Sunday, August 21, 2011

Twisted steel & Sachs appeal

In an otherwise well thought out and well written piece, Jeff Sachs joins the list of economists who throw unreasoned, knee-jerk, shout outs to "greenness" into their economic analysis.

Here's the quote:

The path to recovery now lies not in a new housing bubble, but in upgraded skills, increased exports and public investments in infrastructure and low-carbon energy.

This sentence appears in the third graph. There are eight paragraphs afterward that flesh out what Sachs considers to be the path to recovery. Carbon, or green, or alternative energy is not ever mentioned in any of his analysis.

Is it some kind of secret lefty code way to say "hey, you can trust me and my views, I love windmills just like you"?

I really wish economists would either (A) cut it out, or (B) explain why public investment in greenness can help lead to recovery (in a way that would be better than a simple carbon tax).

But I'm not holding my breath.

4 comments:

J Scheppers said...

Here is some hope, local news investigates green signaling. Mireya Villarreal does an excellent job looking at both the costs and benefits.


http://www.woai.com/content/troubleshooters/story/Citys-new-LED-lights-save-energy-but-not-money/I7L3ZmOM8EWXBiQtzd-sKw.cspx

Tim Worstall said...

"Is it some kind of secret lefty code way to say "hey, you can trust me and my views, I love windmills just like you"?"

It's a secret code to me. Yes, to me personally.

For, you see, the next generation of windmills will need to have their blades made of a scandium containing alloy. I supply scandium.

Thus this is the code that Jeff Sachs and others use to make sure that they don't get on the wrong side of Worstall.

It's all really simple once you know the code.....

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