky Trust.” (See this previous Econ-Atrocity.)

…Yet, even as I struggle with mathematical models exploring all the ways that such “sky trust” type systems reconcile efficiency and justice in a narrow sense, my studies evade the ruthless bio-politics of inequality bound to turn “the commons” into another hierarchy of the powerful over the vulnerable. The vulnerable forever stand apart and below the powerful – even green, progressive power – objects of charity or even redistributive justice, but objects nonetheless. Charity becomes thin, stingy, evincing slight degrees of sadism when, when the vulnerable are the wrong color.

Green power, like all power in divided societies, will balance the needs of rulers and ruled, whether the rulers are a clique, a board of directors, or a voting majority with blood-based antagonism toward the Others. Green power – the use of public and private power informed by scientific, particularly ecological, and economic reason – is far more likely to be humane than other forms of power precisely because it is imbued with a sense of limits and balance. Indeed, green power, at its best, constructs better ways of pricing and managing collective risks, thereby mitigating the destruction of natural capital.

But our individual, family and communal access to resources and the resulting unequal control of development are shaped by the bio-political facts of society: we are born into families and communities of color, class, region, religion and language, inheriting access to resources and levers of power or the abyss of powerlessness. We inherit and the bequeath the social wars that grant us access to power or leave us in weakness, even the power to shift policy in a green direction.

As you can see, I am struggling with the uneasy relationship between sustainability and equality in a market and technology driven world economy, where economic and social innovation must now redesign capitalism to make it cleaner and ecologically viable, yet where the mechanisms of social/racial inheritance threaten to reinforce bio-political and social power in unacceptable ways. I ask your patience and your help as I work through the problematic economics of equality and sustainability, hardened as I am by my American blackness. I want to think about the economics of the commons in light of the fact that green power is unlikely to be shared across American color lines, even as it reconciles the way we make a living to the life process of the Earth….

More power, so to speak, to Andrews for his willingness and ability to face the demons we might wish away. A sky trust will be a great institution for many reasons, but it will not only change society, but be affected by the pre-existing features of society in a give-and-take sort of way. Not all of them will necessarily be for the best.

Given that the Supreme Court has ruled that carbon dioxide should rightly be treated as a pollutant, but the EPA continues to fail to act, clotheslines in restricted neighborhoods might make a great form of civil disobedience. If you live in such a neighborhood, set up a clothesline and wait for the order to take it down. It’d make for a great story in the local paper, which would help to spread the word about this absurdity and, hopefully, lead to laws that overrule the we-prefer-to-pollute-the-atmosphere snob factor.

I’ve tried, oh I’ve tried, but good ole Katha Pollitt has said it better than I’ve ever managed. A tidy summary to why, indeed, poverty is bad for your health–IF you live in an economy like the U.S.’s where access to health care is largely dependent on your financial standing. Poverty, I’m sure, isn’t particularly good for your health if you live in an economy with a sensible, universal health system; but it sure won’t be nearly as outright dangerous to be poor.

So it started with an article about the recently successful filibuster by Senate Republicans, to prevent a vote on a bill that would allow Guantanamo Bay detainees, and other prisoners in the “war on terror,” to have access to the court system for review of their cases; that is, to return to them the right of habeus corpus that was stripped in previous legislation. (We read it in our local Valley News, but it was originally from the Washington Post.)

A Republican filibuster in the Senate yesterday shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest in federal courts their detention and treatment, underscoring the Democratic-led Congress’s difficulty with terrorism issues.
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The detainee rights amendment was an effort to reverse a provision in last year’s Military Commissions Act that suspended the writ of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other offshore prisons.
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The authors of last year’s bill said that advocates of such rights would open the federal courts to endless lawsuits from the nation’s worst enemies. “To start that process would be an absolute disaster for this country,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), an Air Force Reserve lawyer who was instrumental in crafting the provision in question in last year’s bill. …

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First Life (look outside) labor activists might be excused for wondering what good a virtual picket line will do for the cause. Big Blue, in response to demands of an extra 40 euros pay, slashed compensation by 1000 euros. Perhaps some more tangible action is called for.

(Thanks to How the World Works for the link).

Update (9/27/07): Here is a report from New World Notes on the 12 hour picket in Second Life. Definitely not your usual picket line. Still waiting for a response from IBM.

Dean Baker: ‘…According to much of the coverage, the markets soared yesterday because they are now confident that Bernanke will move aggressively to try to counteract a recession. A bit of history would have been useful to include in this context…’

Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch: ‘…”It will help those who need it the least,” said Richard Hastings, an analyst at Bernard Sands LLC. “But for those who need the most help, this does nothing for them. The Fed cannot help them at all.”…’

Folks, this is a very important issue at a very important time. In the next year the contours of the national debate over climate change policy will be set. Huge ecological consequences – and gobs of cash – are on the line. It is essential to start off in the right direction. I’d like to see enough clarity and truculence in the activist community that journalists are forced to take notice.

It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology. Two facts about the coming century are agreed on by almost everyone. Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century. Biology is also more important than physics, as measured by its economic consequences, by its ethical implications, or by its effects on human welfare.

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I know it’s got little to do with economics, exactly, but nonetheless, this article has got me thinking: all the recent debates over same-sex marriage (and/or civil unions) have served to make it clear that states should not approve or disapprove of any marriages whatsoever, regardless of who officiates. When the state’s acknowledgment of the legality of a marriage depends on the opinion of government officials regarding what is and is not a legitimate religion, or who is and who is not a legitimate minister within an otherwise legitimated religion, it is clear that the separation of church and state has been breached. Religious groups and organizations are the appropriate bodies to establish marriages, as marriage is clearly a union formed within a spiritual tradition, with all the benefits and burdens that that entails. The state, on the other hand, should only perform civil unions, whatever the sexual mix of those joining in blissful union.

Now all we need is a constitutional amendment.

The Fed isn’t spending the money on bailing out banks, hedge funds, or helping rich people.

but it’s otherwise an excellent piece that describes the mechanism, the scale, and the reasons.

NPR.org, August 8, 2007 · The first morning of my visit to Scenic Trails, I was walking the path between some trailers when I bumped into a man named Tim Szepek. He was young, tall, and solidly good-looking. I asked if I could speak to him for a moment and he agreed. We found a spot of shade beneath a tree, and I started with what I considered a casual warm-up.

“What’s it like to live around here?” I asked.

“Well,” he replied, “I’ll be honest.”

“Ain’t a day goes by when I don’t think about killing myself.”

And so began my time in Scenic Trails, a FEMA trailer park deep in the Mississippi woods where 100 families have lived in near isolation for close to two years.

[cont’d and audio versions]