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It's weird reading this as someone who identifies strongly as Gen X, witnessing how we can't seem to address existential threats like global climate change unti

It's weird reading this as someone who identifies strongly as Gen X, witnessing how we can't seem to address existential threats like global climate change until the Boomers retire. Or a thousand other problems. I've spent the last 20+ years under a near-constant form of gaslighting where everybody told me my ideas would never work. Having to watch time and again as a different version of me wins the internet lottery. Dunno about all of you, but I'm kinda over it. My dad (a Boomer and self-proclaimed radical in the 1960/70s environmental spirit) reminded my just yesterday though that not all Boomers are alike, and that stereotypes hurt. I wish we had a different term for people who self-ossify, glorify ignorance, and take it upon themselves to dictate to others why they're wrong. I'm thinking of guys like Mitch McConnell and Milton Friedman, so sure in their certitude that it's inconceivable to them that their theology could actively harm the modern world. How do we resist such glacial forms of resignation?

gedy 5y ago
Unfortunately , as a fellow Gen X, "Boomer" is turning into a term for "older than me and a little more successful/further along in life". Hate that some younger people are calling me a Boomer, when we didn't have pensions _or_ 401ks, our families were gutted with parents divorcing, etc.
pfdietz 5y ago
Milton Friedman was a supporter of taxes on pollutants. He recognized that negative externalities are a case where government intervention is needed, and thought Pigovian taxes were the best way for government to do that. Were he alive today he'd be advocating carbon taxes.
- zackmorris 5y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that. Most of the clips I see of him online show him berating young people who aren't wrong IMHO. A bit serendipitous, but his name popped up just now when I was searching for an article about regulation to make companies responsible for their own externalities: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-29/cop26-capital-markets-can-t-save-the-planet-but-they-can-help https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-29/cop26-... Big investors really do think of themselves as universal investors The typical attitude is: “If we’re a big investor, we’re universal investors. We can’t say we’re going to divest fossil fuels companies; we have to stay invested.” Other companies in the portfolio will continue to use carbon. At the same time, a universal investor needs to look after the wellbeing of its clients. That means making sure they have a healthy climate to breathe when they retire, and not just that they have an adequate cash flow. Put differently, the report says they believe that they “own” the negative externalities caused by the companies in their portfolio “due to the sheer depth and breadth of their holdings in all asset classes and regions.” As far as they are concerned: “Such ‘paper’ holdings do not negate their fiduciary responsibility to wider society.” This is a long way from the “shareholder value” philosophy associated with Milton Friedman that held sway for decades. Right now I put the responsibility for environmental collapse squarely on the shoulders of corporations, their shareholders and fundamentally consumers who (due to tragedy of the commons) frankly don't know how to begin to be sustainable when it takes everything they got to make it in today's world. To say that another way, I don't think that Friedman's views are fundamentally incorrect, I just think that they put attention in the wrong places. For example, capitalism is just economic evolution. It doesn't need to be defended as some alternative to social democracy. Capitalism isn't going anywhere, but it can be constrained by human will so that it doesn't make us slaves to it, toiling in the workaday world every day until we die as the earth burns around us.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    Corporations (and consumers, and politicians) react according to their perceived costs and benefits. If the cost of pollution is not properly incurred, it will be overproduced. It's not a corporation problem (or a consumer problem), it's a market failure problem. Friedman preferred taxes to solve this because that approach has the least room for rent seeking behavior, unlike approaches like subsidizing or mandating specific solutions.
IncRnd 5y ago
> My dad (a Boomer and self-proclaimed radical in the 1960/70s environmental spirit) reminded my just yesterday though that not all Boomers are alike, and that stereotypes hurt. > I wish we had a different term for people who self-ossify, glorify ignorance, and take it upon themselves to dictate to others why they're wrong. Your Dad is correct about your stereotyping. Mitch McConnell is too old to be a Boomer but is part of the Post War generation. Milton Friedman was part of the Pre War generation.

gedy 5y ago

Unfortunately , as a fellow Gen X, "Boomer" is turning into a term for "older than me and a little more successful/further along in life". Hate that some younger people are calling me a Boomer, when we didn't have pensions _or_ 401ks, our families were gutted with parents divorcing, etc.

pfdietz 5y ago

Milton Friedman was a supporter of taxes on pollutants. He recognized that negative externalities are a case where government intervention is needed, and thought Pigovian taxes were the best way for government to do that. Were he alive today he'd be advocating carbon taxes.

zackmorris 5y ago
Interesting, I didn't know that. Most of the clips I see of him online show him berating young people who aren't wrong IMHO. A bit serendipitous, but his name popped up just now when I was searching for an article about regulation to make companies responsible for their own externalities: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-29/cop26-capital-markets-can-t-save-the-planet-but-they-can-help https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-29/cop26-... Big investors really do think of themselves as universal investors The typical attitude is: “If we’re a big investor, we’re universal investors. We can’t say we’re going to divest fossil fuels companies; we have to stay invested.” Other companies in the portfolio will continue to use carbon. At the same time, a universal investor needs to look after the wellbeing of its clients. That means making sure they have a healthy climate to breathe when they retire, and not just that they have an adequate cash flow. Put differently, the report says they believe that they “own” the negative externalities caused by the companies in their portfolio “due to the sheer depth and breadth of their holdings in all asset classes and regions.” As far as they are concerned: “Such ‘paper’ holdings do not negate their fiduciary responsibility to wider society.” This is a long way from the “shareholder value” philosophy associated with Milton Friedman that held sway for decades. Right now I put the responsibility for environmental collapse squarely on the shoulders of corporations, their shareholders and fundamentally consumers who (due to tragedy of the commons) frankly don't know how to begin to be sustainable when it takes everything they got to make it in today's world. To say that another way, I don't think that Friedman's views are fundamentally incorrect, I just think that they put attention in the wrong places. For example, capitalism is just economic evolution. It doesn't need to be defended as some alternative to social democracy. Capitalism isn't going anywhere, but it can be constrained by human will so that it doesn't make us slaves to it, toiling in the workaday world every day until we die as the earth burns around us.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Corporations (and consumers, and politicians) react according to their perceived costs and benefits. If the cost of pollution is not properly incurred, it will be overproduced. It's not a corporation problem (or a consumer problem), it's a market failure problem. Friedman preferred taxes to solve this because that approach has the least room for rent seeking behavior, unlike approaches like subsidizing or mandating specific solutions.

IncRnd 5y ago

> My dad (a Boomer and self-proclaimed radical in the 1960/70s environmental spirit) reminded my just yesterday though that not all Boomers are alike, and that stereotypes hurt. > I wish we had a different term for people who self-ossify, glorify ignorance, and take it upon themselves to dictate to others why they're wrong. Your Dad is correct about your stereotyping. Mitch McConnell is too old to be a Boomer but is part of the Post War generation. Milton Friedman was part of the Pre War generation.