Leaving Green to the Free Market - Barron's 37 comments
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
Barron's Thomas G. Donlan makes the case that the best way to a greener planet is to leave the job to free markets.
In the 1970's, Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Since then, environmental laws have proliferated on the national, state and local levels. But some of these laws may be useless and, worse, some may hurt more than they help.
For example, some Western donors's restrictions on aid to poor tropical countries require the use of environmentally sensitive insecticide strategies. However, DDT, which was banned by the EPA in 1972, can be used to fight malaria epidemics and these countries see 2.7M people die annually from malaria.
Another example is the real but hidden cost of the removal of lead from the atmosphere by banning it from gasoline. The program was successful but new-car buyers carried the cost of the technology to make car emissions lead-free.
More recently, a New York City green bill touted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg for its job creation and energy advantages in fact requires landlords to spend $3B on building improvements, will drive up the cost of labor in the city and bulks up the public payroll.
"Energy efficiency is such a good thing that it would be better if governments did not make it mandatory," writes Donlan, "but instead let free markets seek out the efficiencies - a task for which they're ideally, and provably, suited."
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largestSee all
increase in followers
in the last 7 days
Fastest Climbers » -
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most active
Instabloggers.-
1
David Fry
-
2
TraderMark
-
3
Don Dion
-
4
Cliff Wachtel
-
5
Mike Havrilla
Top Instabloggers » -
1
-
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
This article has 37 comments:
Ms Granby could have cited dozens if not hundreds of government regulations which really have done more harm than good. The point that she makes about the Thomas Donlan article is that business simply has more talent, more passion and more resources to get the job done. That business will employ more productive people and improve the overall quality of life in more meaningful ways.
I figure there are incompetent people on the payroll of any organization. I've been in the workforce for too long -- all of it in the private sector -- to think that the private sector has any advantage on the government when it comes to the quality of their employees.
I know someone will give me the example of someone at the MVA, to which I'd say, you ever step into a Wal-Mart?
However, I do agree with the general thesis. Implement a cap and trade system and let companies determine how they're going to meet the emissions goals. I'd much rather see that than see the EPA come up with a one size fits all set of regulations.
To the Obama administration's credit, so would they.
On Apr 26 10:01 AM Fabien Hug wrote:
> We should always have let the free market live. We'd still have slaves
> and cotton fields...
A "free market", i.e., Laissez Faire Capitalism, is defined by wholesale sovereignty of individual rights, and is the only social system that ensures that natural resources are used in the most efficient, productive and life-serving manner. Free-market competition, driven by the profit motive, is the only scenario capable of fostering the innovation and wealth needed to provide wide-scale technical solutions to any "green" issues the market presents.
Slavery, being a blatant encroachment of individual rights, is not an element of a "free market", but of statism - just like all existing environmental regulations.
If there are ever to be any *real* solutions to *real* environmental concerns, Capitalism is the only system that can provide them.
The mafia believes that when they take your money, they have a moral obligation to provide entertainment or some kind of service.
The government believes only that when they take your money, they have a right to more of your money.
Whatever happened to the U.S. Constitution and the Constitutional Republic for which we stand.?
There may be some more subtle differences. I listed some below.
The Mafia has efficient and effective management, fewer layers of management and streamlined policies and procedures. Unlike our Congress and many "Too Big to Fail" companies. They have less overhead as they would not have to pay princely sums to the image maker firms.
On Apr 26 10:06 AM john s. gordon wrote:
> loeb - yes the presence of TEL in fuel fouls your spark plugs more
> rapidly & rots out your tailpipe more rapidly. ethylene dibromide
> had to be added to the fuel as a lead scavenger. also you end up
> with a lot of waste oil with lead contamination. these are all costs.
> fortunately after 1945 we had lead-free amoco high test (in CA they
> called it american white) & i used that.
There are bull markets, and then there are.... contest.newyorker.com/...
Sure, let's leave it all to free enterprise. The government couldn't possibly have developed the A-bomb or put a man on the moon or run a decent military or a local police force or fire department or built a national road system. And there couldn't possibly be thousands of people working at local, national and state levels such as Americorps volunteers and community organizers (Obama, for example) and teachers, who come back from their educational experience to give back ... and thousands who work at federal agencies like the EPA, where the end product is not to market another brand of "new and improved" detergent, but to make our lives a bit better and safer. Any of the aforementioned must be incompetent losers - because they're not motivated first and foremost by money! ... and therefore, whattheheck good can they be.
Let's get the dirty hands of the government off of the effort to save the planet, and leave it all to free enterprise. Without Greed, there can't be Green!
On Apr 26 11:14 AM Alan Young wrote:
> So the free market which brought us acid rain, near-extinction of
> whales, bison, and condors, oil-slicked beaches, and arsenic-laced
> water supplies, should have been left alone to clean up those messes--when?
>
> There are bull markets, and then there are.... contest.newyorker.com/...
>
It is troubling that this columnist does not cite the government support of the oil industry and the nuclear industry as irksome government intervention. She's willing to take for the industries that are supported by the Republicans but is willing to take away from the constituents who have demanded clean air and water for their children. Her ignorance and lack of education reflect very poorly on Seeking Alpha, and I am inclined to ask the management to avoid such writers. I am a supporter of the energy and innovation in our private markets, but I realize the need for intelligent and thoughtful regulation and guidance.
And one of the things I love most is that their way is always paved by big bucks that go from the US Treasury to the dictators (most of them call themselves "presidents") of said countries, who then sell either the land itself or drilling rights thereto to Big Oil or Big Mineral or Big Lumber, regardless of the rights of the people who might have been living there for hundreds of years. At times, inevitably, the resistance becomes organized and well armed, and people die in the resulting revolution. Washington inevitably labels these resistance movements "terrorism," and, often enough, using one of our favorite religious crusades, the War on Drugs, sends in billions of dollars and "military consultants" to fight the narcotraffickers. And is it a real stumper, tougher than the New York Times crossword puzzle, that a people dispossessed by corrupt governments, and with nothing to their name would NOT harvest the coca leaves (best antidote to altitude sickness is coca-leaf tea, which will not get you high, but might one day save your life - and I betcha nobody in the media ever told you that) and turn it into the far more profitable product, cocaine - the drug of choice for models and their wealthy corporate-executive hosts. What are they going to buy their M-16's and grenades with? Their honesty and hard work? Where did THAT get them?
On Bloomberg's bill - perish the thought that landlords should have to spend money! The beauty of owning apartment houses is that you just pay a little for heat and power and then sit back and collect rent. I mean, what's life all about - Justice?
SOB
So where are all the people just clamoring to enter the worker's paradises of command economies? Gee, I just don't recall Soviet Union/Eastern Bloc being economic powerhouses. THE Wall, as I recall, was to keep people in, not out. Otherwise the average citizen of the USSR would have walked on over to The West. On the contrary, it appears China has possibly learned that lesson.
It wasn't laissez faire government that gave us the elimination of redlining. It was the opposite. Increased regulation always yields increased costs. When will Liberals get it that cost increases are passed on to consumers. Corporations don't pay taxes, shareholders pay taxes (2 times - once as the income of the corporation and again as dividends received). If you don't think so, watch what happens when cap-and-trade goes into effect.
On Apr 26 11:14 AM Alan Young wrote:
> So the free market which brought us acid rain, near-extinction of
> whales, bison, and condors, oil-slicked beaches, and arsenic-laced
> water supplies, should have been left alone to clean up those messes--when?
>
> There are bull markets, and then there are.... contest.newyorker.com/...
>
On Apr 26 10:28 AM petyaczar wrote:
> What is the difference between the Government and the Mafia?
>
> The mafia believes that when they take your money, they have a moral
> obligation to provide entertainment or some kind of service.
>
> The government believes only that when they take your money, they
> have a right to more of your money.
>
> Whatever happened to the U.S. Constitution and the Constitutional
> Republic for which we stand.?
The knee-jerk statements about the "free market" supposedly causing all environmental damage just illuminates the economic ignorance of the commenters. The "near-extinction of whales, bison" etc. has nothing to do with free markets, and all to do with "the tragedy of the commons", i.e. when there are no property rights established there is a mad rush to consume the resource before the other guy does. The same is true for stip mining and clear-cut lumbering practices, two more of the socialists' bugaboos, where the companies lease government land and have no incentive to do anything to conserve it.
Then there was the remark advising Rachel to read history. Unfortunately, the court historians have dutifully painted the worst possible picture of capitalism, since they are, like all of American academia, dominated by socialists and "progressives" who hate capitalism and capitalists. Thus we see the people who read and believe their nonsense trot out all the old canards about unmitigated greed, profit gouging at the expense of the health of the consumers, etc. I didn't see anyone acknowledging Rachel's point about the Greens' heavy-handed DDT policies leading to the deaths of millions of poor people (the vast majority of them black, by the way).
Free market capitalists, including millions of shareholders and entrepreneurs, are simply not guilty of the sins of which they are so often accused. Sure, there are some capitalists who are evil individuals, and are guilty of all manner of crimes, but they most assuredly are NOT free market capitalists. We see the prime examples today in the banking industry, which long ago sold out the free market in favor of cartelism, and today are taking money they never earned from the government that stole it from me and you. Point all you want to those types, but don't call them free market capitalists. They are parasites, every bit as much as the government lawyer who led off these comments.
i was told that the reason we had leadfree amoco in 1945 was that all the other refiners shut down their aviation alkylate (130 RON) capacity after the war but indiana standard elected to keep their facility running & use the product as a premium blending stock (you don't really need 130 octane in your car).
lead slows down the combustion and reduces knocking by acting as a free radical trap. i did a lot of racing @ that time & when you are running 7800 rpm the faster combustion without lead gives you that little extra oomph that can make all the difference.
> jack
Imho capitalism, my team by the way which is behind at the moment, has to find a way to balance itself. It is top heavy. It's base is weakening. What to do? That's the question.
Oh yeah, buy low sell high, I almost forgot.
On Apr 26 03:49 PM Glen L. wrote:
> Wow, I feel like I stumbled into Seeking Alpha's Obama Corner, judging
> by the proliferation of socialist nonsense in the comments...
Point all you want to those types,
> but don't call them free market capitalists. They are parasites,
> every bit as much as the government lawyer who led off these comments.
the environment so both can clean it up.
interesting comment on alkylate that I will have to check into. but I thought the product of alkylation is iso-octane, for which the octane standard is named. it has an octane of 100, not 130. have I got it wrong, or is there some disconnect?
On Apr 26 04:59 PM john s. gordon wrote:
> loeb -
>
> i was told that the reason we had leadfree amoco in 1945 was that
> all the other refiners shut down their aviation alkylate (130 RON)
> capacity after the war but indiana standard elected to keep their
> facility running & use the product as a premium blending stock
> (you don't really need 130 octane in your car).
> lead slows down the combustion and reduces knocking by acting as
> a free radical trap. i did a lot of racing @ that time & when
> you are running 7800 rpm the faster combustion without lead gives
> you that little extra oomph that can make all the difference.
Sorry, also, that you think corporations and shareholders shouldn't pay for the environmental messes they make. Or better yet, not mess up the neighborhoods they work in to begin with. One who wouldn't want to pay his way would be a "freeloader", right?
I think that's an even worse label than a "liberal". Labels don't help us think. They separate us and they ultimately do not win arguments. Labels help us to avoid dealing with thougts. We just spit out the pre-chewed cud we always have ruminated on and learn nothing new. Same old, same old.
Example: No taxes + no government = anarchy delt out by the hands of "conservatives."
More thinking and fewer knee-jerk reactions are needed--no labels and more creative thought and a sense of responsibility. Let's come together with thought and a spirit of compromise.
Amen.
On Apr 26 01:04 PM brokerinbirmingham wrote:
>
> So where are all the people just clamoring to enter the worker's
> paradises of command economies? Gee, I just don't recall Soviet Union/Eastern
> Bloc being economic powerhouses.
. When will Liberals get it that cost increases are
> passed on to consumers. Corporations don't pay taxes, shareholders
> pay taxes (2 times - once as the income of the corporation and again
> as dividends received).
On Apr 26 08:52 AM Itsallbus wrote:
> I believe the well-known commentator was specifically talking about
> government lawyers when he famously said 'they know nothing...".
> Worse yet, most regulators are henpecked by the politicians into
> making even worse regulations than regulators would make on their
> own. Citing non-facts of cars now running twice as long, IQs markedly
> increasing and crime dropping because of unleaded fuel is news to
> all.
>
> Ms Granby could have cited dozens if not hundreds of government regulations
> which really have done more harm than good. The point that she makes
> about the Thomas Donlan article is that business simply has more
> talent, more passion and more resources to get the job done. That
> business will employ more productive people and improve the overall
> quality of life in more meaningful ways.
On Apr 26 10:28 AM petyaczar wrote:
> What is the difference between the Government and the Mafia?
>
> The mafia believes that when they take your money, they have a moral
> obligation to provide entertainment or some kind of service.
>
> The government believes only that when they take your money, they
> have a right to more of your money.
>
> Whatever happened to the U.S. Constitution and the Constitutional
> Republic for which we stand.?
Nonetheless, environmental arguments have been used to promote collective economic policies. It is unsurprizing that so much environmental legislation is rife with counterincentives.
We can all thank the Government = EPA = for acid rain.
In their attempt to control Sulfur emiissions from autos, EPA mandated catalytic converters. These catalytic converters spew out H20 and S02 and other gases. What do you get when you increase S02 emissions into an ambient environment containing humidity. H20+S02 <=>H2S04 plus other compounds.
In case you do not know, h2so4 is Sulphuric acid, this came back down to Earth when it was washed out of the atmosphere by rain = ACID rain.
Now you know. The Free Market had nothing to do with it, it was unintended consequences resulting directly from government edict.
On Apr 26 11:14 AM Alan Young wrote:
> So the free market which brought us acid rain, near-extinction of
> whales, bison, and condors, oil-slicked beaches, and arsenic-laced
> water supplies, should have been left alone to clean up those messes--when?
>
> There are bull markets, and then there are.... contest.newyorker.com/...
>
Socialists -Liberals want to control everything,because they don't understand how anything works.
Conservatives don't want the government to control anything because conservatives understand how things work.
In the words of Thomas Jefferson "He governs best,who governs least"
BTW I am a Constitutional Centrist, why do Dim/Libs think that anyone who disagrees with them is a "Far Right Conservative?" (sic)
ROFLMAO
On Apr 26 11:23 AM User21284 wrote:
> It's great to read the perspective of those who would compare democratically-elected
> government to the Mafia, and who opine that (unlike our government)
> the Mafia feels a moral obligation ... to do anything. Speaking of
> poison - this is a pretty good measure of the degree to which the
> conservative Right, led by their talk radio arm, has succeeded in
> poisoning the minds of many Americans to the degree that they feel
> our government is worse and less moral than the Mafia. These folks
> aren't joking - they really believe it.
>
> Sure, let's leave it all to free enterprise. The government couldn't
> possibly have developed the A-bomb or put a man on the moon or run
> a decent military or a local police force or fire department or built
> a national road system. And there couldn't possibly be thousands
> of people working at local, national and state levels such as Americorps
> volunteers and community organizers (Obama, for example) and teachers,
> who come back from their educational experience to give back ...
> and thousands who work at federal agencies like the EPA, where the
> end product is not to market another brand of "new and improved"
> detergent, but to make our lives a bit better and safer. Any of the
> aforementioned must be incompetent losers - because they're not motivated
> first and foremost by money! ... and therefore, whattheheck good
> can they be.
>
> Let's get the dirty hands of the government off of the effort to
> save the planet, and leave it all to free enterprise. Without Greed,
> there can't be Green!
The current government
1)Changes the rules of the game (Mark to Market, FASB157, ) etc
2)Picks and chooses resulting winners and losers (Corporations)
3)Offers Money You Can't refuse to selected target corporations
4)"Partners" up with these Corporations - ie muscles in
5)Changes the rules AGAIN and AGAIN
6)Gets more and more involved in operations of the Corporations
7)Removes management they do not like
8)Brings in their own management - ie Cousin Vinny
9)And when the poor partner wants out, wants to return the money and sever the forced partnership.. welll.....
Sorry, you can't get out of the partnership, and you can't give us back the money.
Socialism is a train that leaves the station one railroad car at a time.AND it never takes you where you want to go.
IMO
On Apr 26 10:45 AM Teutonic Knight wrote:
> petyaczar,
>
> There may be some more subtle differences. I listed some below.<br/>
>
> The Mafia has efficient and effective management, fewer layers of
> management and streamlined policies and procedures. Unlike our Congress
> and many "Too Big to Fail" companies. They have less overhead as
> they would not have to pay princely sums to the image maker firms.
Who are earth's real friends?
Obviously not Barrons!
Banning DDT: "It has been a huge success at a minimal cost."
Lead-free gas: "Removal of lead from the atmosphere by banning it from gasoline is also a big success"
"at a significant but hidden cost"
"Nobody has ever told us how much more we pay for cars whose emissions are lead free"
"but Americans are probably glad to pay it for the improvement in public health"
How do you a) know it was significant if nobody ever told you how much? b) get off your lazy duff and do some research to find out! and c) if Americans are glad to pay it then maybe the cost wasn't as significant as you intimate/speculate--in... the cost may have been negative considering the public health benefit.
If the "free" market is so good at valuing wildlife and clean air, then why did it take government action to create these success?
and lastly WHY OH WHY are you grousing about a $3 billion NYC energy efficiency/building improvement investment that will save NYC building owners $750 million per year? Is mandating an investment with a 25% return so horrible?