A nice companion piece to Harsanyi’s column, this time from CNS News. “American Businesses Should Spend Some of Their Cash Reserves to Create ‘Green’ Jobs, Suggests EPA’s Lisa Jackson”:
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson suggested on Tuesday that American businesses with a “record amount of cash holdings,” estimated at $1.93 trillion, could invest some of those holdings to create jobs that advance pollution control.
Jackson, speaking at the BlueGreen Alliance national conference in Washington, D.C., cited a Dec. 10 Wall Street Journal article about a U.S. Treasury report, which estimated that there is $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets of non-financial U.S. companies sitting dormant, not being invested.
— and by “not being invested,” she of course means, “not being invested in things she wants that money invested in, even though the money isn’t hers, and it should really be none of her business what a business does with its capital. Especially in a climate of heavy regulation and high corporate tax rates — when that “investment” doesn’t bring much yield.
“Even a portion of the $1.93 trillion invested in developing and installing new pollution control technology would result in good jobs right here for American workers,” Jackson said to the gathering of labor unions and environmental activists.
Jackson said that standards and regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are good for job creation and the economy.
“The fact is that updating environmental standards, which we do to protect American families from things like mercury and acid gases and other toxic pollutants that cause asthma and lung disease, especially in children, create a good economic climate for investment and good jobs for American workers,” Jackson said.
Translation: to run a business the government will support and nurture, you as a company need to pay tribute to the green lobby and the unions. That many of these green jobs either disappear after proving unsustainable, or go oversees, matters little.
This is about power: picking winners and losers, “nudging” businesses into paying tribute, and managing a burgeoning command and control economy.
That an unelected bureaucrat should wield this kind of power is a testament to just how sick our market economy — and the political maneuvering that seeks to control it — has become.
they’re so fascinated with private sector cash… they’re not unlike whores really, Obama and this EPA bitch
What company considers giving money to another company without any return an investment? That’s a loss, pure and simple. A kid running a lemonade stand realizes that.
Yeah, this really does read like the preface to a “voluntary” shakedown.
The termites having tunneled through every beam and timber, the house trembled in the slightest breeze. In the first gust of the oncoming storm, it will surely buckle and collapse.
Business ought ask Ms. Jackson to volunteer to go hang herself from the nearest lamppost.
“could invest some of those holdings to create jobs that advance pollution control. ”
says the woman whose experience is college, grad school, gov’t, gov’t, gov’t
The EPA should invest all its money on job creation. They should buy oil futures and then close their doors. Viola! Jobs!
Bureaucrat: You should really put a new filter on the tap you’re getting your water from.
Little Sally: That’s going to increase my costs for no return. And I was really hoping to hire someone to watch the stand so I can start selling lemonade during the school year. That’s an investment.
Bureaucrat: No, this is an investment. The money you put in will increase the return of Fat Tony’s Water Filter Company.
Little Sally: What, are you retarded?
Yep — they’re watching those private cash reserves the way a hungry dog sitting by the dinner table watches the fork.
It occurs to me that the media would be reporting this story VERY differently if the GOP were the ones urging companies to “invest” in the Defense Industry to help create jobs wouldn’t it?
Call them green jobs.
?????
PROFIt !!!
did we know Jim Webb is gonna retire after this term? Nobody tells me anything I have to learn this shit on the street
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The way to get ahead in America is to marry a closeted gay republican who has a family fortune. Divorce him when he comes out of the closet. Collect a sizable settlement. Shift your politics 180 degrees. Set up a progressive blogsite and then sell it to some idiots a few years later for $315 million dollars.
Duh!
Oh and post about “green stuff”. That is how you get green stuff.
It’s nice to hear Webb chooses to walk away, but it’d be better still to hear Lugar, Lindsay, or the Lobster twins were choosing to leave. Throw in a few others as the occur to ya. Alliteration optional.
They call that the Secret. I heard it on Oprah. And they are willing to throw in a Native American sauna with that if you act now.
Maybe I should have gone with all caps.*
I suppose we’ll have to help them with that.
On the plus side, I think primary losses are far more instructive for those still trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing.
(Which, incidentally, was the value of taking out Castle whether others will ever admit that or not.)
oh. sorry I didn’t see that cause I was making noodles I took the leftover pho noodles and dunked them into a bowl what had a thai chicken breast in it with thai chicken breast sauce and I’m a little concerned what the result’s gonna be like cause the noodles had lost all noodle form and are now more of a congealed mass and they’re still in the microwave
Sometimes the markets can do a pretty good job at sizing up things…
The markets don’t always get it right, but in the aggregate they’re a strong indicator of where things are heading.
Quite so. Nothing however, necessarily prevents these over-long resident twerps from figuring it out on their own prior to being ousted in primary contests. The sooner they do understand their own complicity in the unmaking of the American political enterprise, the better.
That AOL/PuffHo thing was surreal. It’s like the 1990’s never happened.
What’s the value of their physical plant? Maybe a million or so if they’re doing their own hosting?
I assume there’s some revenue stream from advertising, but enough to justify the price? I doubt it.
The opinions aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit, in real terms, even if you’re insane enough to agree with them.
Alex, Chicago shakedown politics for $193 billion…
How the hell is AOL still in business.
What do they do? Like, for money and stuff.
Gonna tell me they still have hundreds of millions of dollars a year worth of revenue from providing IP’s to dial-up users?
In other news, United Telegraph Co. just payed Justin Biebur $200M for a new advertising campaign to try to appeal to a younger demographic.
They put ads in your e-mail. I think. Or maybe in your oatmeal. I always get the two confused.
The markets don’t always get it right,
And when they get things wrong, they correct, whereas gov’t insists on perpetuating the error.
Arianna Huffington’s Deal Will Save the Progressive Movement
The
conspiratorialcynical ex-reporter Robert Stacy McCain had similiar thoughts.Is pollution really even a problem in this country anymore? I don’t think I’ve heard a story about acid-rain in twenty years.
AOL is still stuck in a time warp from the dot com 90s. They probably live in a bubble inside Time Warner and think that eyeballs and click throughs still subsitute for free-cash-flow.
Following that, it is evidence of the decline of our economic system that this kind of financial shuffling and facebook are the two notable outputs in recent years.
EPA’s lovely Lisa:
Like the stuff that’s in CFL light bulbs? The shit you gubmint drones are forcing us to buy – that’s made in China?
Really?
Ernst,
If AOL is stuck in the 1990s, the EPA is stuck in the 1970s.
Aren’t we so very, very lucky?
“Is pollution really even a problem in this country anymore? I don’t think I’ve heard a story about acid-rain in twenty years.”
no that’s why they’re into greenhouse gases. that’s also why it is a good candidate for a vastly reduced and redefined epa.
Hey! Arianna’s intellectual property has got to be worth something….
…
…
he … He heh …. BwaaaHaHaHaHaaa!
Sorry, for a minute there I thought I could type that with a straight face.
the fedora on zsa zsa
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Arianna’s intellectual property has got to be worth something….
A cup of cold, stale coffee?
Is pollution really even a problem in this country anymore?
The MN Health Dept recommends I eat walleye no more than once a week, ’cause of the mercury. So there’s that. (I’m no greenie, but I dearly wish there were a way to keep the coal-burners from dropping mercury in my lakes.)
I can’t imagine wanting to eat walleye even once a year, so that’s not sounding like much of a sacrifice.
“but I dearly wish there were a way to keep the coal-burners from dropping mercury in my lakes.)”
there’s alot of coal burners to the west of mn?
See, what the fascisti pinheads a la Ms. Jackson don’t get is that businesses will invest wholesale in the manufacture of “green” products, once the cost-benefit analysis indicates that endeavor to be favorable to the companies themselves…
There’s just no real money in much of what they like to characterize as “green products” for the manufacturers or the consumers, outside of the government trough that is.
Wind power is great!, for instance, as long as the wind is blowing. But when it’s not…
It’s kind of like the problem with heat-pumps in colder climates. Sure, they’re really effecient, until the temperature is consistently below approximately 30° or so; at that point the elecreic coil “booster” is essentially providing all of the heat, and the system is no more “green” than good ol’ electric baseboards…
The same is true for solar, which having had some experience with vis-a-vis space systems, is almost like magic when employed favorably. The problem is, owing to the current conversion efficiency and the collector cell life-cycles, they’re just not practical for large scale use here on earth. To generate large amounts of power you have to committ vast amount of acreage and an expensive connective infrastructure to support it. In short, there’s little money in it; the payback is too little.
Where solar is most effective is in it’s use for individual domiciles. But the rub in that application is the relatively short lifetime of the energy storage that must be used to carry you through the overnight hours as well as period of low insolation. Just as with electric cars, energy storage, i.e. battery technology, needs to develop a bit before the cost of maintaining and replacing the storage medium doesn’t eat up the savings realized through reduced electricity purchases over the years.
In time, advances in the technology will develop to the point that these methods will be both practical and cost-effective, to employ and manufacture. And then businesses will jump in with both feet.
Until then it’s just a fascistic corporate-government unholy union, where their cronies are the winners and we all are the losers.
Sorry for the html spill
“The MN Health Dept recommends I eat walleye no more than once a week”
that’s for
link
Walleye is pretty tasty, especially when it’s breaded in crushed corn-flakes and fried in lard in a cast iron skillet over an open fire.
Or so I remember.
The last time I had it I went into anaphylaxsis.
Or not blowing too hard.
If we were serious about green energy, we’d be building nuclear power plants.
Thanks Ernst, I left that out of my tl:dr rant.
The big summer festival when I grew up? Walleye Weekend.
In this region we think that pregnant women should eat it even more often.
Along wid beer-n-pretzels. amirite?
If you want a strong and healthy baby, yes.
I have a big Walleye mounted on my wall next to the Northern Pike. They freak out the liberal chicks , though my more sensible, conservative friends just wonder why the fuck I have fish on my wall that were caught 20 years before I was born. Apparently there’s no honor in it or something.
Always knew Hostess Sno-Balls were diversionairily good for something.
which value does mn use?
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If you tracked and then hunted down the original fishermen, I’d say they’re still worthwhile trophies.
Those aren’t green jobs sdferr. Those evil extractors of liquid carbon will be punished someday.
The other half of the equation is that there really weren’t that many jobs to lose in North Dakota to begin with.
Walleyes and Northern are good, Abe.
Real Men™ hang Muskies on the wall, however.
Maybe that whole “laboratories of democracy” would work better if your average Joe looked at charts like this more often.
Muskies scare me.
Real Muskies™ hang Illinoisans on the wall.
Is there a transcript of her hearing on the Hill today? She, and the rest of her ilk, seem incredibly focused on those private sector dollars that the private sector is trying to protect. It sure would be a shame if something happened to your capital.
Dicentra, your post put me in mind of the following paragraph from “The Fall of the House of Usher”:
“From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued ; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened – there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind – the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight – my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder – there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters – and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher .”
http://www.online-literature.com/poe/31/
Opening statement here, JD. About what you’d expect. Couldn’t find any full transcript.
Edmund scared me, but then that was mostly an alarm at the introduction to the term Canuck (due my tender age at the time), certain as I was that he was publicly alluding to rampant ass-fuckers.
Muskies should scare you. Fresh water barracudas they are. If some mad-scientist were to cross them with those snake head fish we’d all be doomed.
Doomed I say!
tea party news
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This is good, possibly being the beginning of a bidding war to see who can cut the most. Get a virtuous cycle like that going and then hear the cheers from the activists!
That leaves 1.4 trillion to cut from entitlements and (sadly) defense.
“That leaves 1.4 trillion to cut from entitlements and (sadly) defense.”
the big boat is tough to turn what with leeches attached.
leeches : chop,chop
or bah: take your thai chicken pick
Justified is good.
Just because I have shot the occasional person does not make me a thief.
“Congressional ethics: texting shirtless pictures=reason to resign in disgrace. Spending $1.5 trillion you don’t have = Wednesday.”
http://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/35491558295863296
Iowahawk is fucking funny.
What are we waiting for overnight tonight? Snow. What are we doing tomorrow? It’s picture day for the HS golf team – outside. Sigh. Plus practice after. LOL Dilemma: sit in the car and point and laugh or retire to the lounge and get a decent head start on the drunko bunko fanatics. Hmmm.
btw if anyone wants to follow the team this year: http://www.brookwoodsports.com/GolfHome/tabid/156/Default.aspx
First match is Monday at TPC Sugarloaf and first tournament is next weekend, so beware of blizzards.
Anyone know how much it would cost to a synthetic putting green in the back yard? Maybe 20×30 with 3 or 4 holes?
Iowahawk is truly funny. Really, sincerely talented.
Be thankful its warm enough to snow.
steely dan – the royal scam
“THE ROYAL SCAM
And they wandered in
From the city of St. John
Without a dime
Wearing coats that shined
Both red and green
Colors from their sunny island
From their boats of iron
They looked upon the promised land
Where surely life was sweet
On the rising tide
To New York City
Did they ride into the street
See the glory
Of the royal scam
They are hounded down
To the bottom of a bad town
Amid the ruins
Where they learn to fear
An angry race of fallen kings
Their dark companions
While the memory of
Their southern sky was clouded by
A savage winter
Every patron saint
Hung on the wall, shared the room
With twenty sinners
See the glory
Of the royal scam
By the blackened wall
He does it all
He thinks he’s died and gone to heaven
Now the tale is told
By the old man back home
He reads the letter
How they are paid in gold
Just to babble in the back room
All night and waste their time
And they wandered in
From the city of St. John without a dime”
8-10 bucks per square foot, which includes the drainage, and base work.
How the hell is AOL still in business.
On today’s Ricochet podcast, Lileks said that on his most recent Hewitt cruise, he was in the ship’s computer room, and all these retirees logged on and he heard “You’ve got mail” about a billion times, because their kids set them all up with an AOL account in 1995 and it’s all they know.
Blake:
Another literary ref to collapsing houses is the very literal collapse of the house of Clennam in Little Dorrit. Creaky thing swayed in the breeze and then finally fell down, killing the corrupt folks inside.
Thanks, JD. I figured about that.
I can help you get a good price on the turf, but that will b useless if the base is not done right.
…nice of Waxman to finally admit it!
…why, the fraudulent nature of AGW is as plain as the nose on his face.
And by ‘plain’, I mean ‘hideous’.
Jackson said that standards and regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are good for job creation and the economy.
Not a fuckin clue.
Too bad global warming became climate change.
Global warming, global cooling, doesn’t matter. The one size fits all solution to every problem is a newer, more massive, unaffordable government program.