While the United States continues to spend billions on foreign wars above the $4 trillion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, we continue to receive new studies showing how the country is failing behind in education, science, and other programs needed for future growth. The latest is the study of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, which found that we have now dropped to 13th out of 16 major nations in energy efficiency — a key economic factor for future growth.
We are now ten spots behind the European Union. I recently spoke with an American businessman and got an insight into the impact of our worsening position. He and his partner created a major company in Iceland because energy costs were so low due to the use of volcanic and other alternative energy. He said that it was just too good to pass up. Of course, these countries also have cleaner air and better health of its citizens. While these studies often look at energy costs, they do not factor in the deaths associated with air pollution. Indeed, most citizens have no idea of the high levels of a death associated with many pollutants.
The energy lobby in the United States continues to resist efforts to mandate alternative energy sources unless it is questionable sources like ethanol. Lobbyists insist that such sources are too expensive and unreliable despite the fact that Germany is number one in the world in the use of such sources and continues to outstrip the world in the strength of its economy. We continue like a ship of fools, spending wildly on wars while refusing to create infrastructure and resources for alternative fuels. We are watching as our educational scores drop with key industrial factors like energy efficiency. What do we think is going to happen for the next generation?
Riesling, I agree about the extreme cold AC, in the US supermarkets are ridiculously cold. We use AC to mostly get rid of the humidity in our house. We spend winters on the beach in San Diego. Many houses do not have AC or heat.
Nick, we use the real bulbs too. The question is, what is a comfortable temperature? I find it absurd that I have to take a sweater with me in the summer in the US when it ´s 95 degrees outside or else I´ll freeze in a restaurant or other public place. That´s a huge waste of resources right there .
If anybody is able and up for it, my post to the mugwump was caught in the filter.
schulte: pretty sure that’s ad hominuem, and quite possibly uncivil
Mugwump: I wish you knew what you were talking about. Heck, you wish you knew what you were talking about. Unions in the US often have little choice but to take a confrontational stance with managements that have become increasingly hostile and often refuse to bargain in good faith. Here in the US, the focus is on eliminating unions; in Germany, society has long embraced them. That’s because they have come to realize the beneficial role that organized labor can play in the economy.
Milton Friedman, the capo di capo of the free market ideology, realized the value of unions. In Capitalism and Freedom, he called them essential to a free market, and he goes on to explain why. It was like throwing Holy Water on Ayn Rand and I don’t think she ever forgave him for it. But hey, he had a Nobel Prize and she had a drug habit, who you gonna go with.
BTW, they’re called work councils Germany. Thought you might have picked that up somewhere along in your travels.
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – technically California is going to slide into the ocean when it goes. That will make my property in Yuma beach-front property. Go Big One!!!
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You don’t believe in science so that must be religion.
You are a joke.
Dredd – I believe in science, just don’t support bad scientists.
Schulte: If you’re worried about all that pollution making its way across the Pacific, the answer is to either bring back those manufacturing jobs, which could be done by eliminating those tax breaks Mitt was unaware of, or we could refuse to allow imports that aren’t manufactured in accordance to clean energy standards.
A big reason US companies have outsourced manufacturing jobs is to duck environmental regulations. In your world, apparently “regulation” is a dirty word, however in the real world regulation is usually the only way to get industry to behave responsibly. JT and Jill are correct about how the costs of deleterious effects involved in industrial processes have been shifted onto society. Want to see what the free market looks like? Take a look at the satellite photos of the pollution shrouding China.
I wouldn’t worry too much about lagging in energy efficiency. The early adapters get the worst deal. Gordon Gekko’s cell phone in the movie “Wall Street” was the size of a brick and probably cost $1000. Now you can get a tiny phone for less than $50 and the service probably costs 50% less. The first IBM PC cost $10,000 about 35 years ago and it only had 10% of the computing power of the $150 computer sitting on your desk (if you even have a desktop). That’s the nature of technology cost curves.
Europe wanted to be the early adapters of alternative energy. They wanted the Gordon Gekko cell phone equivalent of energy. So they used government coercion to force their citizens to subsidize uneconomic energy investments until technological innovation drove the cost curve lower making it competitive with traditional energy. Now that the European central planners have made their citizens eat the uneconomical costs and driven costs lower, American industry and consumers can adapt their solutions if they have an economic incentive to do so.
I bought one of the first battery operated calculators and it cost me $150. Now they cost $5.
And Spinny is BAU so screw youse libneralls.
The 352nd month in a row above average temp was June.
It was the hottest month in recorded history.
The ocean is at the highest temperature in recorded history.
Let’s commit human extinction (omnicide) is Paul Shulte’s prayer.
And it won’t bother him if Californians fall into the pacific.
But, that is “civil.”
Saying poop is a violation however.
Hypocrites and fools.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/5
Dredd – technically California is going to slide into the ocean when it goes. That will make my property in Yuma beach-front property. Go Big One!!!
Click the youtube button on the video to watch it.
Eric
If I recall correctly, our military spending as a percentage actually hasn’t bumped up by that much since 9/11,
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Sounds like a Ronnie Raygun neoSpinny.
The war and spy on Americans budget doubled once presnit Blush was given decider power.
Is that much?
Riesling, Keep conserving, we need more energy. I use the real light bulbs and always have the house @ a comfortable temperature.
I´ve lived in Germany for over 20 years. The differences to the US in regard to energy consumption here are remarkable. More public transportation, smaller cars, smaller refrigerators just to name a few. People hang their laundry up to dry and rarely have ice in their drinks. They also almost always use proper china and cutlery when eating, even at an outside picnic or fest. They never turn lights on in their houses until it is really dark (that one drives me crazy, I can´t see anything!) It´s been a really hot summer so far but you can only get air-conditioning at a grocery or department store, no one has it at home and they usually don´t have electric fans either. They just sweat. In fact, my Italian hair stylist was just telling me about the Americans at his vacation condo development in Italy. They´re the only ones with A/C. He asked me why they would want A/C when they´re at the beach.
$50 Trillion spent on the “War On Poverty.”
America fought the war on poverty and poverty won.
Oh yeah. Let’s have a discussion of efficiency and ignore generations of confiscatory and punitive taxation to be wasted and entirely bereft of efficacy.
Ugh. I must have flipped a bracket on an italic at July 21, 2014 at 2:28 pm. Fix:
Iraq was clearly emerging as a geopolitically critical, difference-making “strategic partner” (State Dept) … until Obama implemented the worst ‘parenting’ method of all for Iraq – abandonment – at the same time Obama’s feckless ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring opened large gaps for the terrorists to resurge in Iraq’s neighborhood and eventually invade Iraq again.
. . .
I don’t know much about those other areas, but I have a dabbled in EdLaw. My impression is the US, various by state and city, actually spends a lot on education. I don’t recall that the US is outspent on education by nations ahead of us on educational metrics. But our bang for the buck lags behind.
jonathanturley: “While the United States continues to spend billions on foreign wars above the $4 trillion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, we continue to receive new studies showing how the country is failing behind in education, science, and other programs needed for future growth.”
A big foreign policy -slash- military budget doesn’t automatically mean everything else is starved. If I recall correctly, our military spending as a percentage actually hasn’t bumped up by that much since 9/11, although add homeland security and other related compounding costs, that probably does bump up. The US has a big budget (and yes, big debt). How much are we spending on those other areas? Not everything needs to have a DoD size budget. After all, we’re not supposed to be starting over and rebuilding everything from scratch every fiscal year.
At the same time, cost does not equal quality. While spending is a legitimate metric, it’s not the be-all/end-all. While budget is an important factor, it’s just as important or more important to take a close look at the methods of our programs. If the budget is being used effectively and, related, efficiently.
For example, a lot of the money we poured into Iraq reconstruction before the Counterinsurgency “Surge” was wasted, but that was largely due to use of money to compensate for lack of effective peace-building method, coupled with the sabotage by the terrorists, and the intense but highly unrealistic political pressure for immediate returns on investment, etc.. What worked in the Balkans post-war occupation fell short in Iraq.
The analogy for Iraq is we started as adoptive parents who were well-meaning but incompetent and wasted a lot of money to little positive result raising our young ward from a broken home because our foundational ‘parenting’ method was lacking. Then we figured out the right ‘parenting’ method for Iraq – Counterinsurgency, which facilitated the Anbar Awakening. The turnaround in Iraq in the midst of the darkest hour of the insurgency was startling. We still spent a lot but our investment was returning good result in Iraq. Iraq was clearly emerging as a geopolitically critical, difference-making “strategic partner” (State Dept) … until Obama implemented the worst ‘parenting’ method of all for Iraq – abandonment – at the same time Obama’s feckless ‘lead from behind’ approach to the Arab Spring opened large gaps for the terrorists to resurge in Iraq’s neighborhood and eventually invade Iraq again.
If Obama had simply stayed the course in Iraq and carried forward the Bush Freedom Agenda, it stands to reason our costs in Iraq would have progressively gone down as Iraq’s maturity went up with Iraq’s neighborhood transformation in the Arab Spring better managed, just as has happened with America’s similar long-term occupation-turned-partnerships in Europe and Asia following World War 2.
Without being in Iraq, though, the only ‘parenting’ method we have is money, which as all parents know, is a poor substitute for being there. If Iraq can’t turn to us for reliable real help with its challenges except for our money, it stands to reason that Iraq will take our money but turn to others in the neighborhood whose hopes and interests for Iraq’s future aren’t like ours, yet whose hands-on method trumps our money.
Again, budget matters, but method trumps budget.
I don’t know much about those other areas, but I have a dabbled in EdLaw. My impression is the US, various by state and city, actually spends a lot on education. I don’t recall that the US is outspent on education by nations ahead of us on educational metrics. But our bang for the buck lags behind.
We can’t look at the line-item budget numbers alone. Money isn’t magic that produces positive transformation by itself. We need to be critical of our methods and analyze other social and cultural factors in order to spend our money effectively.
Paul C. Schulte
… I am for omnicide.
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Only your mommie does not know that.
omnicide: The total extinction of the human species as a result of human action.
Dredd – my mommie is long dead. She died from human action.
Your June,
“Heat records were broken on every continent apart from Antarctica, especially in New Zealand, northern South America, Greenland, central Africa and southern Asia.
Global temperature records go back to 1880 and June was the 352nd hotter-than-average month in a row.” (World breaks temperature record for June after hottest May).
Here lies the main difference I believe. We are so divisive here now. Even on this blog we talk about “us” and “them” instead of “we.” There is a lot of talk in government about redistributing wealth. That is said by people in position of power. We need to empower those who have great skills and who would aspire to have great skills to put to work. That is how to build a great society. This is simple, and apparently the Germans realize this. Our politicians MO is divide and conquer in the name of gaining power and influence, pure and simple. That will not serve us well in the very near future.