While recent accounts have focused on the erosion of real wages with high inflation, what is true is that average real wages in the private sector, and amongs the lowest paid segment, leisure and hospitality workers, has risen since 2020M02.
Figure 1: CPI-deflated real wage in private sector (black, left log scale), and in leisure and hospitality (red, right log scale), in 2020$/hour (production and nonsupervisory workers). November CPI using Cleveland Fed nowcast on 12/4/2022. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS via FRED, NBER, and author’s calculations.
Figure 2: Chained CPI-deflated real wage in private sector (black, left log scale), and in leisure and hospitality (red, right log scale), in 2020$/hour (production and nonsupervisory workers). Chained CPI seasonally adjusted by author using Census X-11 on log transformed data. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS via FRED, NBER, and author’s calculations.
Figure 3: PCE-deflated real wage in private sector (black, left log scale), and in leisure and hospitality (red, right log scale), in 2020$/hour (production and nonsupervisory workers). NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS via FRED, NBER, and author’s calculations.
These graphs highlight the importance of deflators. Here is a comparison of total private sector average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers:
Figure 4: CPI-deflated real wage in private sector (dark gray), chained CPI (red), PCE deflated (light blue), in 2020$/hour (production and nonsupervisory workers). November CPI using Cleveland Fed nowcast on 12/4/2022. Chained CPI seasonally adjusted using Census X-11 on log transformed data. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS via FRED, Cleveland Fed, NBER, and author’s calculations.
For a description of the empirically relevant differences between CPI and PCE price deflator, see Johnson (2017). Since the CPI takes into account out of pocket expenses, while the PCE deflator takes into account expenditures made for consumers, the differences can be large. Owners equivalent rent and rent of primary residence constitutes a big difference in the weights associated with the CPI and PCE deflator.
Addendum:
There is some reason to worry about the 2022M11 observation on wages, as the response rate was less than 50%, when it is typically much higher.
So all 3 real wage series were at $24/hour at the start of the pandemic. And now one shows $24.25 while another is just shy of $25.
This is not the picture that people like JohnH is painting. Go figure.
FREDblog does a favor in analyzing wage trends—real wage measures are now all below their pre-pandemic level…in spite of a hot employment market.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/02/are-wages-increasing-or-decreasing/
The only one that’s even close is the “average hourly wages” series, which is the one that economists here seize on. (Trying to gloss over the problem and make it go away?)
As for average hourly wages, here’s a refresher course on what it means vs median: https://www.liveabout.com/median-salary-525831
Average wages have been diverging from other measures for years, probably because high income earners are driving it upwards. (But who cares about wage inequality?)
And speaking of glossing over a problem, who’s noticed that real wages have been falling in this hot job market? Isn’t this type of job market exactly the time when real wages are supposed to be rising? If not now, when?
“here’s a refresher course on what it means vs median”
Most of us learned this in elementary school but yea you need all the help you can get.
I usually like the blogs from Christian Zimmermann but dude – this one was pretty weak as compared to what our host provides. Hint – try reading the posts here for a change. You might one day learn something.
Yeah, my takeaway is that it’s easy to make the results come out the way you want if you cherry pick the data set and the deflator.
Except for the manufacturing line, Zimmerman just uses the CPI and the broadest set of workers. For real average hourly wages, his data clearly shows that they are back to where they were in the first half of 2019. (His charts make data readily available, so this is easily verifiable.)
Yes, some subsets of workers are faring better, but overall American workers are experiencing a recession. For some reason, this is being glossed over, even by experts whom you would expect to be impartial and straightforward about the matter, which is strange because you would assume that they wouldn’t have a stake in any particular outcome. It’s clear that Zimmerman, for one, is a straight shooter, which is probably why pgl calls his analysis weak.
JOhnH,
Here is my takeaway on this latest piece of lying gsrbage out of you.
One, you have been told repeatedly to stop using the term “recession,” even with the modifier “worker” before it, when real wages decline when there is extremely low unemployment.
Second, in fact real wages are not declining at this time. They have been rising for several months now, which has been pointed out now twice by me.
But what do you do? You just keep repeating your lies. Lie lie lie, that is all you do. What a piece of total and utter scum you are, JohnH.
“my takeaway is that it’s easy to make the results come out the way you want if you cherry pick the data set and the deflator.”
You should know as you are the master at this.
I guess you did not notice but he deflated only one of his nominal series. That is really weak but not as weak as Jonny boy who never learned how to read a graph. Dude – you need to start checking out the legends.
“Average wages have been diverging from other measures for years, probably because high income earners are driving it upwards. ”
John, this is an important point. do you have evidence to support this? and are you talking hourly wages or salary? makes a difference in who is included, and how the numbers are handled. you seem confident in your assertion, so I assume you have strong evidence to accuse high income earners of this impact?
Brazil v. South Korea at the World Cup. The good news is that Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior is starting for Brazil. Let’s hope his ankle is 100%!
I hope Pele gets to watch.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=uNAo
January 30, 2018
Homeownership Rate for White, Black, Hispanic and Asian, 2017-2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=X9nM
January 30, 2018
Homeownership Rate for White, Black, Hispanic and Asian, 2017-2022
(Indexed to 2017)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=MPjD
January 30, 2018
Share of Total Net Worth Held by Top 1%, Top 90 to 99%, Top 50 to 90% and Bottom 50%, 2017-2022
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=MPjS
January 30, 2018
Share of Total Net Worth Held by Top 1%, Top 90 to 99%, Top 50 to 90% and Bottom 50%, 2007-2022
(Indexed to 2007)
Correcting date:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=MPjS
January 30, 2018
Share of Total Net Worth Held by Top 1%, Top 90 to 99%, Top 50 to 90% and Bottom 50%, 2017-2022
(Indexed to 2017)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=KH4x
January 4, 2018
Real Average Hourly Earnings of All Employees in Manufacturing, 2017-2022
(Indexed to 2017)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=MfvN
January 15, 2018
Real Average Hourly Earnings in Manufacturing, * 2017-2022
* Production and nonsupervisory workers
(Indexed to 2017)
https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2022-121-global-profit-shifting-1975-2019.pdf
November, 2022
Global profit shifting, 1975–2019
By Ludvig Wier and Gabriel Zucman
Abstract:
This paper constructs time series of global profit shifting covering the 2015–19 period, during which major international efforts were implemented to curb profit shifting. We find that (i) multinational profits grew faster than global profits, (ii) the share of multinational profits booked in tax havens remained constant at around 37 per cent, and (iii) the fraction of global corporate tax revenue lost due to profit shifting rose from 9 to 10 per cent. We extend our time series back to 1975 and document a remarkable increase of multinational profits and global profit shifting from 1975 to 2019.
https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2022-121-global-profit-shifting-1975-2019.pdf
November, 2022
Global profit shifting, 1975–2019
By Ludvig Wier and Gabriel Zucman
Introduction
A body of evidence suggests that multinational companies shift profits to tax havens. This phenomenon has attracted considerable attention from economists and policy-makers. In 2015, the OECD launched the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting process to curb tax avoidance possibilities stemming from mismatches between different countries’ tax systems. In 2017, the United States cut its corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 per cent and introduced measures to reduce profit shifting by US multinational companies. In 2021, more than 130 countries and territories agreed to a minimum tax of 15 per cent on the profits of multinational firms, with implementation scheduled to begin in 2024 in some countries.
Yet despite these developments, we do not currently have a good sense of the dynamic of global profit shifting. Have corporations reduced the amounts they book in tax havens since 2015, or have they found ways to eschew the new regulations? A number of studies provide estimates of global profit shifting, but they typically do so for just one reference year. Moreover, because these studies rely on different raw sources and methodologies, their estimates are not directly comparable, making it hard to construct consistent time series by piecing different data points together. This limits our ability to study the dynamics of profit shifting and to learn about the effects of the various policies implemented to curb it.
This paper attempts to overcome this limitation by creating global profit shifting time series constructed following a common methodology….
there has been an upsurge in the fraction of multinational profits shifted to tax havens. By our estimates, this fraction has increased from less than 2 per cent in the 1970s to 37 per cent in 2019. Because multinational profits themselves have been rising much faster than global profits, the fraction of global profits (multinational and non-multinational) shifted to tax havens has risen from 0.1 to about 7 per cent. Consistent with these findings, we estimate that the corporate tax lost from global profit shifting has increased from less than 0.1 per cent of corporate tax revenues in the 1970s to 10 per cent in 2019.
Fourth, in 2019—four years into the implementation of the BEPS process and two years after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—there was no discernible decline in global profit shifting or in profit shifting by US multinationals (which according to our estimates account for about half of global profit shifting) relative to 2015. Of course, it is possible that absent BEPS and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act profit shifting would have kept increasing; we do not argue these initiatives had no effect. However, their effect seems, so far, to have been insufficient to lead to a reduction in the global amount of profit shifted offshore. This finding suggests that there remains scope for additional policy initiatives to significantly reduce global profit shifting.
Republicans told us that TCJA would reduce profit shifting but when it convoluted provisions came out – no one who gets this stuff expected it to do so. Then again Republicans are not about taxing the rich.
Thanks for this. Yea – the world saw some OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting babble from the international tax types but nothing in the way of actual enforcement with respect to transfer pricing. Overpriced lawyers love to talk and talk but it seems they get nothing done because they are paid for by the same rich multinationals who are doing this profit shifting.
Trump’s 2017 tax cut for the rich had some fancy new language for the lawyers but there was no serious effort to actually tax rich people.
When elected, the Mayor of New York claimed that he was going to take his salary in Bitcoin. I have wondered whether such unfortunate examples, and the 64% decline in Bitcoin price this year, have done meaningful harm to small investors but I have no idea:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/business/cryptocurrency-investors-ftx-blockfi.html
December 5, 2022
Ordinary Investors Who Jumped Into Crypto Are Saying: Now What?
Many small investors who piled into cryptocurrencies on FTX, BlockFi and other platforms are recognizing the perils of investing in an unregulated industry.
By Matthew Goldstein
In early November, Adrian Butkus, a 43-year-old father of two, put $600,000 — much of his life savings — into an account at BlockFi, a cryptocurrency trading firm. BlockFi had marketed the account as risk free, yielding 6.5 percent interest, more than Mr. Butkus could get anywhere else.
Just days later, as the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX shook the entire crypto industry, Mr. Butkus asked BlockFi for his money back. But the firm had suspended customer withdrawals, citing its close financial ties to FTX. By late November, BlockFi, too, had filed for bankruptcy….
Complaints about the decline in real worker pay generally rely on the choice of a particular starting point. Say, for instance, Q2 of 2020:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=XdTq
Two things were happening at that time. One was that inflation was quite low. The other was that average wages were rising fast:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=XdU3
While it would be great if inflation were tame and wages soaring all the time, economies don”t generally work that way. Insisting on comparing today’s situation to an anomolous prior period is silly.
Another point that has been made repeatedly here is that the big spike in average hourly earnings in the early days of Covid was due to massive job loss among lower wage workers; it’s a composition thing. Do we really want to harken back to the good old days when millions of low wage workers were unemployed? Since then, many of those jobs have come back, and as can be seen in figures 1, 2 and 3 above, those jobs now pay a good deal better in real terms. That is a cirmumstance we might cheer for.
The world is not a bed of roses. There’s a good chance things will get worse in the next several quarters. But let’s not pretend things are worse than they are.
“Complaints about the decline in real worker pay generally rely on the choice of a particular starting point. Say, for instance, Q2 of 2020:”
Oh yes – we do know how JohnH picks his starting point. Take 2020QII as the starting point and ignore that jump in real wages that occurred a few quarters ago. Statistics are for misrepresentation not information if one lives on top of soap boxes.
Wrong again, pgl. I pick Q1 as the starting point. Of course, if you want to pick, 4Q19, that’s fine. That’s where usual real median weekly earnings have regressed to. Most of the worker’s recession has occurred during the period of increasing inflation, despite very tight labor markets.
Maybe you guys should listen to Paul Jefferson, governor of the Minneapolis Fed: “ High inflation hurts low-income households hardest, and bringing it down is the best way for the Federal Reserve to help bring prosperity to Americans broadly and narrow the economic gaps between demographic groups, a top Fed official said Thursday.
“Low inflation is key to achieving a long and sustained expansion — an economy that works for all,” Fed Governor Philip Jefferson said in remarks prepared for delivery to a research conference on opportunity and inclusive growth at the Minneapolis Fed.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-jefferson-says-low-inflation-154205720.html
“Wrong again, pgl. I pick Q1 as the starting point.”
No I was right – you pick whatever starting point that most misleads the discussion. But thanks for the admission.
Not too surprising that the leisure and hospitality sector hourly wages have increased. Many employed in that sector, especially in small businesses, lost their jobs during the COVID shutdowns and sought work elsewhere.
https://www.ustravel.org/press/leisure-hospitality-accounts-whopping-39-jobs-lost-pandemic
Workers in leisure and hospitality are typically younger, on the lower end of the wage distribution, and more likely to be Hispanic compared to other industries. These demographic groups are already more vulnerable than others to major economic shocks and tend to experience higher rates of long-term unemployment given their lower educational attainment relative to the rest of the labor force.
https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/analysis?ID=71F83A28-1113-4C90-B33F-EF8EB78FF0EB
Given low wages, job insecurity, and opportunity elsewhere with overall labor shortages, it’s not a wonder that the labor and hospitality sector has been forced to offer somewhat better pay and shows a higher percentage pay increase (off the much lower base) than other sectors of the economy.
https://www.nccusa.com/hospitality-labor-shortage-2022/
That doesn’t mean that we can all celebrate in the face of the inflation that has hit over the past almost two years. Flat real wages over the past two years (using the least onerous measure of inflation) isn’t exactly “progress”.
Bruce Hall: CPI-deflated real wages (i.e. using the *most* onerous measure) has risen 5.1% for leisure & hospitality workers, since 2020M02. Can you not read a graph (log terms; 6.1% using base period calculation)?
Brucie decides the Republican side of the JEC is his go to source for economic information on this sector. I think I know why Brucie is confused – I read their comments on real wages in this sector which struck me as dancing around the points you clearly made. But read that report anyway – just for laughs.
Uh, yes, I can read the charts. I was referencing the last chart where there is an obvious difference between CPI and PCE (least). Is there a problem with my observation?
Flat real wages over the past two years (using the least onerous measure of inflation)…. PCE is the only adjustment that reflects that “flat real wages over the past two years.
Do you have issues with the rest of my comment? Did I miss something obvious?
Bruce Hall: The way you transitioned from leisure/hospitality wage developments to flat wages seemed to imply you were refereeing to leisure/hospitality wages. In Figure 1, that is rising.
Brucie is a student of Kelly Anne Conway baiting and switching.
First of all your writing sucks as usual. Try be specific as to WTF you are talking about. Starting with a discussion of the leisure & hospitality workers and then flipping to the overall private sector requires that you at least acknowledge this is what you are doing. Or did Kelly Anne Conway teach you her usual bait and switch?
Speaking of how Kelly Anne conflates two different things – check out her attack on Fetterman:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kellyanne-conway-s-messy-fox-news-appearance-mocked-for-the-mess-that-it-is/ar-AA12jKnJ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=35e93f8fdd2942c5b2c04263ad361dad
Hey Brucie – do you also think fentanyl and marijuana are the same thing?
Your NCC has this whining:
‘Despite there being plenty of jobs available and brisk hiring, 7 out of 10 hospitality operators report that they still can’t find enough employees.’
One could find more employees if one decided to offer a higher real wage. But Brucie is telling us real wages in this sector are flat? Oh wait – our host reminded you to READ his graph of real wages in this sector.
Come on Brucie – when you post all sorts of stuff – please at least TRY to understand what it means.
Whether real wages are rising and falling now is one issue. The bigger question, which seems to be avoided, is: why aren’t real wages rising in a tight labor market? If they aren’t rising now, what does it take to make them rise?
Do economists care about rising prosperity for average Americans?
Wait – some of your fellow trolls are telling us employment has been non-existent. Of course, your BFFs are misrepresenting the data – something they likely learned from you.
“Whether real wages are rising and falling now is one issue.”
“…why aren’t real wages rising in a tight labor market?”
You’ve made a mess right there. On one hand, whether real wages are rising is an issue, on the other, they aren’t?
“If they aren’t rising now, what does it take to make them rise?” Nominal wages rising faster than inflation; that’s definitional.
“Do economists care about rising prosperity for average Americans?” Many do. Others, perhaps, do not. A question that broad is too shallow to mean anything. Mere emotionalism.
Johnny, you’ve been moaning this same silly moan, well, it seems like forever. Several people have put well-informed thought into addressing you moan, and you don’t apply any intelligence in return. You just repeat the same shallow stuff, over and over.
Your comments here have all the earmarks of Russian wedge-driving propaganda; trying to sow division on any topic you can. Make it emotional, not rational. Don’t acknowledge counter-arguments, just keep repeating emotionally-charge wedge stuff.
You take the same approach when condemning Ukrainians from defending themselves against Russia, which is how you got pegged as a boot-licker for Putin. Go annoy somebody who doesn’t have you figured out.
I have never met an economist who does not want higher output per person. Now there is always the issue of the distribution of income so I guess certain right wingers do not really want higher real wages. But here’s the think little Jonny boy never got. The old Solow (1957) growth model tells us a lot about not only output per person over time but also the distribution of income. Yea it leaves out a lot such as market power and Keynesian business cycles – both of which are discussed a lot by the same economists Jonny boy tries to condemn as uncaring.
Now Jonny boy has never had anything substantive new on this issue beyond his usual whining and bizarro character attacks – most of which are fueled Jonny boy’s misrepresentations.
Now I should note on the business cycle side Jonny boy actually thought Cameron’s fiscal austerity that started in 2010 in the midst of a weak UK economy was a grand plan to raise UK real wages. Our host recently set the record straight on this canard from Jonny boy.
So, my brilliant friend, MacroDucky, you have no idea why real wages have been falling in a tight labor market…a time when economics dogma tells us that real wage should be rising
Median usual real weekly earnings are back to where they were 3 years ago, despite a very tight labor market…and MacroDucky clearly has no idea why…nor does he care!
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
So, MacroDucky, if real wages do not rise in a tight labor market, when (if ever) can we expect them to rise? Or doesn’t it matter, just as long as corporate profits continue to rise?
JohnH: And here I thought that real wages will respond to different types of shocks (supply, demand, cost-push, expectations) differently.
Are you suggesting that real wages don’t rise in a high pressure labor market?
Supply shortages induce real price increases but not real wages increases?
JohnH: I am suggesting that if there are multiple shocks (and you can’t argue that demand shocks are the only ones hitting the US economy), then one might expect there to be an ambiguous movement in real wages.
“So, my brilliant friend, MacroDucky, you have no idea why real wages have been falling in a tight labor market”
What a pathetic whiney little statement – par for the course for JohnH, however. MD has been contributing a lot to this discussion. Now if you are too stupid to realize that – that is on you. BTW troll – try offering your explanations. We all need the laugh.
Oh, look! Johnny did a Dunning-Kruger.
JohnH,
They are rising. Have been since midyear by all measures after a decline in the first part of the year by all measures. Where they are relative to some earlier times depends on the measure.
This has been pointed out to you repeatedly, not to mention the point made by Macroduck that some of this is due to compositional effectrs. So why do you keep repeatedly lying about this matter here?
Well, JH, looks like you’re the only one on this blog who cares. Who would have thought the average Russian cared so much about the average American’s wages?
Ask this caring troll what is happening to real wages in Russia. Or for that matter – what happened to UK real wages from 2010 to 2014. Assuming he knows – he will misrepresent this too.
https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-02/Severe-inflation-causes-striking-fall-in-real-wages-for-EU-nations-1fpGCulE6Xe/index.html
December 2, 2022
ILO report: Severe inflation causes striking fall in real wages for EU nations
Severe inflation combined with a global slowdown in economic growth – driven in part by the war in Ukraine and the global energy crisis – are causing a striking fall in real monthly wages in many countries.
According to a new International Labour Organization (ILO) report, the crisis is reducing the purchasing power of the middle classes and hitting low-income households particularly hard.
The Global Wage Report 2022-2023 * shows the Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power. It estimates that global monthly wages fell in real terms to minus 0.9 percent in the first half of 2022 – the first time this century that real global wage growth has been negative.
Among advanced G20 countries real wages in the first half of 2022 are estimated to have declined by 2.2 percent, whereas real wages in emerging G20 countries grew by 0.8 percent, although that is 2.6 percent less than in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The multiple global crises we are facing have led to a decline in real wages. It has placed tens of millions of workers in a dire situation as they face increasing uncertainties,” said ILO Director-General, Gilbert F. Houngbo.
“Income inequality and poverty will rise if the purchasing power of the lowest paid is not maintained. In addition, a much-needed post pandemic recovery could be put at risk. This could fuel further social unrest across the world and undermine the goal of achieving prosperity and peace for all,’ he added.
Urgent policy change required …
* https://www.ilo.org/digitalguides/en-gb/story/globalwagereport2022-23
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=QeCl
January 4, 2018
Average Hourly Earnings of All Private and Production & Nonsupervisory Workers, * 2017-2022
* Production and nonsupervisory workers accounting for approximately four-fifths of the total employment on private nonfarm payrolls
(Indexed to 2017)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Qe7j
January 4, 2020
Real Average Hourly Earnings of All Private and Production & Nonsupervisory Workers, * 2020-2022
* Production and nonsupervisory workers accounting for approximately four-fifths of the total employment on private nonfarm payrolls
(Indexed to 2020)
Russia launched 70 missiles at Ukraine today. Ukraine shot down 60. That’s an improvement from Ukraine’s perspective over recent attack. Ivan, I believe, recently predicted the timing and reduced impact.
Meanwhile, explosions were reported at two militarily bases a couple of hundred miles inside Russia today. Speculation is that Ukrainian drones hit those bases. Russia attacking civilian targets. Ukraine attacking military targets. Johnny will now explain to us how this makes Ukraine the bad guy. Take it away, Johnny…
MD,
Somewhat along these lines we have the Ukrainians taking control of Kherson without bombing or destroying anything in it. But once the Russian withdrew to the other side of the Dnipro River, they have commenced bombarding the city with artillery, killing quite a few civilians already.
That will show them!!! You do not want to be ruled by Russia? You get bombed and killed (see Mariuopol for the extreme version of this)!!!!!
“Shortly after he took office, President Biden announced a goal of building 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030, enough clean energy to power 10 million homes.”
”Within a year of announcing the goal, the Biden administration faced lawsuits from resident groups in every coastal state from Maine to North Carolina.”
“Nearly every (news) story neglects to mention these groups are being funded by a far-right think tank that receives funding from fossil fuel companies and billionaires.”
“As of this writing, the “Donate” button on the Protect Our Coast NJ website redirects to a PayPal link that reads ‘Donate to Caesar Rodney Institute.'”
“CRI receives funding from fossil fuel trade groups like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Association. The think tank also receives funding from Donors Trust, the ‘dark money ATM of the conservative movement.'”
https://popular.info/p/fossil-fuel-industry-dupes-media
In August 2021, CBS News reported that Nantucket Residents Against Turbines — or ACK Rats — launched a lawsuit against the administration’s offshore wind plans. The Massachusetts-based resident group argued that offshore wind development “poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.”
Rats in Massachusetts? Is this why Princeton Steve moved to Massachusetts? To join this groups of Rats? Maybe we have figured out who is funding all those bizarro comments from CoRev and Bruce Hall.
MD, thank God someone is fighting this stupidity. Remember, this is the highest cost source for electricity. Also remember, it is your argument that supposedly renewable source is supposed to be lower than thermal sources.
Did you ever find that list of climate change tipping points? After all isn’t this offshore wind supposed to fight climate change? Cn/would you please calculate the change in climate that would ensue from this offshore wind implementation?
If you are going to be proponent at least show us the estimated impacts. Obviously a large number of citizens think they may be negative.
So you support big money lying to us? Good to know!
CoVid is unable to use the internet? Can’t look up “climate tipping point”? How, exactly, is that my problem? Now, CoVid pretending that tipping points aren’t real because nobody apoon-fed him a link? That’s a problem.
CoVid, on the other hand, is perfectly willing to make claims about energy cost without providing evidence. I’m curious – does that “cost” include externalities? Isn’t CoVid the guy who demands cost/benefit analysis from everyone, but doesn’t do them himself?
We really should get ourselves a better class of troll.
“does that “cost” include externalities?”
He generally skips this issue but on the rare occasion when he tackles it he actually thinks pollution is a positive externality. Yea that’s stupid but notice Bruce Hall routinely tells us there are up sides to pollution. m
Bot POSITIVE and negative. It is you that doesn’t believe in positive impacts/benefits/externalities.
CoRev: But each time you mention postive externalities, you don’t seem to be able to distinguish between positive externalities and private marginal benefits.
CoRev
December 6, 2022 at 1:40 pm
Bot POSITIVE and negative. It is you that doesn’t believe in positive impacts/benefits/externalities.
I am quite aware that certain activities generate positive externalities but to date you have not identified a single instance. Unless you think inhaling the exhaust from your car makes you live longer.
Menzie, please note that I included these: “positive impacts/benefits/externalities.” I try to eliminate “limited” impacts such as externalities, as they do not actually define the whole class of “positive impacts/benefits/externalities.”
” What Is an Externality?
An externality is a cost or benefit>/b> caused by a producer that is not financially incurred or received by that producer. An externality can be both positive or negative and can stem from either the production or consumption of a good or service. The costs and benefits can be both private—to an individual or an organization—or social, meaning it can affect society as a whole. ”
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp
Saving lives, improving competitive economic stances, improving the environment for developing industry/services, etc are all HUGE positive externalities that their values DWARF the negative externalities.
Continuing to limit the class of cost/benefits to externalities leads to the dumb decisions we are living with today ion Europe and moving here the the Biden energy policies. they also result in deceiving articles as MD reference and Barkley’s ill defined/typed reference: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/offshore-wind-can-lower-energy-prices-and-beat-out-oil-and-gas/ “Offshore Wind Can Lower Energy Prices and Beat Out Oil and Gas”
Read the article and the strange metric used to compare.
“are all HUGE positive externalities that their values DWARF the negative externalities.”
false. they will not exceed the cost of rising sea levels which will flood hundreds of cities and place a billion people underwater. that is a huge cost.
as far as pollution goes, have you ever been to Beijing? the pollution is so bad there are days that seem like night time. the impact on health is enormous. in fact, the wealthy have moved many of their children out of the city so they do not develop respiratory illness due to the particles in the air.
covid, you seem to have absolutely no understanding of the enormous negative costs due to our current carbon and pollution problems from fossil fuels. its almost like you live in a cave with the only contact to the outside word through faux news.
CoRev,
Again you are a massively ignorant fool. There are benefits of using fossil fuels, but they oerwhelmingly adhere to those who pay for the fuels. They are internal, not external. There is no external ‘saving lives” much less “improving competitive environment.” Offshore wind saves iives, and if as cheap as fossil fuels has same effect on competitive environment.
We get it that you simply do not get what counts as externalities and seem never to have in your comments here.
Barkley continues to focus on, externalities, a subset of the ACTUAL impacts of energy/electricity use. Negative externalizes are even a smaller subset.
Energy/electricity prices are by far the best metric for comparing sources. In the REAL WORLD, where renewables sources are the preferred/demanded energy source prices far exceed those of a more balanced solution.
But fighting models-based unicorns is far more emotionally satisfying, even though they cause slower economic growth and may even cause more deaths.
I know you think you’re saving the planet, but you’re also ignoring the economic impacts, harm to humankind and even harm to the environment. How any trees animals, and humans must die for you to satisfy your misguided virtue signalling? Your emotional well being does not trump the environment’s.
Sigh!
CoRev
December 9, 2022 at 4:03 am
Barkley continues to focus on, externalities, a subset of the ACTUAL impacts of energy/electricity use. Negative externalizes are even a smaller subset.
As if the economic impact of pollution is trivial? CoRev – one argumentative moron. Better still a very dishonest argumentative moron. You know – having a conversation with a dead tree would be more productive discussing economics with this troll.
Ole bark, bark steps on it again: “…As if the economic impact of pollution is trivial? CoRev – one argumentative moron. Better still a very dishonest argumentative moron.” There he is adding his interpretation: “As if the economic impact of pollution is trivial?”
Which was never said except by him, but going on to argue his own point is lying., and indicative of a very dishonest argumentative moron.
Focusing on externalities’ costs, a small subset of of the overall set of Cost & Benefits, is just another example of the misguided beliefs. For instance the discussion seems to imply: “… externalities have an impact on the consumption and production opportunities of unrelated third parties, but the price of consumption does not include the externalities.”
This is untrue and again misguided. “After the late 1990s, governments enacted legislation imposing the cost of externalities on the producer. This legislation increased costs, which many corporations passed on to the consumer, making their goods and services more expensive. ” Quotes from my earlier reference: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/externality.asp
Accordingly, I believe corrective actions are priced into the consumer prices or recovered by Government taxes for most CORRECTABLE externalities. Not all are correctable.
Without a list of these uncorrectable externalities there can be no meaningful discussion. Provide this list to continue.
MD, deflects again. I don’t claim there are tipping point. If you believe they exist then it is incumbent on you to define and list them.
Baffled thinks a hypothetical: “… the cost of rising sea levels which will flood hundreds of cities and place a billion people underwater. that is a huge cost. ” When and where is this happening? How does the proposed offshore wind plant stop this? How much will this lower Global Warming or stop Climate Change?
Corev, it is now the year 2022. The days when you could plead ignorance to these items are long past. What you are displaying is called denialism. Climate deniers are going extinct.
Baffled, climate denier??? You can’t even define it. Nor can you find one.
That misuse of that term so defines the extraordinary ignorance of the “climate catastrophe” movement.
Where did I plead ignorance? I did challenge your own. I had several questions re: your claim. Why did you fail to answer even one of them? Or, is it because you can not?
CoRev has found a new paper on these issues – good boy CoRev but can we check the creds of its chief author?
https://co2coalition.org/teammember/lars-schernikau/
Lars Schernikau, Ph.D.
Lars is an Energy economist, Entrepreneur, commodity trader, and book author on energy commodities. He currently lives in Europe and Asia. Previously, Lars worked at the Boston Consulting Group in the US and Germany. He is co-founder, shareholder, and former supervisory board member of two Germany listed commodity companies and founded, worked for, and advised number of other companies in the commodity & energy sector worldwide.
Smart dude but me thinks his association with the Boston Consulting Group and two commodity companies might be tainting his research. Gee CoRev – it is such a bitch that people like me check credentials since we know you never own up to the potential biases of your alleged experts.
Today I read an article that seems to clearly define the Climate Alarmist Community. https://issuesinsights.com/2022/12/09/the-climate-alarmists-are-deeply-disturbed-people/
The Climate Alarmists Are Deeply Disturbed People
It opens with: “We feel confident in saying that not a single prediction of global warming catastrophe has occurred. The alarmists know their forecasts of doom have been comically wrong. But rather than admit their errors, they point to natural events as evidence that they’re not wrong and keep warning us that the end is near.”
It’s close: “We’re not saying the climate alarmists are insane. But we feel it is our duty to point out that they do say the same things over and over and expect that this time they’ll get it right.”
Baffled and MD are clear examples of this misguided cult.
CoRev: Written by folks you used to be on the editorial page of IBD? Reading the article is like reading about how Paulus and the 6th army are about to successfully take Stalingrad.
Menzie, since you didn’t like the article, why not refute the 1st quote from it? A list of successful Climate Change/Catastrophe predictions/projections is limited at best.
I’ll wait.
Covid, It is not a hypothetical, no matter how much you continue to deny.
CoRev,
This I and I ed board does not include a single climatologist. They are a bunch of far right wing journalists. They cite one questionable prediction by on person (David Viner) while ignoring the large number of things that have been going on that are pretty catastrophic in the last few years. And they have the nerve to declare that people they disagree with are “deeply disturbed people.”
Personally I think evidence of being “deeply disturbed” is when one insists over and over that there are major positive externalities associated with the use of fossil fuels when there is near zero evidence of any such existing while on the other hand there is a long and well known list of negative externalities from it that have been repeatedly mentioned and listed here.
Baffled: “Sure. And you can include the cost of moving hundreds of cities and a billion people off of the flooded coastlines.”
and
“Covid, It is not a hypothetical, no matter how much you continue to deny.”
Hypothetical
involving or being based on a suggested idea or theory : being or involving a hypothesis : conjectural
If not hypothetical then there is much evidence for “…moving hundreds of cities and a billion people off of the flooded coastlines.”
Show us the evidence! Or stop continuously repeating the ignorant forecast from failing models/ers.
Barkley, OMG, a discussion of Climatologists on the board for an article about psychology? Are you and Menzie that dense?
Also another comment focused on the sub-sub-sub category of the costs of negative externalities in the overall category of costs & benefits adds what value to the discussion? It appears to be a misplaced focus, while ignoring the actual reality of the issues/subject.
CoRev,
That there are no climatologists on this board is relevant in that the supposed basid for all these people being “deeply disturbed” is that they are wrong about what they say about the climate. But they provide only one example of somebody making an inaccurate forecast. There have been some other inaccurate forecasts made, but the general story being told by most climatologists that global average temperature is rising is correct. So these non-climatologists are just full of it on this.
Also, this is not a psychology journal and none of these people are professional psychologists either. This is a bunch of right wing journlists, most of them previously involved with business reporting, not either climatology or psychology. You are just lying yet again.
Indeed, you are the one who has attempted to engage in denying repeatedly here scientific facts to the point of repeatedly making an utter and total fool of yourself. Your latest effort on that was the hilarious and drawn out effort by you to claim that the lack of a trend in the anomalies off a clear upward trend in average global temperature meant that there was no upward global trend in average global temperature. You pushed this not even worthy of elementary school argument at great length, repeatedly insulting people here who either did not respond to your rank nonsense or who pointed out how totally full of it you were.
Frankly, CoRev, this incredibly stupid and obnoxious conduct on your part makes you look like the one who is suffering from being “deeply disturbed,” not to mention going along with your out of control Biden Derangement Syndrome.
Now I am not going to comment on this thread anymore. Once again you have gone way beyond the bounds in your insane effort here with this stupid garbage, CoRev.
corev, climate change resulting in increased sea levels is not a hypothetical. you are simply trying to introduce doubt on items that have been shown factual. stop the gaslighting, corev. it is factual that sea levels are rising due to man made actions impacting climate. that is not in dispute except for a few deniers like yourself.
Baffled, but this: “corev, climate change resulting in increased sea levels is not a hypothetical. ” iss not your claim. It was: “… the cost of rising sea levels which will flood hundreds of cities and place a billion people underwater. that is a huge cost. ”
I asked 2 simple questions: 1) Where and 2) when? If you can not your claim then you represent the epitome of the Climate Catastrophist referenced in the IBD article.
Anything else you say without answering those 2 question is just digging your hole deeper.
covid, even an idiot can look at population maps and elevation maps to determine this. it is not some secret. take a look at Bangladesh population and elevation maps to see an example of the problem at hand. again, this is not a hypothetical. we know were people live. and we know the elevation of most locations on this planet.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/based-on-science/human-driven-climate-change-is-causing-sea-levels-to-rise?gclid=CjwKCAiAv9ucBhBXEiwA6N8nYBZYfk9sIdPjJSosI2zgqZcK2W6aHZtetsqqVvlIjiL06Z7GRuzt_xoCHKgQAvD_BwE
this is a link to the national academies. you could learn something. unless you think this group is a bunch of partisan hacks?
Baffled . what a tool! From your reference: “…Over the past 100 years, global average sea level has risen :about 6 inches. Now, satellites are used to measure sea level very precisely.
Sea level is rising more than twice as fast in recent decades than it did earlier in the 20th century. Satellite data collected since 1993 show that global sea level has risen about 3.8 inches in that time.” So they change the collection method and the data changes? And from that you can say that billions are required to move? “the cost of rising sea levels which will (future tense verb) flood hundreds of cities and place a billion people underwater. that is a huge cost. ” Yup! will, maybe, could might… but not HAS!
Using Bangladesh as a another example of the desperate belief in climate catastrophes confusing weather events with catastrophicclimate events. Bangladesh floods every monsoon which has occurred for millennia. Indeed, monsoonal flooding has happened for so long Bangladesh agriculture relies upon it.
You still have failed to answer either of those 2 simple questions. Where when.
You do exemplify the blind religious belief in catastrophic climate change.
“Indeed, monsoonal flooding has happened for so long Bangladesh agriculture relies upon it.”
monsoon floods are freshwater. sea level rise is salt water. it is devastating for agriculture. this comment is just stooopid and an attempt to distract from the issues i pointed out.
covid, the rest of your comments are just silly. please come back when you have something more substantive to say. and read the material from the national academies, for crying out loud. it is not right wing propaganda, sure. but it is facts that should inform you.
Baffled, I didn’t bring up Bangladesh as an example of flooding from rising sea levels, YOU DID. Now you say Bangladesh monsoonal flooding doesn’t count as seal level rise flooding as it is fresh water????
I called you a tool. Why do you insist on proving so? Keep on dancing while failing to make a point.
Furthermore why do you refuse to answer the 2 simple questions of where and when your feared billions of people and cities moved due to sea level rise?
You do exemplify the blind religious belief in catastrophic climate change.
Covid, I pointed out a relevant issue between bangladesh and rising sea levels. Your comment had absolutely NOTHING to do with that issue. It was simply a distraction. You provided nothing of value in your comments. As usual.
Bwa, ha, ha! Baffled the tool claims: “Covid, I pointed out a relevant issue between bangladesh and rising sea levels.” No, you did not show relevance. You did indeed say, ah never mind: “monsoon floods are freshwater. sea level rise is salt water.”
So your Bangladesh example IS NOT relevant. After all, flooding in Bangladesh is the climate, and hasn’t changed in millennia.
Just answer the 2 simple questions, where and when, to show us all your not a Climate Change TOOL!
if you are interested in learning more about sea level rise and impacted populations
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z
Baffled the Climate Change Tool, what about those 2 simple questions? I didn’t have to read past the abstract to see the faults in your latest reference. Your previous reference said that sea level had risen just 7 inches in the past century. Your latest is comparing that past rise to a possible 2 Meters by 2100? but for you TOOLS make this claim: “We estimate one billion people now occupy land less than 10 m above current high tide lines, including 230 M below 1 m.” I guess this or its repetition is where you got your claimed one billion people to be moved.
In really poor attempts to answer the where and when questions re; that 1 billion people prediction you provided Bangladesh, then admitted it wasn’t sea level rise. You now have postulated that some where PAST 2100 there may be an issue.
You do epitomize the unthinking belief in the misinformation associated with climate catastrophism religion.
Covid, your comments make no sense.
“it is your argument that supposedly renewable source is supposed to be lower than thermal sources.”
that has not been the argument. although it is certainly true if you consider externalities.
Baffled, if you want to consider external costs then include backup (pick your type), extensions to the grid, subsidies,development costs, and shorter life cycle, etc.
Positive externalities involving the environment include things like recycling and producing or buying electric cars.
Two activities that CoRev routinely trash as some sort of Biden SOCIALISM. Of course CoRev is paid by big money to trash anything positive as he touts inhaling the exhausts from gasoline powered cars as a cure for COVID19. MAGA!
Sure. And you can include the cost of moving hundreds of cities and a billion people off of the flooded coastlines. This is going to be fun.
CoRev,
Wow, more serious misinformation out of you. Check out from September 23 this year, americanprogress.org/article/iffsgirw-wind-can-kower-energy-prices-and-beat-hell-of-oi-and-gas , which title pretty much sums it up. This was easily found by simple googling.
Why do you like JohnH like to lie so much here, or is it in fact just your massive stupidity striking again, you actually do not know any better?
Ooooops, the “iffgsgirw: in that link should read “offshote.” If it does not work, it is easily found by googling “offshore wind cost compared to other sources.
‘Why do you like JohnH like to lie so much here’
MD’s original statement here told you the answer to this question. CoRev is being paid to spread these lies.
pgl,
I don’t think any of these big money interests out there are so stupid as to pay CoRev anything. I can believe Moscow might be paying JohnH, but I cannot see anybody paying CoRev. He is just so obviously blatantly incompetent and stupid.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/offshore-wind-can-lower-energy-prices-and-beat-out-oil-and-gas/
The levelized cost of energy (LCOE), defined as “the price at which the generated electricity should be sold for the system to break even at the end of its lifetime,” is a useful tool for comparing energy sources.21 Essentially, the LCOE determines the cost-effectiveness of each measured energy source on a per-MWh basis and is a suitable stand-in as a unit of energy value.22
While the LCOE for electricity generated in offshore wind farms is currently slightly higher than that of gas—$66–$100 per MWh versus $45–$74 per MWh, respectively—the increasingly rapid deployment of wind turbines on the OCS is expected to bring costs down significantly.23 By 2030, wind energy is estimated to be nearly 28 percent cheaper to produce over a project lifetime than the current LCOE for gas, which is projected to increase over the next decade.24 Given new investments in offshore wind through executive action, in the Inflation Reduction Act,25 and prioritization from BOEM,26 the LCOE of offshore wind could be even lower by 2030.
CoRev tried to mansplain to us what this LCOE measure is in the past. Of course he is not the only one who understands it and the people who wrote this are honest – unlike lying CoRev.
This document has a lot of other useful information that undermines the silly nonsense we routinely hear from CoRev’s comrade in disinformation (Bruce Hall).
Barkley 3-4 tries? Tsk, tsk.
Ole Bark, bark cuts and pasts from a NON-CITED reference referring to LCOE, which does not include externalities in a comment thread centered on externalities. He likea to call others STOOPID while he shows his ignorance. What an ignorant comment/er
And yet he is allowed to grace these pages?
Ole , bark bark wants us to believe the LCOE is a meaningful estimating tool. This peer reviewed paper says otherwise: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4000800
Full cost of electricity ‘FCOE’ and energy returns ‘eROI’
Excerpts: “LCOE is inadequate to compare intermittent forms of energy generation with dispatchable
ones and when making decisions at a country or society level….”
and
“… the full cost of electricity (FCOE) or the full cost to
society. FCOE explains why wind and solar are not cheaper than conventional fuels and in fact become more expensive the higher their penetration in the energy system. The IEA confirms “…the system value of variable renewables such as wind and solar decreases as their
share in the power supply increases”. This is illustrated by the high cost of the “green” energy transition.”
Not only does LCOE not include the pseudo costs of externalities, but it doesn’t include many of the substantial costs of implementation of Green Energy. Accordingly FCOE is a better measure for comparing costs. Of course another method is to compare market pricing. Today places like Germany and California, both well into adapting Green Energy solutions, are the highest priced electiioty.
CoRev,
There are no external costs of offshore wind. There are external costs of fossil fuels. Your big push here about F versus L does not help you at all. It in fact hurts your argument. Again, you would not know an externality if it hit you in the face.
Barkley claims: “There are no external costs of offshore wind.” It is this exaggerated focus on a subset of COSTS that gets int o unicorn territory. Tell it to the whales and other negative biological impacts. You might also tell it to the tourist businesses negatively impacted.
But, but me emotional well being exceeds theirs. No it doesn’t.
CoRev
December 8, 2022 at 4:41 am
Ole Bark, bark cuts and pasts from a NON-CITED reference referring to LCOE, which does not include externalities in a comment thread centered on externalities.
CoRev usually posts things not cited and he rarely includes the role of externalities. Pot calling the kettle black.
Ole bark, bark claims: “CoRev usually posts things not cited and he rarely includes the role of externalities. ”
Sigh, another knee jerk reaction without thought. Posting without a cite is called commenting. Quoting something without a cite is disingenuous laziness. Your comment was an example of this. It even had the footnote markers embedded.
Being blatantly incompetent and stupid you then ignored the real issue re: using a costs example which ignored externalities. An issue you frequently bring up.
CoRev,
I have checked. Apparently whales get disturbed by the pile driving involved in the construction of offshore wind facilities. But that is a temporary matter that ends when construction ends. Whales and other cetaceans are not bothered by the operation of the facitlities. There probably is some damage to seabirds, although apparently the amount this happens has not been documented, probably less than happens on land, where indeed there is some such damage, with bats more damaged. Not likely to be any damage to bats for offshore.
Something I found out that I did not know previously is that there some positive externalities for sea animals I was unaware of regarding offshore wind facilities that do not apply for land-based ones. Apparently they act like reefs and become homes for all kinds of species and even generate protection zones for many others. These almost certainly outweigh the few negative such externalities that exist.
Funny you did not mention those, CoRev. Thanks for getting me to check on this so I found out about them. Did you know about them and just consciously not tell us about them? Or did you not catch that while worrying about the poor whales, who are only negatively impacted during construction?
Barkley, you have forgotten my position of externalities from the beginning, there are positive externalities that are not or seldom considered.
After a bit of minor research you have changed from: “There are no external costs of offshore wind.” to: ” These almost certainly outweigh the few negative such externalities that exist.” You still forgot the loss of tourist impacts on local economies as another external cost/externality.
When you revert to illogically denying the cost/benefits feel assured this comment will be noted.
CoRev,
Some property owners on shores try to block offshore wind near them, but there is zero evidence of loss of tourism in those locations.
Macro, think about how the liberal elites at Martha’s Vineyard have fought offshore wind farms for years. I’m not sure they are part of a right-wing petrochemical conspiracy. This objection goes back to 2012 regarding the “visual impact” of such wind farms.
https://www.mvtimes.com/2012/02/15/marthas-vineyard-community-airs-offshore-wind-farm-concerns-9589/
Also, some Nantucket residents have filed suit against wind farms. Definitely not right-wing petrochemical conspirators.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/08/25/nantucket-wind-turbine-federal-lawsuit-endangered-whales
In New York, some wealthy liberals have filed a lawsuit against an offshore wind farm:
https://undark.org/2021/03/23/new-york-offshore-windfarm-nimbyism/
The liberals are all for wind farms until they are planned for nearby areas.
“Wainscott, a hamlet in the wealthy New York enclave of the Hamptons, is the unlikely setting for a rancorous battle over what would be the state’s first offshore wind farm.”
Do you even have a clue who lives in this hamlet Brucie? I do. A bunch of richy rich Republicans. To suggest these people are “liberal” goes to show how utterly dishonest you are on the simplest of things.
The “liberal ” label is the whole substance of your argument? Dang, that’s embarrassing.
You forgot “radical” and “left-wing” and “woke”. If your only argument is labels, might as well use a whole list.
MD con not debate the substance so debates labels? Bwa, ha ha, and he was the originator of this thread!
Donald Trump lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan which Brucie thinks is the hot bed of liberalism (it isn’t). So Brucie must think Trump is a liberal. Yea – he is that dumb.
nimby arguments rarely address the real issues at hand.
Somewhat off subject, but since a lot of effort at this blog goes toward trying to predict what happens to economies, US and other, I found this an interesting read:
https://dgoodwin.substack.com/p/is-the-world-getting-harder-to-predict
To some degree, that article seems to dovetail with this:
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/economics/black-swan-event/
However, the latter focuses mainly on the negative consequences of unpredictability while the former allows both negative and positive outcomes… which goes to the difficulty of predicting based on current conditions.
“I was recently in a room in which the great economist Tyler Cowen”
Seriously? No need to read the rest of your latest garbage. Tyler may call himself an economist but great? Not quite.
The 2nd link has to be the dumbest discussion of Black Swan events I have ever read:
‘Example of a Black Swan Event
For example, the imposition of a steel and aluminum tariff by the President of the United States may be considered a black swan event. Companies that export steel and aluminum to the United States, namely those located in Canada, Mexico, and Brazil, were not expecting such an announcement by the US President.’
Trump told us in 2016 he would be protectionist. Only someone as dumb as Bruce Hall would call this a black swan.
‘Understanding the Black Swan
Although black swan events seem to come with a negative connotation, the concept does not only apply to negative events. Whether the event is positive or negative depends on the perspective of the individual.’
Anyone reading this blog whose IQ is above the teens would know what a disaster the Trump trade war was. But not Bruce Hall!
I worked closely with MNCs in Asia – US and European, for the most part, but also Asian – during the period in question. The common themes were these:
o Investing overseas is a pain in the butt; we’d much rather just export from our existing factories.
o Since we can’t export into new markets (import barriers, inappropriate pricing), we’ll bite the bullet and invest.
o The overall return on investment is the No. 1 factor; political / social stability is No. 2.
o Labor costs are quite a ways down the list of priorities, given that productivity tends to follow pay.
=> Side issue: what’s the labor cost of an integrated circuit?
o Taxes? If I make a profit, I’m delighted to pay taxes, and the difference between Location A and Location B is insignificant.
o My reasons for how I treat my workers, the environment, and stakeholders is my reputation, period.
How bad can the Republican support for Hershel Walker go? Well the new cry is vote for Hershel because he has a low IQ!
https://news.yahoo.com/sen-john-kennedy-urges-georgia-201000780.html
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) was a part of Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s final campaign push on Sunday afternoon, two days before the runoff vote between him and sitting Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock (D). While Walker himself had a number of odd things to say over the weekend, it looks like fake folksy Kennedy was intent on adding his voice to the bizarre chorus. Kennedy, while wearing a sticker reading “RUN HERSCHEL RUN,” railed against “these high IQ stupid people” running around Congress at a campaign stop in Loganville, Georgia, on Sunday afternoon. “These high IQ stupid people have an answer for everything. You know why? Because they think they’re smarter and more virtuous than the American people,” he said.
Well Senator – we KNOW we are all smarter than Hershel. The whole campaign shows more clearly than anything I can imagine – the Trump wing of the Republican Party are as racist as it gets.
Kennedy-graduate of Vanderbilt, UVA, and Oxford-Really tries hard to sound like the secret son of Goober Pyle. The rubes —and CR and Bruce Hall —buy it. Enough said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/indonesia-s-parliament-votes-to-ban-sex-outside-of-marriage/ar-AA14Ypsy
Sex outside of marriage is to be punishable by up to one year in prison under a sweeping criminal code overhaul adopted by Indonesia’s parliament Tuesday, despite concerns from rights groups and many dissident voices. Adultery is already illegal in the country, and other more restrictive measures are in place regionally. But the sweeping new measures would criminalize all extramarital sex between unmarried individuals and ban cohabitation before marriage, a major step for the world’s third-largest democracy.
In other news – Hershel Walker canceled his plans to move to Indonesia after his loss in today’s election.
Trump has been working with famed defense attorney Rick Stryker to come up with a defense of his taking all those classified files:
https://jabberwocking.com/we-all-miss-socks-dont-we/
Blame it all on Bill Clinton’s cast Socks!
Oh dear – this had to do with Clinton’s sock drawer and not his cat according to Judicial Watch:
https://www.judicialwatch.org/presidential-records-found-right-in-clintons-drawer/
A 2012 court case denying access to White House audiotapes kept in former President Bill Clinton’s sock drawer after he left office could help the Trump legal team in its battle to retrieve records that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago this month. The 10-year-old court ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, rejected arguments by a conservative watchdog group that sought access to dozens of tapes recorded by Mr. Clinton and historian Taylor Branch during his administration. “What it highlights is that under the law, and the Justice Department’s prior legal positions, if Clinton had the tapes, they are presumably personal,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told The Washington Times.
Ok Tom Fitton is even nuttier than Rick Stryker. But this may be good news for JohnH as I hear that Fitton is looking for nude pictures of Hunter Biden in Clinton’s sock drawer.
I can’t get past the Bloomberg paywall. Did WSJ discuss this?? If anyone knows which hardcopy WSJ discussed the low survey response rate on wages I’d be grateful to know (the date of the hardcopy WSj I mean). I was mainly wanting to know if there was a reason for the low response rate or whether it was just some kind of random occurrence that the response rate would be low.
Being the eternal dope that I am, this is where I would THINK BLS would explain why the low survey response rate. Of course, nothing.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Why do I always feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football out of Lucy’s hands when I search for these semi-obscure answers?? I need a Linus to whine to next to the generic residential brick wall.
The bad news: me neither.
The good news:
Do low survey response rates bias results? Evidence from Japan
“Conclusions: Our results are consistent with results reported in the econometric and survey research literatures. Low response rates need not necessarily lead to biased result.”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277563569_Do_low_survey_response_rates_bias_results_Evidence_from_Japan
Obviously, the editor was asleep at the wheel:
“…need not necessarily…”
Bad editor. Bad.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-11-05/Wind-produced-as-much-energy-as-all-other-non-hydro-renewable-sources-1eBZawwD7l6/index.html
November 5, 2022
Wind produced as much energy as all other non-hydro renewable energy sources combined
By Djoomart Otorbaev
In a previous article, * it was demonstrated that renewable energy production has grown at an unprecedented rate. Yet even this pace is not sufficient to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. What efforts should the world community, and above all, the leading countries, take to achieve this all-important goal? Well, let’s focus on the current trends of wind energy production.
Among renewable energy sources, it’s wind energy that remains the leading renewable technology, which generated 1,870 TWh in 2021, which is nearly the same as all other non-hydro renewables combined. In 2021, wind power generation increased by a record 273 TWh, accounting for 17 percent annual growth. It was made possible by boosting wind power capacity, which grew by 93 GW in 2021, 113 GW in 2020 and 59 GW in 2019.
In 2021, of the 837 GW of installed wind capacity, 93 percent were onshore, and the remaining 7 percent were offshore wind farms. Onshore wind power has been used in 115 countries worldwide, while offshore wind power has been installed in 19 countries. Offshore generation is expected to increase in the coming years since more countries are developing their first offshore wind farms.
In 2021, China accounted for nearly 70 percent of the wind generation increase, followed by the U.S. at 14 percent and Brazil at 7 percent. Other leading installers were Vietnam, UK, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, India, and France. In the European Union, despite near-record capacity growth in 2020 and 2021, wind power generation dropped 3 percent in 2021, mainly due to unusually long periods of light wind.
The leaders of wind turbines’ exports are Denmark and Germany, as well as the Netherlands and Spain. They accounted for more than three-quarters of the world’s exports in 2020. Chinese firms have increased their share of the market despite having to confront various trade barriers, such as rising tariff rates from 7.5 percent in 2017 to 13.8 percent on average in 2020.
From 2010 to 2021, the total installed capacity of wind farms has risen from 178 GW to 837 GW. It was due to the global levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of newly-commissioned onshore wind projects dropping 68 percent, from $0.102/kWh to $0.033/kWh. And the LCOE for offshore wind projects decreased from $0.188/kWh to $0.075/kWh, i.e., it fell by 60 percent. Last year, the cost of electricity from new onshore and offshore wind projects fell by 15 and 13 percent respectively, compared to the year earlier.
In 2021, the global-weighted installed cost of newly commissioned onshore wind projects fell from $2,042/kW in 2010 to $1,325/kW, and offshore ones from $4,876/kW to $2,858/kW. The declines were driven by falling turbine prices, increased capacity and economies of scale. The supply chains were more competitive, and capital costs were falling. Technological upgrades, such as higher hub heights, more giant turbines and swept blade areas, mean that today’s wind turbines can achieve higher power in the same wind site than their smaller predecessors. In 2021, the proportion of new deployments in China decreased while the proportion of areas with excellent wind resources grew.
While Europe added about 3 GW of new capacity, a figure similar to the increase in 2020, China added an unprecedented 17.4 GW. Over the past two years, China accounted for 50 percent of new capacity in 2020 and 82 percent in 2021….
* https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-08/Renewable-energy-production-continues-to-grow-but-not-enough-1dVWI4sU81y/index.html
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-11-24/Largest-16-MW-offshore-wind-turbine-rolls-off-production-line-1fdnDlQjFJK/index.html
November 24, 2022
World’s largest 16MW offshore wind turbine rolls off production line
The world’s largest 16-megawatt offshore wind turbine rolled off the production line in southeast China’s Fujian Province on Wednesday, setting a new benchmark in the progress of global offshore wind power equipment. *
The offshore wind turbine, claimed to have the world’s largest impeller diameter and largest single unit capacity of 16MW, can be widely used in sea areas where wind speeds are medium or high.
With its wheel hub at a height of 146 meters and the diameter of the impeller reaching 252 meters, the impeller of the offshore wind turbine can sweep an area of about 50,000 square meters, equivalent to seven standard football fields put together.
Under rated working conditions, a single unit can generate 34.2 kWh per revolution, and an average annual output of more than 66 million kWh of clean electricity, sufficient for 36,000 three-member households to consume for one year.
“It has overcome a series of key technological problems such as ultra-long flexible blades, large spindle bearings, and miniaturization of ultra-large capacity generators. The application of high-power offshore wind turbines can greatly save the use of sea areas,” said Lei Mingshan, chairman of the China Three Gorges Corporation.
The combination of modularization and automation in the control strategy of the unit can actively adjust the operation mode for typhoons and other adverse weathers to ensure safe and efficient power generation of wind turbines, and the products are fully suitable for countries along the Belt and Road as well as European and American countries.
* https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-14/China-rolls-off-13-6MW-offshore-wind-turbine-1e7jHg34RbO/index.html
“Kennedy, while wearing a sticker reading “RUN HERSCHEL RUN,” railed against “these high IQ stupid people” running around Congress at a campaign stop in Loganville, Georgia, on Sunday afternoon. “These high IQ stupid people have an answer for everything.”
Reminds me of Nixon’s nomination of dimwitted but reliable segregationist Clement Haynsworth for the Supreme Court in a gambit to outflank a challenge from George Wallace. Republican Senator Hruska of Nebraska had this to say in support: “Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”
The elitist Senate rejected Haynsworth 45-55.
“We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”
Oh, by the way — three guesses what Brandeis, Frankfurter and Cardozo have in common. Okay, one guess should be sufficient.
They all have Irish last names?? (If you read my comments here regular, you’ll get my affectionate joke)
Funny, I was just haphazardly wandering around the BLS website, trying to find out if there was a specific reason for the low response rate for the November survey, and I found a simple colored map graphic of the USA. Guess which state is the one state in America that had an increase in the jobless rate between October 2021 and October 2022?? I’ll give you a hint. Many people say it is the “reddest” (most Republican) state of all the 50 states.
Look for the only state in light blue:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/californias-jobless-rate-decreased-2-1-percentage-points-over-the-year-ended-october-2022.htm
I believe that, adjusted for PPP, productivity, and benefits, Chinese manufacturers now pay their workers more than we pay than ours. A friend who runs factories in both countries claims that theirs are almost incomparably better. Musk suggest that, too.