fate

Do we have higher energy prices?

Do we have more EPA regulations?

Does the second cause the first?
If you beleive industry lobbies or right wing web sites, sure.

But often the regulations could save money.
If the MMM had the same regulations as Norway, and effective enforcement, its likely the Horizon explosion and oil spill wouldn't have occurred. Its almost certain that in the event of an initial spill the oil fow would have been stopped early.
The cost of acoustic activated valves? Versus the billions for the clean up?

Industry isn't always good at evaluating risk costs . And some are prepared to run from their risk and the tax payer ends up picking up the tab. Thats why regulation is important.

rickyp wrote:fate

Do we have higher energy prices?

Do we have more EPA regulations?

Does the second cause the first?
If you beleive industry lobbies or right wing web sites, sure.

So the EPA's jihad against coal has had no impact on the price of energy . . . or jobs?

But often the regulations could save money.
If the MMM had the same regulations as Norway, and effective enforcement, its likely the Horizon explosion and oil spill wouldn't have occurred. Its almost certain that in the event of an initial spill the oil fow would have been stopped early.
The cost of acoustic activated valves? Versus the billions for the clean up?

That has what to do with production of oil and coal? One rig?

Industry isn't always good at evaluating risk costs . And some are prepared to run from their risk and the tax payer ends up picking up the tab. Thats why regulation is important.

No one is arguing against ALL regulation. The question is whether the EPA under Obama/Jackson has been excessive, thus costing jobs and energy production.

fate

So the EPA's jihad against coal has had no impact on the price of energy . . . or jobs?

Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is generally a byproduct of industrial processes and burning of fossil fuels. Ore smelting, coal-fired power generators and natural gas processing are the main contributors. In 2000, for instance, U.S. SO2 emissions were measured at 14.8 million tonnes - more than six times greater than Canada's 2.4 million tonnes. But the sources of SO2 emissions from the two countries are different. In Canada, 68% of emissions come from industrial sources and 27% comes from electric utilities (2000). In the U.S., 67% of emissions are from electric utilities (2002).The abundant use of coal created acid rain.
Acid rain is hugely expensive.
The cost benefit analysis of limiting SO2 emissions, and therefore limiting coal use, has to include an an analyis of what acid rain was doing to the enviroment and peoples health. (second link below). Most experts, including the link, say the benefits far out weight the costs.
To me it means I can canoe in Killarney on lakes that are now alive, but twenty years were dead from acid rain. To some people. the air is cleaner and their children can breathe without constant resort to asthma inhalers...To some it means that buildings that were being pitted and worn from acidic rain, are now less frequently needful of maintenance....
The reasons for limiting SO2 are plentiful. The results regarding acid rain reduction and the cleaning of the atmosphere have been plentiful too.
Clean Coal is just this generations "Less harmful tobacco" ... Ain't no such thing.
You want an example where industry isn't bothered by EPA regulations, go to a chinese industrial city.


http://www.rff.org/rff/documents/rff-dp-97-31-rev.pdf
http://www.ec.gc.ca/air/default.asp?lan ... 7E5E9F00-1

Ricky:

If you present the arguement that "This specific regulation" hampers the way our industry can do business.... " The we look at that specific regulation and decide.

I play Sarbanes Oxley. I know of actual people who work for actual companies who tell me that the mountains of paperwork required are obscene and generally worthless. Accountants refer to SARBOX as their full employment act. Your turn.

Ricky:

I said best because it was specifically about batteries in computers. And helpful to established companies>? Well its helpful to know what levels of pollutants they can release? Or what substances cannot be allowed to leach into soil at their manufacturing facility? I'd think so.

Ricky, that's all very interesting, but not related to the point I was making. My point is that regulation often hinders economic growth, which is a factor when evaluating whether Mr. Romney's fiscal policy adds up. That doesn't mean that all regulation is bad or I want to live in China or drink dirty water or breathe bad air.

danivon wrote:Ray Jay, how much growth do you think is realistic to assume, for the purposes of projecting a budget forward? Deregulation is easier said than done (and I'm not convinced that regulations hold businesses back that much, until you start eroding things like minimum wage, safety standards etc), and it takes a long time to get the benefit from energy exploration (assuming that having already tapped the low hanging fruit, it's actually more economic than imports)

I wish I had seen this earlier. Thanks! It's the right question. (Ricky, you can learn from this.)

I'm doing this all from memory, so my #s won't be perfect, but they will be directionally reasonable .Right now we have 1.5% economic growth. Coming out of the recession of the 80's we had something like 6% growth. When evaluating the growth potential of Romney's policies, you have to look at a few different factors:

1. Increased domestic oil and gas exploration. In addition to impacting infrastructure investment, it may also bring prices down, both spurring economic activity.
2. Less regulation. (I agree with you that it easier said than done.)
3. Lower tax rates with fewer deductions. In theory this increases economic activity, but when the CBO scores tax legislation, they don't look at it dynamically. In other words, increased tax collection is not factored in. Also, lower rates may lead to more people reporting income and/or corporations repatriating earnings, resulting in higher tax receipts.
4. Greater business and consumer confidence.

If you assume that each of these factors creates .5% growth per year (some will be less, some will be more), then you have an economy that is 8% bigger after 4 years. Assuming an average tax rate of 20% (all taxes occur on the greater activity including energy, social secuirty, and income), then you pick up 1.6% of GDP in taxes.

Right now federal spending comprises 23.5% of GDP and the tax receipts is about 16% of GDP. It's that 7.5% gap that is creating our fiscal mess. In other words, economic growth is the key. I'm not saying that it will happen under Romeny, but I think it is a plausible scenario; I have not heard anything from Obama that suggests he has a way to increase our annual growth rate.

Danivon:

and it takes a long time to get the benefit from energy exploration

I know, I believe we had this same discussion about 6 years ago. There's nothing wrong with government thinking about the long term.

Ray Jay wrote:Danivon:

and it takes a long time to get the benefit from energy exploration

I know, I believe we had this same discussion about 6 years ago. There's nothing wrong with government thinking about the long term.

No, but it's naive to think long term planning would have an effect on growth in the short term enough to mitigate the current deficit and a policy of tax cuts.

Of course, real long term planning on energy would also take account of climate change.

How do we feel about Presidential candidates giving their college transcripts?

ray

I play Sarbanes Oxley. I know of actual people who work for actual companies who tell me that the mountains of paperwork required are obscene and generally worthless. Accountants refer to SARBOX as their full employment act. Your turn

To be clear, its your contention that SO is somehow affecting the ability of public companies to 1) invest or gain investment? 2) be profitable? And your basing this on some accountants you know who get paid to do the compliance paperwork... Please correct me if I'm overstating or misconstruing. Its hard to know when you just throw vague claims out...

What do you think happens to investor confidence or the ability to raise money in the markets if there is a lack of investor confidence? Isn't that deflating? So why was SO brought into being?

The bill was enacted as a reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.

from wikipedia

Are you claiming tha a state of regulation that allowed the scandals listed above, and others, was healthy for the investment community?
SO may require streamlining or improvement, but in general without the greater transparency that SO provides, there would continue to be the fraud and abuse that was perpetrated before SO.
I think getting rid of the fraud and abuse improves investor confidence and confidence in the markets generally.

SO only affects companies that are publicly held by the way.
As for the actual cost of SO compliance?

The 2007 study indicated that, for 168 companies with average revenues of $4.7 billion, the average compliance costs were $1.7 million (0.036% of revenue)

versus the benefits?

President George W. Bush signed it into law, stating it included "the most far-reaching reforms of American business practices since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The era of low standards and false profits is over; no boardroom in America is above or beyond the law

There's probably improvements to be made in the beauracracy, but something that costs 0.036% of revenue and provides the markets and the industry with great confidence in the companies complying, seems to be a positive. And not the negative you anecdotally support.

Its easy to respond to your specific examples of suppossed honerous regulation Ray. Its harder to respond to a an unsupported generalization.
Romney depends on the unquestioning adherence to generalizations like " regulations are choking growth."... Because an examination of which regulations are specifically "choking growth" often finds that the regulation was brought into being because 1) the conditions it was attempting to alleviate WERE choking growth (financail scandals and crimes) OR 2) were choking people (pollution from industry OR unsafe working conditions etc.)

Theres a silly movie out this summer with Zach Galifinakis where part of the premise is that there are brother industralists who want to move factories to North carolina from China. They want waivers for standards on safety, pollution and working conditions so that they can run the factories in Carolina the same way they do in China. Plus they save on shipping costs.
The movie carries to the extreme the arguements about deregulation.... But it makes the point that regulation was originally a response to the problem. Anyone complaining about the problem should first look at the origins of the problem and explain how ending the regulation won't lead to the reoccurrence of the problem...
Best example? Glass Steagal. Brought in to stop the kinds of financial disaster that the crash of 29 . Repealed after years of lobbying by Wall Street and it only took a few years to repeat the collapse of 29.
Now, that was a suppossedly honerous regulation that held up economic growth too. Not so much huh?
I look forward to your next example of a regulation that is holding back economic growth....

bbauska wrote:How do we feel about Presidential candidates giving their college transcripts?

It seems less relevant, as a candidate would usually be old enough that they left college over 10 years prior to a run, and that their college transcript would already have been used as the basis for their employment after graduation.

It also doesn't appear to be directly related to government policy in the way that taxation is.

danivon wrote:

bbauska wrote:How do we feel about Presidential candidates giving their college transcripts?

It seems less relevant, as a candidate would usually be old enough that they left college over 10 years prior to a run, and that their college transcript would already have been used as the basis for their employment after graduation.

It also doesn't appear to be directly related to government policy in the way that taxation is.

Maybe.

On the other hand, it's interesting that he went to Occidental, didn't seem to set the world aflame, and then was off to the Ivy League.

What's he hiding? Is there something in his transcripts that would shame him, the most brilliant man to ever be President? If not, why doesn't he release them?

There must be something sinister in them.

You'll be asking to see his birth certificate next.

Have any previous candidates released their college transcripts?

danivon wrote:You'll be asking to see his birth certificate next.

Have any previous candidates released their college transcripts?

I know Gore's and Bush's were available.

We also don't have Obama's medical records, which is very unusual for a President.

Is he hiding something?

There are plenty of sealed records the President has refused to open up. Why? If he has nothing to hide, why not release them?

Someone who used to organize in Chicago with him called me and told me he used to smoke crack 3x a day, which he paid for by selling it. He never reported any of that income.

If he's innocent, let him prove it.

Oh, sorry. For just a minute, I thought I was Harry Reid.

I remember when there were these crazy right-wingers saying Clinton was involved in killing people back in Arkansas. This talk of college transcripts and crack cocaine is reminding me of those crazies..

freeman2 wrote:I remember when there were these crazy right-wingers saying Clinton was involved in killing people back in Arkansas. This talk of college transcripts and crack cocaine is reminding me of those crazies..

Sure it does.

Except . . . the Clintons denied all that, but Obama has admitted cocaine use and has not released his transcripts. It is mildly unusual for someone to start in a SoCal college and transfer to Columbia, isn't it? Could it be that he applied as a foreign exchange student?

To be clear, I think he was born in Hawaii. However, like Elizabeth Warren and others, I don't think Obama was above lying about his origins if it advanced his own interests. For example, look at what his literary agent peddled--that he was born in Kenya.

Has anyone read his college thesis? Why not?

Is he not proud of it? Is there something in it he would not want us to read?

If he has nothing . . . whoops, Harry Reid again.

You think Reid is crazy, right?