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How does a political statement cost trillions? The information contained in the sentence "let's use the money where it matters most" is zero. How do you figure
by Tichy 15y ago
How does a political statement cost trillions? The information contained in the sentence "let's use the money where it matters most" is zero. How do you figure out where it matters most?
The fact is: if people can exploit some loophole (like blowing dirt into the air instead of installing expensive filters), they will do so. They don't really have an incentive to do otherwise. It doesn't have to be laws that gives them an incentive - there could be "transparency", customers could prefer to buy "clean" stuff, hence producers would have an incentive to produce clean.
Without such an incentive, nothing will happen.
- acegopher 15y agoI think the original comment about political statements costing trillions are when say the government subsidizes corn ethanol. There is good consensus that corn ethanol is energy negative, and that it doesn't result in cleaner air or less greenhouse gases due to production costs. This mis-allocation of capital hinders development of truly better alternatives, and sets back innovation. These setbacks, beyond the cost of the subsidy and the lack of improvement in the areas targeted, do cost trillions.
- Tichy 15y agoI dislike most of the government actions that are supposed to help, but I think it is confusing the discussion to mix together things that could be done, should be done, have been done, and so on. Ultimately I think Lomborg is just a troll, and lumping people together into fake classes is a tried and proven technique for trolling. It gets people worked up because they don't want to be associated with certain other people, and stirs discussion towards petty battles rather than solving the problem. Just because some government wasted billions, doesn't imply every possible political action would be a waste of billions.
- ThomPete 15y agoI think this is a basically unfair description of the reality. Lomborg is not some gun-ho republican right-wing that denies there is a problem. I is just in disagreement with what most people find to be the right reason. He is as liberal as they come and he just happen to have a different take on what the problem is and how to solve it. Calling him a troll is sorry to say this but absurdly unfair and shows more about you than him.
- ThomPete 15y agoIt matters most where you can build markets. It matters not where it purely a poltical (read most often moral) statement. Customers don't prefer to buy clean stuff. Most of them prefer to buy cheap stuff. That is the reality, that is the reason discount is doing so well.