They way they chart inflation is a joke. Basket of essential goods is the best way and inflation has skyrocketed.
Economics Thread
- Thread starter sturg33
- Start date
They way they chart inflation is a joke. Basket of essential goods is the best way and inflation has skyrocketed.
acesfull86
Well-known member
https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-for-a-carbon-tax-cassidy-green-energy-china-senate-afc5df98?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
Too many Republicans these days have lost their economic bearings. Look no further than a GOP Senate bill that would enact a carbon tariff—i.e., a new tax. In the name of punishing China, the legislation would punish American consumers and businesses.
The Foreign Pollution Fee Act, sponsored by Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, could well have been written by the Sierra Club and AFL-CIO. Among the carbon tariff’s biggest advocates is Donald Trump’s former trade adviser Robert Lighthizer, who favors tariffs in principle. So it’s worth deconstructing the misleading arguments that Mr. Cassidy and others are making for climate protectionism.
The bill would impose tariffs on 16 categories of goods produced in countries with higher CO2 emissions than the U.S. They include steel, aluminum, critical minerals, solar panels, wind turbines, crude oil, gasoline, petrochemicals, plastics, paper and lithium-ion batteries. Companies could lobby to have products added to the list, and you can bet they will.
Tariffs would be based on a foreign good’s relative “carbon intensity,” as calculated by a new National Laboratory Advisory Board on Global Pollution Challenges. The bill would expand the administrative state by creating a new bureaucracy with sweeping powers that would be hard for future Congresses to rein in.
…
The Louisiana Senator is also selling the bill with a misdirection worthy of Al Gore. He argues that “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other foreign governments have ignored international norms and agreements regarding environmental protection and pollute the world without consequence,” and the bill would hold these “polluters” accountable.
In Foreign Affairs he conflates hazardous air pollutants such as sulfates with carbon emissions, as the climate lobby also does. As a physician, Mr. Cassidy knows the difference. Particulates harm public health. Carbon emissions are ubiquitous, and if he really thinks they’re dangerous pollutants he should be honest and try to eliminate his state’s oil industry.
…
Some of the GOP’s strongest supporters of free trade and markets have recently retired, and the party’s protectionist wing is on the rise. But the GOP won’t be worth a dime’s worth of economic difference from Democrats if it embraces an idea that expands the administrative state, raises taxes, and increases prices amid damaging inflation.
Too many Republicans these days have lost their economic bearings. Look no further than a GOP Senate bill that would enact a carbon tariff—i.e., a new tax. In the name of punishing China, the legislation would punish American consumers and businesses.
The Foreign Pollution Fee Act, sponsored by Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, could well have been written by the Sierra Club and AFL-CIO. Among the carbon tariff’s biggest advocates is Donald Trump’s former trade adviser Robert Lighthizer, who favors tariffs in principle. So it’s worth deconstructing the misleading arguments that Mr. Cassidy and others are making for climate protectionism.
The bill would impose tariffs on 16 categories of goods produced in countries with higher CO2 emissions than the U.S. They include steel, aluminum, critical minerals, solar panels, wind turbines, crude oil, gasoline, petrochemicals, plastics, paper and lithium-ion batteries. Companies could lobby to have products added to the list, and you can bet they will.
Tariffs would be based on a foreign good’s relative “carbon intensity,” as calculated by a new National Laboratory Advisory Board on Global Pollution Challenges. The bill would expand the administrative state by creating a new bureaucracy with sweeping powers that would be hard for future Congresses to rein in.
…
The Louisiana Senator is also selling the bill with a misdirection worthy of Al Gore. He argues that “the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other foreign governments have ignored international norms and agreements regarding environmental protection and pollute the world without consequence,” and the bill would hold these “polluters” accountable.
In Foreign Affairs he conflates hazardous air pollutants such as sulfates with carbon emissions, as the climate lobby also does. As a physician, Mr. Cassidy knows the difference. Particulates harm public health. Carbon emissions are ubiquitous, and if he really thinks they’re dangerous pollutants he should be honest and try to eliminate his state’s oil industry.
…
Some of the GOP’s strongest supporters of free trade and markets have recently retired, and the party’s protectionist wing is on the rise. But the GOP won’t be worth a dime’s worth of economic difference from Democrats if it embraces an idea that expands the administrative state, raises taxes, and increases prices amid damaging inflation.
57Brave
Well-known member
You voted for Trump , spoke proudly while defending Mom's For Liberty and tout 0esantis.
That is is a 0 fer
Ignorance huh ?
sturg33
I
Evergreen
acesfull86
Well-known member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/06/elizabeth-warren-subway-big-sandwich-monopoly/
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is progressivism incarnate. The former Harvard Law School professor should possess, if there were such, a PhD in Advanced Worrying. She represents the cutting edge of modern fretting, forever anxious lest something, somewhere, escapes the government’s improving attention. So she has Xed (tweeted, for those who are not au courant) her joy that the Federal Trade Commission recently has been preoccupied with the menace of Big Tech is turning its disapproving squint at Big Sandwich. (This delicious phrase is from the Washington Examiner’s Tom Joyce.)
…
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “monopoly” as the “exclusive possession or control of the trade in a commodity, product, or service; the condition of having no competitor in one’s trade or business.” But for the FTC-Warren posse, there are difficulties.
Can there be a monopoly in the provision of something that millions of parents make to put in their school-age children’s backpacks? Something a 9-year-old can produce?
…
Perhaps to inflate the specter of a sandwich shop monopoly, the FTC is considering diminishing the number of such shops by semantic fiat — by decreeing that a sandwich made of beef or chicken is not a sandwich if the meat is not served cold. Thousands of McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A’s would be defined out of the sandwich business. And scores of thousands of other shops selling hamburgers, and chicken or fish sandwiches would disappear from the calculations. The Agriculture Department, however, says that hamburger or chicken between bread is — drum roll — a sandwich.
America is so thickly planted with fast food stores that in many places you cannot fling a brick without hitting one. In addition, there are about 43,000 U.S. food trucks, according to IBISWorld industry research, many of them selling what even the FTC would recognize as sandwiches. Most of New York City’s approximately 13,000 bodegas (a.k.a., corner grocery stores) sell them.
Sandwich vendors also compete with sellers of pizzas, tacos and items from Chopt, Panda Express, etc. Yet Warren surveys the crowded landscape of U.S. sandwich commerce and trembles about a potential monopoly.
Her evident belief — mystifying but actual — is that if Roark Capital buys Subway, competition in the sandwich market will somehow shrivel, leading “to higher food prices.” She might not know that many states, including Massachusetts, forbid the owners of brands like Subway to dictate prices to franchisees. Their pricing is dictated, in part, by the proximity of many competitors.
By urging the FTC to devote resources to fending off a sandwich shop monopoly, Warren contributes to the public stock of harmless hilarity, making busybody progressivism more amusing than annoying. And she encourages the FTC to divert to Big Sandwich some meddlesomeness that might otherwise be used for more consequential mischief.
The current FTC’s apparent belief, and Warren’s, is that when an enterprise (Apple, Google, etc.) becomes big by satisfying many customers, these customers have created something worrisome. Hence the itch to combat the chimera of Big Sandwich, even though there is not, and can never be, any such thing.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is progressivism incarnate. The former Harvard Law School professor should possess, if there were such, a PhD in Advanced Worrying. She represents the cutting edge of modern fretting, forever anxious lest something, somewhere, escapes the government’s improving attention. So she has Xed (tweeted, for those who are not au courant) her joy that the Federal Trade Commission recently has been preoccupied with the menace of Big Tech is turning its disapproving squint at Big Sandwich. (This delicious phrase is from the Washington Examiner’s Tom Joyce.)
…
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “monopoly” as the “exclusive possession or control of the trade in a commodity, product, or service; the condition of having no competitor in one’s trade or business.” But for the FTC-Warren posse, there are difficulties.
Can there be a monopoly in the provision of something that millions of parents make to put in their school-age children’s backpacks? Something a 9-year-old can produce?
…
Perhaps to inflate the specter of a sandwich shop monopoly, the FTC is considering diminishing the number of such shops by semantic fiat — by decreeing that a sandwich made of beef or chicken is not a sandwich if the meat is not served cold. Thousands of McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A’s would be defined out of the sandwich business. And scores of thousands of other shops selling hamburgers, and chicken or fish sandwiches would disappear from the calculations. The Agriculture Department, however, says that hamburger or chicken between bread is — drum roll — a sandwich.
America is so thickly planted with fast food stores that in many places you cannot fling a brick without hitting one. In addition, there are about 43,000 U.S. food trucks, according to IBISWorld industry research, many of them selling what even the FTC would recognize as sandwiches. Most of New York City’s approximately 13,000 bodegas (a.k.a., corner grocery stores) sell them.
Sandwich vendors also compete with sellers of pizzas, tacos and items from Chopt, Panda Express, etc. Yet Warren surveys the crowded landscape of U.S. sandwich commerce and trembles about a potential monopoly.
Her evident belief — mystifying but actual — is that if Roark Capital buys Subway, competition in the sandwich market will somehow shrivel, leading “to higher food prices.” She might not know that many states, including Massachusetts, forbid the owners of brands like Subway to dictate prices to franchisees. Their pricing is dictated, in part, by the proximity of many competitors.
By urging the FTC to devote resources to fending off a sandwich shop monopoly, Warren contributes to the public stock of harmless hilarity, making busybody progressivism more amusing than annoying. And she encourages the FTC to divert to Big Sandwich some meddlesomeness that might otherwise be used for more consequential mischief.
The current FTC’s apparent belief, and Warren’s, is that when an enterprise (Apple, Google, etc.) becomes big by satisfying many customers, these customers have created something worrisome. Hence the itch to combat the chimera of Big Sandwich, even though there is not, and can never be, any such thing.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
The sandwich thang is a farce.
But there are genuine anti-trust issues that need addressing. T-mobile should not have been allowed to swallow Sprint. The domestic airline industry risks becoming even less competitive if recent merger agreements are allowed to proceed. Google's antit-competitive practices need to be addressed. There is irony there because the legal wringer that Microsoft went through in a previous iteration of the browser wars helped create the space for Google to grow and prosper. Amazon also has certain practices that are mostly designed to forestall competition.
But there are genuine anti-trust issues that need addressing. T-mobile should not have been allowed to swallow Sprint. The domestic airline industry risks becoming even less competitive if recent merger agreements are allowed to proceed. Google's antit-competitive practices need to be addressed. There is irony there because the legal wringer that Microsoft went through in a previous iteration of the browser wars helped create the space for Google to grow and prosper. Amazon also has certain practices that are mostly designed to forestall competition.
acesfull86
Well-known member
I agree with Will on the bolded - hopefully Warren keeps herself occupied protecting us from Big Sandwich and leaves the important issues for people more capable of tackling them.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
The better solution is to remove our own carbon restrictions to allow us to be competitive. As long as there are 40 or more Senate Dems that won't happen. Tariffing the imports of countries with lower bureaucracy costs isn't ideal, but neither is offshoring all of our industry.
cajunrevenge
Well-known member
Dow Jones hit an all time high. Unemployment has been under 4% for 2 years. GDP has grown about 3% a year since Biden took over. But if you listen to the fake news media you would think the economy has crashed.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Not always.
For example, after peaking near 1500 in August 2000 the S&P500 dropped to around 830 February 2003 and didn't return to its previous peak until May 2007.
There are other exceptions. The October 1973 peak was not seen again until January 1980.