global warming

Private Employers Cut 39,000 Jobs in September

by Hans Bader on October 7, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Healthcare, Labor, Legal, Regulation, Stimulus to Nowhere

The private sector shed 39,000 jobs in September.  Liberal journalists claim this was “unexpected.”  This reveals their shaky grasp of economics.

If you were an employer, why would you hire somebody in an economy that’s barely growing, when you could be hit by all sorts of employee-related expenses in the future, the way employers have already been hit by increased costs due to Obamacare?  Employers are worried about additional costs that could force them to lay off newly hired workers if Congress passes cap-and-trade global warming legislation (which would impose massive costs on many industries, requiring cutbacks in production).  Recent EPA rules aimed at global warming will wipe out at least 800,000 jobs, with a blizzard of additional new rules expected to follow.  And the stimulus package, despite its $800 billion cost, did little for employers, wiping out export-sector jobs, and funneling green-jobs money to foreign firms.  (The current weak “recovery” actually began in June 2009, before the stimulus package even began being spent.)

Thanks to steadily-expanding government red tape, every time you set a worker’s pay, or have to fire a lazy or incompetent employee, you now face the risk of being sued  (You are less likely to hire someone if you can’t fire them later if they turn out to be lazy or incompetent).  Employees who are fired for even good reasons often turn around and sue the employer for age, race,  sex, or disability discrimination, or for the “hostile work environment” they claim existed during their employment due to things like overheard remarks.  Getting meritless lawsuits tossed out is expensive — years ago, it was typically $25,000 on legal bills if the employer succeeded in getting rid of the lawsuit at the earliest possible stage (on a pre-trial motion to dismiss), $75,000 at the next stage (”summary judgment”), and $250,000 if the employer won at trial.  Under a legal double-standard called the Christiansburg Garment Rule, if the employer wins, the worker seldom has to pay the employer’s legal bills; but if the worker wins, the employer has to pay the worker’s legal bills as a matter of course (or even a multiple of the employee’s legal bills if the lawsuit is brought in some liberal states like New Jersey (see  Rendine v. Panzer (1995)).

You are much less likely to hire someone if you can’t avoid being sued by them later over the pay package you negotiated with them when they were hired.  That’s now a real possibility for employers.  Setting employee pay has gotten harder under the Obama administration due to the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first law signed by President Obama, which essentially eliminates the deadline for bringing pay discrimination claims against employers, meaning that employees can wait many years after their pay is set, and sometimes even after they are fired, before bringing a lawsuit against their employer. (Some courts have even allowed employees to use the new law to challenge demotions many years after they occur, under the theory that their demotion indirectly affected their pay.) The Ledbetter Act was named after Lilly Ledbetter, who waited until she was about to retire before suing over alleged pay discrimination, meaning that the supervisor who allegedly discriminated against her was dead and unable to defend himself against discrimination charges by the time the jury decided her case.  (Ledbetter testified in her deposition that she knew of the pay disparity by 1992, but didn’t file a complaint with the EEOC until 1998).  The Ledbetter Act overturned the deadline applied by the Supreme Court in its 5-to-4 ruling against Ledbetter.

The Obama administration wants to make it even easier to sue for discrimination through bills like the Civil Rights Restoration Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.  The Paycheck Fairness Act would require equal pay for some employees who do unequal work, and allow them to seek unlimited punitive damages against their employers.  Right now, most pay discrimination claims require a showing of unequal treatment (that is, intentional discrimination), although, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, big employers can be ordered to pay very limited amounts (back pay, not emotional distress or punitive damages) for certain practices or pay scales that have an unintentional “disparate impact” on women or minorities (like paying people more because they have a high-school diploma, if the job supposedly doesn’t really require a high-school diploma).  The Paycheck Fairness Act would import such standards into the Equal Pay Act, which covers even tiny employers (unlike Title VII), and subject them not merely to back-pay claims, but to uncapped punitive damages and claims for “emotional distress” over pay disparities.

It would require the employer to prove in court things that no tiny employer could ever afford the legal-fees to demonstrate.  Under the Paycheck Fairness Act, an employer would have to show an overriding “business necessity” and lack of any alternative to justify the use of certain factors “other than sex” in setting pay scales.  This is worrisome, because even under existing laws that allow lawsuits over “unintentional” discrimination, employers have been forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expert witnesses to show that a challenged practice was reasonable, only to have the courts say that that was not enough, that the practice had to be more essential (and more closely-related to technical requirements like “content validity” and “construct validity”).

10:10 = Economic Illiteracy

by Alex Schibuola on October 7, 2010

in Economy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Zeitgeist

10:10 Video: Blowing Up Children (Viewer Discretion Advised)

What an inspiring film — people who refuse to cut their personal CO2 emissions are sentenced to death.

The economic illiteracy of these particular global warming alarmists is on fine display. Under the assumption that global warming alarmists are in favor of producing alternatives to fossil fuels; here’s the mistake in their plan to cut fossil fuel emissions:

If everyone decreases their use of fossil fuels the result is a decrease in demand for fossil fuels. The price of fossil fuels falls relative to alternative forms of energy. If fossil fuels become relatively cheaper than alternatives (read another way: alternatives become relatively more expensive), then alternative energies become less economically viable and we only end up prolonging our use of fossil fuels.

A better alternative if they do want to promote the use of alternatives would be this: Have everyone increase their consumption of fossil fuels by 10 percent per year, thus driving up the price of fossil fuels and making alternatives relatively cheaper.

So now, anyone who does not increase their consumption of fossil fuels should be summarily executed.

I wonder if the use of reason would warrant me being blown up.

The 10:10 Project and Zeno’s Paradox

by Ryan Young on October 5, 2010 · 1 comment

in Environment, Global Warming, Zeitgeist

The goal of the 10:10 Project is to cut carbon emissions by 10 percent per year. Sony, which supported the 10:10 Project until a promotional video featuring exploding global warming skeptics offended a lot of people, has its own project called the “Road to Zero.”

While they mean well, supporters of the two initiatives seem to have forgotten Zeno’s paradox. Suppose that people are particularly zealous about their carbon-cutting and cut 50 percent per year, not 10 percent. Not only does that make the math easier, it biases the numbers against the argument I’m making.

Their emissions would go from 1 to 1/2 to 1/4 to 1/18 to 1/16, and so on. Emissions move asymptotically towards zero, which is a fancy way of saying they never actually get there.

As with most campaigns of this sort, 10:10 and Road to Zero may succeed in making people feel good about themselves. And there is some value in that. But the schemes, especially taken together, are too clever by half. Or, more likely, the opposite.

Washington’s New War on the West

by Ben Lieberman on October 4, 2010 · 1 comment

in Global Warming, Odds & Ends

The economic track record of the current administration and Congress is not a good one. Unemployment remains stubbornly high at nearly 10 percent, and many believe federal missteps prolonged the recession and are weakening the recovery. While things like ill-advised spending, Obamacare, and looming tax hikes are doing damage nationwide, a number of other federal measures have particularly burdened the American West, the region suffering with the highest unemployment rate in the country. The Senate and House Western Caucuses’ recent study, “The War on Western Jobs,” documents the host of environmental policies that have targeted the sectors crucial to the economies of Western states — especially energy production but also mining, logging, farming, and ranching.

It is important to note that the federal government controls the economic fate of western states to a greater extent than any other part of the country. The lands comprising 12 western states (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, and Alaska) are nearly half owned by the federal government. More so than other regions, job losses in the West can be traced to federal policies.

The Obama administration’s attack on Western energy jobs began within weeks of taking power when the Department of the Interior revoked 77 oil and gas leases in Utah and halted new oil shale projects in Colorado. By the end of 2009, the administration had issued fewer onshore energy leases than in any year under Bush or Clinton, and the pace thus far in 2010 is no better. Throughout the West, vast energy-containing federal lands are currently off-limits, and the administration and Congress have sought to restrict access to millions of additional acres. Even where energy leasing is not explicitly prohibited, Obama’s regulators have imposed red tape and bureaucratic delays that have substantially limited it.

Beyond oil and gas, the administration has all but declared war on coal mining, which is particularly vital to Wyoming and Montana. The Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming regulations as well as many other anti-coal measures (including Boiler MACT, combustion byproducts, new National Ambient Air Quality Standards, others) bode ill for the future of western coal.

The threat of new energy taxes has only added to the chilling effect on Western investment in energy projects.

In addition to the impact on energy production, the federal government’s excessive ownership of land — as well as intrusive measures like the Endangered Species Act that target private property — is posing growing problems for other industries. Despite the West’s mineral wealth, mining jobs continue to decline. The same is true of logging. Farmers and ranchers also face a host of costly hurdles.

Instead of providing regulatory relief that could turn the region’s economy around, Congress has proposed new constraints like the sweeping Clean Water Restoration Act. This bill would essentially federalize land-use decisions on any property containing wetlands, and compounds the threat by defining wetlands so expansively so as to include almost everywhere. And the Obama Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service have issued new agency guidance for federal lands, which under the name of addressing global warming would further restrict access.

Granted, Washington’s control over western lands and the misuse of that control to curtail economic activity is not a new phenomenon, but the current administration and Congress have taken it to a new level.

The West’s economic pain has not been justified by environmental gain. Quite the contrary, Uncle Sam turns out to be a lousy landlord. For example, the forest fires that have become common in Western lands in recent years have mostly originated on federal lands, and not on privately-held forests which tend to be better managed against such risks. A less-intrusive federal approach could deliver both economic and environmental benefits.

The next Congress should have a long list of reforms on its agenda. The Western Caucuses’ report spells out what needs to be addressed to get the American West back on the path to prosperity.

New EPA Rules Will Cost More than 800,000 Jobs

by Hans Bader on September 28, 2010 · 2 comments

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, International, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Zeitgeist

New EPA rules will cost more than 800,000 jobs, probably far more, according to a newly released congressional report.  That includes the EPA’s first set of rules “for Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” and “new standards for commercial and industrial boilers.”  Indeed, the boiler rules alone could cost close to 800,000 jobs.

This shouldn’t be a surprise.  In 2008, President Obama admitted that under his greenhouse gas regulations, people’s utility bills would “skyrocket,” and coal-fired power plants would go “bankrupt.”  The EPA’s own internal documents show that the administration’s global warming regulations will result in a massive “loss of steel, paper, aluminum, chemical, and cement manufacturing jobs.”

It’s not just the administration’s global warming regulations that will wipe out jobs. The stimulus package contained so-called “green jobs” funding, 79 percent of which went to foreign firms, replacing American jobs with foreign green jobs.  A recent biofuel program actually wiped out jobs rather than creating them as intended, while costing taxpayers a lot of money.

The administration’s energy policies presume that central planners know better than private citizens and companies about how to create jobs and allocate capital.  But government officials, unlike private companies, have little incentive to make economically wise decisions, since they don’t pay the cost of their own mistakes, but rather pass them on to taxpayers.  The Justice Department, for example, often ignores the misconduct and constitutional violations committed by its own employees, while the federal Energy Department is one of the biggest violators of America’s environmental laws.

California’s Insane Global Warming Initiative

by Michael Fumento on September 16, 2010

in Global Warming

What state ranks third in unemployment, second in foreclosures, has the nation’s worst credit rating, is running a $19 billion deficit — yet insists on spending billions on a greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan that can’t possibly impact global warming?

Yes, it’s California, land of the Governator, who four years ago signed a bill that will shortly begin saying “Hasta la vista, baby!” to perhaps a million jobs. Yet there’s hope the prosperity terminator can be stopped, with Prop 23 to be voted on in November.

Read about how incredibly bad the legislation is and how the state foisted it on an ignorant (not stupid) public in my new article, “California’s Jobs Terminator” at Forbes.com.

Rosh Hashanah Begets… Global Warming?

by Christine Hall on September 9, 2010

in Culture, Environment, Global Warming, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

What could Rosh Hashanah have to do with environmental activism? My colleague Sam Kazman found out last year, listening to a sermon with a surprise twist. You can read about the incident in the book High Holiday Stories by Nancy Rips.

kazman-high-holiday-stories-21

Unemployment Jumps to 9.6%, 54,000 More Jobs Lost

by Hans Bader on September 3, 2010 · 1 comment

in Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, International, Natural Resources, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere, Trade, Zeitgeist

Unemployment went back up to 9.6%, as the nation shed 54,000 jobs in August.  Yet Obama calls this “Recovery Summer.”  This is the same Obama who complained about the economic recovery in 2004 being jobless because unemployment was at 6 percent.  If you include discouraged workers, unemployment may be as high as 17 percent.

Earlier, governors warned that ObamaCare will increase unemployment.  Indiana’s governor said it will wipe out thousands of jobs in his state by raising taxes on medical device manufacturers.  It will also kill jobs by imposing huge record-keeping burdens on small businesses, requiring them to file IRS forms over even small purchases.

Employers are afraid to hire new employees because of looming new burdens, such as the global-warming regulations being drafted by the EPA, which could wipe out at least 800,000 jobs in the short run, and far more in the long run.  They also worry about costly new Congressional mandates, such as global-warming legislation backed by liberal Senators, which would provide corporate welfare for some businesses, but impose heavy burdens on many others.  Capping greenhouse gas emissions isn’t cheap — Obama himself told the San Francisco Chronicle that under his cap-and-trade plan to fight global warming, Americans’ electricity bills would “skyrocket,” and coal power plants that now provide much of the nation’s energy would go “bankrupt.” Although Obama and other backers of this “cap-and-trade” concept claim it will cut greenhouse gas emissions, it may perversely increase them by driving industry overseas to places with fewer environmental regulations, resulting in dirtier air, and damage to forests and water supplies.

The Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly admitted that Obama’s $862 billion stimulus package will shrink the economy “in the long run.”  The stimulus contained welfare and repealed welfare reform.  Unemployment is higher now than if Congress had voted it down.  Countries that refused to adopt big stimulus packages have fared better than those that imitated President Obama.  The biggest-spending countries have suffered worst in the recession. The stimulus package wiped out jobs in America’s export sector, while giving “green jobs” funding to foreign firms.

Government Spends Billions Bailing Out Foreign Firms and Countries, and Replacing American Jobs With Foreign Green Jobs

by Hans Bader on August 12, 2010

in Agriculture, Bailout Watch, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, International, Natural Resources, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere, Trade, Zeitgeist

Our government spent as much money bailing out foreign firms as some countries spent on stabilizing their entire financial system.  Much of the money in the $140 billion AIG bailout actually went to mismanaged foreign firms that dealt with AIG.  The government also used that bailout to give billions to the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs, an immensely rich and profitable company that didn’t even need the money.  (While harming most banks, and the productive  sectors of the economy, the recent financial reform bill will benefit politically-connected Goldman Sachs, which endorsed it.  Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest donors to liberal politicians.)

Earlier, the Obama administration devoted $6 billion in taxpayer money to bailing out Greece, which ran into trouble because of generous pensions that let many occupations like hairdressers retire at age 50.

American workers are also suffering due to the stimulus package.  It is using taxpayer subsidies to replace U.S. jobs with foreign green jobs. It also destroyed thousands of jobs in America’s export sector.

Even more jobs will end up overseas if the Obama administration’s poorly conceived global warming legislation passes.

Reason magazine has an insightful article called “Five Lies About the American Economy.”

The Environment is a Luxury Good

by Iain Murray on August 3, 2010

in Environment, Global Warming, Politics as Usual, Private Conservation, Regulation

One of the central insights of Free-Market Environmentalism is that people treat the environment as a luxury good.  They are willing to pay for it when they have spare money, but not when they don’t.  That’s why treating the environment as a tax, which is how statist environmentalism works, arouses resentment, while treating it as a privately-owned asset, like FME does, promotes stewardship and conservation.

There’s more evidence for this view from a new study, Environmental Concern and the Business Cycle: The Chilling Effect of Recession.  Here’s the abstract:

This paper uses three different sources of data to investigate the association between the business cycle—measured with unemployment rates—and environmental concern. Building on recent research that finds internet search terms to be useful predictors of health epidemics and economic activity, we find that an increase in a state’s unemployment rate decreases Google searches for “global warming” and increases searches for “unemployment,” and that the effect differs according to a state’s political ideology. From national surveys, we find that an increase in a state’s unemployment rate is associated with a decrease in the probability that residents think global warming is happening and reduced support for the U.S to target policies intended to mitigate global warming. Finally, in California, we find that an increase in a county’s unemployment rate is associated with a significant decrease in county residents choosing the environment as the most important policy issue. Beyond providing the first empirical estimates of macroeconomic effects on environmental concern, we discuss the results in terms of the potential impact on environmental policy and understanding the full cost of recessions.

The paper’s authors are obviously concerned that the recession means that statist environmental policies are less likely to be enacted.  It would be helpful if, instead of thinking so linearly, environmental academics could think what opportunities this gives to advance free-market environmentalism.  It is clear that low-cost environmentalism is much more likely to be supported during a recession than high-cost environmentalism.  because free-market environmentalism shifts the burdens of environmental protection from the masses to those who are willing to pay, it should be much more attractive to people during a recession.  It is indicative of the ideological blinkers of the environmental establishment that this possibility does not occur to the authors.

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