Jarrod Diamond's, consumption factor. An article for Tiny.

[WTF]

I know it is old but it still holds true...


https://economistsview.typepad.com/e...your-cons.html

Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures. ..

[WTF]

Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let’s also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens ... China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.

If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people

[Tiny]

Thanks for this contribution. There are two things you should learn from this young grasshopper,

1. You suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. The Democratic Party wants to fuck the companies you own, and by extension it wants to fuck you. There will be huge demand from countries like India and China for our natural gas, oil, and coal. If we don't supply it to them, someone else will. The Democratic Senators and Congressmen, with the sole known exception of Joe Manchin, last year wanted to place a tax on carbon that would have made U.S. producers uncompetitive with producers in places like Qatar and Australia. We have discussed this. I will repeat what I wrote before, with the relevant part in bold text.

2. There's not a hell of a lot the United States of America can do about carbon emissions. Right now we account for about 15% of the worldwide total, and going forward it's going to be mostly developing countries and China that will determine the level of global emissions.

Originally Posted by Tiny

Silly, you already know the answer to your own question. They'd rather kill the goose that lays the golden egg. What's going on among Russia, Ukraine and Europe right now should show the doubters the importance of a secure energy supply. But just this last week the Democrat-controlled Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) revised a key policy. Henceforth FERC will consider greenhouse gas emissions in decisions as to whether to approve pipelines and LNG export terminals. And not just emissions that result from the pipelines. They will take into account carbon emitted from burning natural gas transported by the pipelines and by the LNG tankers. Vladimir Putin must love this. If he can stifle development of U.S. LNG exports, he'll have more bargaining chips to use against Europe and east Asia.

And that's just one step that Biden and other Democrats have proposed or attempted in order to kneecap the oil and gas industry. Here are some more,


1. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Corey Booker and other Democratic candidates for President campaigned on banning fracking. Since most of U.S. oil and natural gas is produced from hydraulically fractured wells, their proposal would have turned the USA into a huge importer of oil and gas overnight.

2. Joe Biden campaigned on shutting down oil and gas operations on federal land and in federal waters, by ceasing to issue drilling permits and new leases. Around 25% of U.S. oil production and 14% of gas production are from federal areas. That would have been a good start towards laying waste to the domestic oil and gas industry. And Biden's proposal to ultimately reduce net carbon emissions to "0" would finish it off. Fortunately the courts put a stop to Biden's bans.

3. The Biden Administration put an end to the Keystone XL Pipeline. So instead of having more Canadian crude piped to Gulf Coast refineries, where it could be processed and exported or consumed domestically, some of it can go to China and other Asian countries instead. Having 830,000 barrels a day flowing into the USA from a friendly nation via pipeline would have provided us with more energy security in the event Progressives decide to shut the domestic industry down. And it would have provided jobs to our refinery workers.


4. We came very close to passing a carbon tax late last year. Kyrsten Sinema, who was holding up the Build Back Better bill because she wisely didn't want to jack up income tax rates, was amenable to a carbon tax. The Democratic politicians set to work to devise a plan that would not only raise government revenues and reduce domestic consumption of fossil fuels, but also cut off our coal and LNG exports from the world market. They would do this by imposing the tax on the coal mines and on the plants that process the gas, instead of the U.S. power plants that burn the coal and service stations that sell gasoline. Thus, natural gas and coal destined for overseas markets still pay the tax. And lower cost coal from Australia and Indonesia and lower cost gas from Russia and Qatar take market share from U.S. producers and processors.

And what's the point in making our exporters uncompetitive? None. What we don't sell will be supplied instead by other countries. There would be no reduction in carbon emissions. But, I guess like raising the capital gains tax so high that government revenues from the tax go down, certain politicians get to fuck over people they believe are evil, the capitalists and the oil producers and the like.

Thankfully Joe Manchin, who owns a coal trading company, saved us from this. And that's one more reason I pray for Joe Manchin every night, just like Mitch McConnell told me to.

[Tiny]

WTF, OK, my reply above was off topic. But you have a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome, and I'll do whatever it takes to wake you up and exorcise the demons from your soul. The Free Markets Church of Tiny loves you.

However, I'll reply to your specific points below.

Originally Posted by WTF

I know it is old but it still holds true...


https://economistsview.typepad.com/e...your-cons.html

Real sacrifice wouldn’t be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans’ wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures. ..

If Jarrod Diamond had something to say about geography or birds I'd take him seriously. What he wrote that you quoted however is bull shit.

I've pointed out a number of times that, when you kick out the petrostates like Norway and small places like Luxembourg, the most prosperous countries in the world, in terms of per capita GDP, are Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, Hong Kong and the USA. And, again kicking out small places and petrostates, those five countries are also at the top of the charts in terms of lowest per capita government spending and lowest per capita government revenues.

Daniel Mitchell expands this reasoning to living standards. If you look at the best measure of living standard, per capita consumption, those countries plus New Zealand come out on top. In terms of consumption, the poorest 20% in the USA consume as much the average in the Netherlands or Canada.

I'll provide links to Mitchell's articles, plus one from the left-of-center Pew Research Center that confirms what he says.

I'd blame the inferiority of the health care system and infrastructure in the USA, compared to some European countries, on bad government, not insufficient government spending. As one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century (Ronald Reagan) said, "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."

Our federal government and some blue states spend more on comparable infrastructure projects than European countries. I'm no expert on this but suspect excessive regulation and red tape and bureaucratic mentality are reasons we pay too much. Remember the stories about $50 screws and the like. And our health care system is a mess. We don't have transparent pricing or enough incentive for providers and hospitals to compete. Malpractice and liability insurance rates for health care professionals and institutions are way too high. It's a travesty we spend so much and have poor outcomes.

https://fee.org/articles/thanks-to-e...ard-of-living/

https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.co...other-nations/

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ppear-smaller/

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by WTF

Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let’s also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens ... China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.

If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people

I'm not sure I believe this. These ideas have been around since Thomas Malthus, in the 1700's, and haven't turned out to be true. But I won't argue with Diamond on this, just as I wouldn't argue with LustyLad or Captain Midnight about economics.

Aside: I believe LL and Midnight are equally brilliant, but always mention LL first because I think that annoys you. And you need tough love from people like LustyLad and me if you're ever going to get over your Stockholm Syndrome.