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On July 24 2013 00:28 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2013 15:43 Danglars wrote:In General From fiscal year 2003 (FY 2003) through FY 2012, Federal agencies published 37,786 final rules in the Federal Register. OMB reviewed 3,203 of these final rules under Executive Orders 12866 and 13563. Of these OMB-reviewed rules, 536 are considered major rules, primarily as a result of their anticipated impact on the economy (i.e., an impact of $100 million in at least one year). It is important to emphasize that many major rules are budgetary transfer rules, and may not impose significant regulatory costs on the private sector. So absurd on its face. In a free democracy, why do you have to implement 37,786 rules in a year from agencies appointed by the executive? Operating as the fourth branch of government for how many years now? Unless I'm reading this sentence wrong, it says the 37,768 rules were published from 2003 through 2012, no in one year. And the agencies in question are part of the executive branch, which is the third branch of government, so I'm not sure what your second question is all about. Show nested quote +On July 23 2013 15:43 Danglars wrote:
In the case of the EPA rules reported here, however, a substantial portion of the uncertainty is similar across several rules, including (1) the uncertainty in the reduction of premature deaths associated with reduction in particulate matter and (2) the uncertainty in the monetary value of reducing mortality risk.
Yep. Let's just make assumptions that agree with our ends. They are, after all, working for the man that may hire or fire people in this positions. Wonder if the CBO will be commissioned to do a cost analysis of EPA/Fed Agency rules implementations for the last fiscal year. Did you search for "uncertainty" in the document just to make a point? The report addresses this uncertainty notably by providing ranges of estimates, and the bottom estimate for the benefits still far outweighs the top estimate for the costs. With regards to your objection, it's a bit too easy to declare the study can't be trusted simply because it comes from executive - it's true that it's important to know who wrote it, but if you're going to discard it your position should at least be founded on objections you have with regards to the content itself (errors in measurement, poor methodology, etc.). The link I provided you with also mentions other studies, not done by the executive branch, which corroborate the findings. Show nested quote +On July 23 2013 16:00 cLutZ wrote:On July 23 2013 14:20 kwizach wrote:On July 23 2013 09:57 kmillz wrote:On July 23 2013 09:17 kwizach wrote:On July 23 2013 08:52 Danglars wrote:On July 23 2013 06:18 Klondikebar wrote:
“In addition,” Rogers said, defending the enormous cuts to the EPA, “by holding back overly zealous and unnecessary environmental regulations, this bill can have a positive effect on our economy and will help encourage job growth.”
I love the underpants gnome theory at work here.
1. Slash budgets for departments that we don't like.
2. ?????
3. JOBS YALL!
And I'm also tired of the assumption that jobs are this end all be all of economics. They aren't. Improved standard of living is. If we just wanted everyone to be employed we could easily have full employment paying everyone to dig ditches. But we wouldn't cheer for a great economy then.
I guess I don't so much care about the cuts themselves. I am just getting really sick of every bit of legislation being rubber stamped cause somehow it magically creates jobs. The overly zealous and unnecessary regulations are exactly how it works to kill jobs. They seem to believe that the federal government is simply better than individuals at keeping their energy costs low, implementing energy standards and picking for them where to improve efficiency. People on the right have been documenting these things for ages. You don't need to go far to find specific areas that the EPA limits growth and adds costs unnecessarily for little or no gain. Heck, improving the standard of living is hardly the goal here. Lately, you have to question whether the preservation of this or that environmental sector is done for the sake of the environment itself and not people. Health and safety be damned for people, we see this regulation doing this and that for the "environment." Not to mention myriad environmental activist groups sue the EPA (e.g. under CAA and CWA) to then settle the lawsuit for the regulations, taxpayers getting billed for the legal fees and regulation implementation fees, and then companies given unreasonable compliance time-frames. I'm all for vastly cutting their budget to limit the harm. I'll just leave this here... New Study: The Economic Benefits of EPA Regulations Massively Outweigh The Costs
[A] new study from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget [...] found that the benefits EPA regulations bring to the economy far outweigh the costs.
The way this works is pretty straight-forward. Environmental regulations do impose compliance costs on businesses, and can raise prices, which hurt economic growth. But they also create jobs by requiring pollution clean-up and prevention efforts. And perhaps even more importantly, they save the economy billions by avoiding pollution’s deleterious health effects. Particles from smoke stacks, for example, are implicated in respiratory diseases, heart attacks, infections and a host of other ailments, all of which require billions in health care costs per year to treat. Preventing those particles from going into the air means healthier and more productive citizens, who can go spend that money on something other than making themselves well again. [...]
The OMB found that a decade’s worth of major federal rules had produced annual benefits to the U.S. economy of between $193 billion and $800 billion and impose aggregate costs of $57 billion to $84 billion. “These ranges are reported in 2001 dollars and reflect the uncertain benefits and costs of each rule,” the report noted. Source $193-800 billion added to the economy through creating pollution clean-up/prevention jobs and avoiding diseases through regulation? Is there a source for how they got these figures? Yes, the study itself. On July 23 2013 10:24 Danglars wrote:
I love that they include the make-work jobs they create in there. Take money from some people, give jobs to government workers and contractors, net jobs! I'd like to see next their proposals to pay a group of workers to dig a ditch and another to fill it in, because that's creating jobs and should be added to net benefits. Of course they can label their pollution and prescribe how it is cleaned up and when it's cleaned up enough. They mention job creation in the private sector as well as in the public sector. Also, from the original article: t’s worth pointing out that similar findings have been regularly dug up by other researchers. In 2011, an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that job loss due to increased energy prices from MATS would be swamped by new jobs in pollution abatement and control. It also found that for each major EPA rule finalized by the Obama Administration at the time, annual benefits exceeded costs by $10 to $95 billion a piece. EPI even returned to the question in 2012, and found net job gains from MATS would reach 117,000 to 135,000 in 2015. [...]
Surveys of small businesses routinely fail to find compelling evidence that firms view taxes and regulations as a major impediment to hiring, an EPA-mandated clean-up of the Chesapeake BAY is anticipated to create 35 times as many jobs as the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, and jobs in the coal industry actually increased by 10 percent after the EPA cracked down on mountaintop-removal mining in 2009. On July 23 2013 10:24 Danglars wrote:
Save the country billions in health care costs through regulation? You can cut their budget in half and still gain the best health care benefits. Citation needed. On July 23 2013 10:24 Danglars wrote:
It's the difference between light handed regulation and heavy handed regulation that I'm talking about. Strip down the unnecessary stuff on top of basic environmental regulations, cut the cozy relationship between environmental activists, their lawyers, and the EPA, and let individuals be more responsible for their own energy costs rather than imposing federal will on companies. Letting individuals be more responsible for their own energy costs is the baseline. The study clearly shows the economy benefits from doing more than that - in addition to the environment obviously benefiting from it. OMB doesn't use dynamic scoring... From their own report... Jorgenson and Wilcoxen modeled dynamic simulations with and without environmental regulation on long-term growth in the U.S. to assess the effects and reported that the long-term cost of regulation is a 2.59% reduction in Gross National Product. Did you read that paper? Here's the relevant paragraph they put in their introduction: Show nested quote +We have not attempted to assess the benefits resulting from a cleaner environment. We have not accounted for consumption benefits resulting from environmental cleanup or production benefits associated with pollution abatement. The conclusions of this study cannot be taken to imply that pollution control is too burdensome or, for that matter, insufficiently restrictive. Your other quote is another cherry-pick among several studies in the literature review that show differing results and do not focus on the overall impact at the US level. I could give you another such example in Berman, Eli and Linda T.M. Bui. “Environmental Regulation and Labor Demand: Evidence from the South Coast Air Basin.”, Journal of Public Economics, 2001, 79: pp. 265-295, which state: Show nested quote +Our estimates of zero employment effects contradict the conventional wisdom of employers (mostly outside of refining) that environmental regulation ‘costs jobs’ (Goodstein, 1996) so a comment is in order. Beyond posturing in public debate, employers may honestly overestimate the job loss induced by a pervasive regulation by confusing the firm’s product demand curve with that of the industry. The former is more price elastic due to competition from other firms. If all firms in the industry are faced with the same cost-increasing regulatory change and product demand is inelastic, the output of individual firms may be only slightly reduced. In that case, the negative effect on employment through the output elasticity of labor demand may well be dominated by a positive effect through the marginal rate of technical substitution between PACE and labor, leading to a net increases in employment as a result of regulation
[...]
Though the public debate has centered around employment effects, a full accounting of the costs of regulation should properly focus on the effects of regulation on productivity and the benefits in health and other outcomes. Related research on South Coast refineries (Berman and Bui, 1998) has found productivity gains between 1987–92, in contrast to declining productivity in comparison regions. A symmetric analysis of the benefits of the South Coast regulations in improved air quality and health outcomes of residents would form the basis for a much more complete economic evaluation of this important and unprecedented episode in air quality regulation. Show nested quote +On July 23 2013 16:00 cLutZ wrote:Even the "positive" citations are tepid I.E.: Kahn examines census and state data and finds that better educated, wealthier populations experienced cleaner air, but that poorer, less educated populations experienced a greater overall improvement in air quality between 1980 and 1998 in California. During this time period, the exposure of the Hispanic population to pollution also fell sharply along with exposure differentials between richer and poorer people. The author concludes that, “[g]iven the overall trend in improvements for certain demographic groups, it appears that regulation under the Clean Air Act has helped, and not economically harmed, the ‘have nots.’" Translated: We cannot be sure that regulation has helped people, instead of just the overall trend towards improved living standards over the years, but if it has, its only helped one segment of the populace (without taking into account costs for other segments). That's not what it says at all. Are you being dishonest on purpose or are you simply incapable of reading the paragraph you quoted yourself? Show nested quote +On July 23 2013 16:00 cLutZ wrote:
In other words, your own study fails to support the conclusions that you assert from it. In other words, it doesn't. Show nested quote +On July 23 2013 16:00 cLutZ wrote:Plus, even if accepted, the benefits are probably no more of a correlation, much like the correlation between OSHA and the reduction in workplace accidents SEE: + Show Spoiler + I'll be waiting for you to show us that they are.
The main quote you cited to rebut my argument: We have not attempted to assess the benefits resulting from a cleaner environment. We have not accounted for consumption benefits resulting from environmental cleanup or production benefits associated with pollution abatement. The conclusions of this study cannot be taken to imply that pollution control is too burdensome or, for that matter, insufficiently restrictive.
Goes against the conclusions you presented. The report, by its own design does not stand for the propositions you say it does. Most egregiously, in neither of my times going through it did they disclose the methodology for creating the numbers they did.
Edit:
I have found the methodology behind the numbers, they are self reported numbers from the agencies. So the EPA tells us the EPA benefits the economy some 600 Billion Dollars. Isn't that a shock?!
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On July 24 2013 02:28 farvacola wrote:
That isn't the point of those articles, the point is that the 40% number is derived from both foreign and US taxes and is very misleading. As the study says, they calculate that Exxon only pays 13% on American activities and incomes when taken singularly.
Do you have a link to the study? I'm not coming up with 13% playing around on their 10K.
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Reading their notes on page 3, they don't like GAAP or IRS accounting standards so they've made up their own.
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On July 24 2013 03:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Reading their notes on page 3, they don't like GAAP or IRS accounting standards so they've made up their own.
Sort of like how Exxon and other big companies lump in foreign taxes when describing their US tax rate 
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On July 24 2013 03:32 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2013 03:24 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 24 2013 02:58 farvacola wrote:On July 24 2013 02:54 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 24 2013 02:28 farvacola wrote:
That isn't the point of those articles, the point is that the 40% number is derived from both foreign and US taxes and is very misleading. As the study says, they calculate that Exxon only pays 13% on American activities and incomes when taken singularly. Do you have a link to the study? I'm not coming up with 13% playing around on their 10K. I'm still looking for the exact one in question, but here's a link to a short report they did in 2011 that includes Exxon. Analysis: 12 Corporations Pay Effective Tax Rate of Negative 1.4% on $175 Billion in Profits; Reap $63.7 Billion in Tax Subsidie Reading their notes on page 3, they don't like GAAP or IRS accounting standards so they've made up their own. Sort of like how Exxon and other big companies lump in foreign taxes when describing their US tax rate
Sure, though I rarely see that happen 
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From poking around the EPA's cost benefit analysis aren't the same as their economic analysis.
For example, their cost benefit analysis for the clean air act (yes, the benefits reach the trillions):
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72070179/CAA%20Cost%20benefit.PNG)
And their economic analysis for the clean air act:
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/72070179/CAA%20economic.PNG)
Link to study page.
Can someone give me a rational reason why I should go with the cost benefit rather than the economic analysis? Usually we hear a program's cost (so orange bars on the econ anal) and decide if the benefits outweigh the costs ourselves. Here, the EPA is doing that for us and that seems self serving.
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House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday that the House would not vote to raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts, setting up a potential fight with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.
"We're not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. It's as simple as that," he said at a press conference.
"I believe the so-called Boehner Rule is the right formula for getting that done," he said, referring to the notion that any increase in the statutory debt limit should be accompanied by an equivalent amount of spending cuts.
The White House has insisted that President Barack Obama will not negotiate over the debt limit, which until 2011 both parties in Congress had raised without linking it to spending cuts. In 2011, House Republicans used the threat of the looming debt limit to negotiate the package of spending cuts known as sequestration. In January, the House voted to suspend the debt limit until May without concessions.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that the United States government has enough room to borrow through Labor Day.
Source
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Well, it seems like what they're saying with the clean air act is that pollution actually does have a cost to society. If we quantify that cost and incorporate it into our economic calculations, GDP actually goes down and the cost of cleaning the air is an additional cost that further depresses GDP.
But while the absolute value of our GDP is lower, the economic welfare of people is higher because we're actually calculating costs and correcting them.
There's actually a lot of merit to that line of logic. Living with a miscalculated GDP can do weird things to markets. I took a Law and Economics class in college that spent a tremendous amount of time dealing with externalities like pollution. Where you're going to actually be able to argue against the EPA is in their numbers. Did they do their math right? In that little snippet in Exhibit 14 it kinda looks like their just saying they calculated costs and then they know it will make people better off but they're just guessing that the benefits outweigh the costs...I do not like that part.
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According to Rep. Steve King's (R-IA) math, legalizing undocumented immigrants is untenable because for every valedictorian DREAMer -- immigrants brought to the U.S. as children -- there are 100 more who are carrying drugs across the border.
"Some of them are valedictorians, and their parents brought them in," King told Newsmax in an interview last week. "It wasn't their fault. It's true in some cases, but they aren't all valedictorians. They weren't all brought in by their parents."
"For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” he continued. “Those people would be legalized with the same act."
King introduced an amendment last month that would reverse the Obama administration's delayed deportations of DREAMers, leading DREAMers to stage a protest in his Washington office.
Source
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What a fucking bigot piece of trash. Yeah, everyone who comes to America just wants to smuggle in drugs. It has nothing to do with the job opportunities or escaping the drug violence in their own country.
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That and who the hell buys Mexican weed? California dank. and the Eastern hydroponic empire are way better.
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On July 24 2013 04:39 Klondikebar wrote:
What a fucking bigot piece of trash. Yeah, everyone who comes to America just wants to smuggle in drugs. It has nothing to do with the job opportunities or escaping the drug violence in their own country.
I fail to see where he said that everyone who comes to America just wants to smuggle in drugs.
Perhaps he was speaking in some kind of racist code that, oddly, you were able to decipher immediately...
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On July 24 2013 04:42 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2013 04:39 Klondikebar wrote:
What a fucking bigot piece of trash. Yeah, everyone who comes to America just wants to smuggle in drugs. It has nothing to do with the job opportunities or escaping the drug violence in their own country. I fail to see where he said that everyone who comes to America just wants to smuggle in drugs. Perhaps he was speaking in some kind of racist code that, oddly, you were able to decipher immediately...
He said (paraphrasing) that for every one regular person, there's a hundred people who smuggle in drugs....
One can argue that he LITERALLY meant for every valedictorian there's a 100 smugglers, but using that argument would acknowledge that he's being deceptive in his statement.
On July 24 2013 04:41 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
That and who the hell buys Mexican weed? California dank. and the Eastern hydroponic empire are way better.
Amen.
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On July 24 2013 04:41 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
That and who the hell buys Mexican weed? California dank. and the Eastern hydroponic empire are way better.
Even in Mexico, there are middle class people buying California weed.
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Sorry, Steve King, but a lot of those enlarged calf muscles are also coming from keeping your lawn and state agribuisness in working order.
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He said (paraphrasing) that for every one regular person, there's a hundred people who smuggle in drugs....
He said valedictorian. Valedictorian and "regular person" are not synonyms fellas.
Try again, this time set reading comprehension to On.
One can argue that he LITERALLY meant for every valedictorian there's a 100 smugglers, but using that argument would acknowledge that he's being deceptive in his statement.
How so? I'd bet that for every valedictorian there are dozens if not 100 people smuggling drugs in from Mexico. Valedictorians are rather rare, one a year for a school, hundreds if not thousands of people are smuggling drugs in from Mexico daily.
Seems like simply making shit up to call a Republican racist or dishonest is still a very acceptable form of argument.
On July 24 2013 04:41 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
That and who the hell buys Mexican weed? California dank. and the Eastern hydroponic empire are way better.
It'd be nice if you 1%ers would realize that not everyone can afford to buy name-brand head-grade. Especially in poor minority communities. It's almost as if there's some kind of massive racial ignorance and contempt going on...
Who the hell buys Mexican weed? Poor black people.
Guess who else does? Rich white boys, because a large amount of "Mexican weed" is name-brand head-grade grown in Southern and Central California by cartel employees. Not middies or some schwaggy schwag.
Never thought I'd see such enlightened progressives mocking the colored poor as an insensitive side effect of their deep need to rage at Republicans.
Show nested quote +On July 24 2013 04:47 farvacola wrote:
Sorry, Steve King, but a lot of those enlarged calf muscles are also coming from keeping your lawn and state agribuisness in working order.
I think you mean making sure the Dolce & Gabana gets offloaded on time at the docks so the Upper West Side lily-white 1%ers do not lack 
NY doesn't have much of a state agribusiness where immigrant labor comes in at harvest time does it?
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Well then Steve King is still an idiot, because Mexicans growing weed in the States don't have to border travel
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On July 24 2013 04:50 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +He said (paraphrasing) that for every one regular person, there's a hundred people who smuggle in drugs.... He said valedictorian. Valedictorian and "regular person" are not synonyms fellas. Try again, this time set reading comprehension to On. Show nested quote +One can argue that he LITERALLY meant for every valedictorian there's a 100 smugglers, but using that argument would acknowledge that he's being deceptive in his statement. How so? I'd bet that for every valedictorian there are dozens if not 100 people smuggling drugs in from Mexico. Valedictorians are rather rare, one a year for a school, hundreds if not thousands of people are smuggling drugs in from Mexico daily. Seems like simply making shit up to call a Republican racist or dishonest is still a very acceptable form of argument. Show nested quote +On July 24 2013 04:41 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
That and who the hell buys Mexican weed? California dank. and the Eastern hydroponic empire are way better. It'd be nice if you 1%ers would realize that not everyone can afford to buy name-brand head-grade. Especially in poor minority communities. It's almost as if there's some kind of massive racial ignorance and contempt going on... Who the hell buys Mexican weed? Poor black people. Guess who else does? Rich white boys, because a large amount of "Mexican weed" is name-brand head-grade grown in Southern and Central California by cartel employees. Not middies or some schwaggy schwag. Never thought I'd see such enlightened progressives mocking the colored poor as an insensitive side effect of their deep need to rage at Republicans.
WTF. nobody voluntarily buys Mexican weed, at least not by choice. Cartels ship weed by volume not only because the high turnover rates but also because it's extremely cheap and very poor quality. After all that is is still cheaper to buy and move domestic grown marijuana than from Latin America. Hell the Cartels actually smuggle in American grown drugs because they can go for a higher rate domestically than their own!
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On July 24 2013 04:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2013 04:50 DeepElemBlues wrote:He said (paraphrasing) that for every one regular person, there's a hundred people who smuggle in drugs.... He said valedictorian. Valedictorian and "regular person" are not synonyms fellas. Try again, this time set reading comprehension to On. One can argue that he LITERALLY meant for every valedictorian there's a 100 smugglers, but using that argument would acknowledge that he's being deceptive in his statement. How so? I'd bet that for every valedictorian there are dozens if not 100 people smuggling drugs in from Mexico. Valedictorians are rather rare, one a year for a school, hundreds if not thousands of people are smuggling drugs in from Mexico daily. Seems like simply making shit up to call a Republican racist or dishonest is still a very acceptable form of argument. On July 24 2013 04:41 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
That and who the hell buys Mexican weed? California dank. and the Eastern hydroponic empire are way better. It'd be nice if you 1%ers would realize that not everyone can afford to buy name-brand head-grade. Especially in poor minority communities. It's almost as if there's some kind of massive racial ignorance and contempt going on... Who the hell buys Mexican weed? Poor black people. Guess who else does? Rich white boys, because a large amount of "Mexican weed" is name-brand head-grade grown in Southern and Central California by cartel employees. Not middies or some schwaggy schwag. Never thought I'd see such enlightened progressives mocking the colored poor as an insensitive side effect of their deep need to rage at Republicans. WTF. nobody voluntarily buys Mexican weed, at least not by choice. Cartels ship weed by volume not only because the high turnover rates but also because it's extremely cheap and very poor quality. After all that is is still cheaper to domestic grown marijuana than from Latin America. Hell the Cartels actually smuggle in American grown drugs because they can go for a higher rate domestically than their own!
Well it's obvious you know very little about the current state of marijuana cultivation in 2013.
Mexican cartels put an emphasis on high quality outdoor grows 5+ years ago, which is why it is a risky proposition to go hiking in some parts of some California state parks and forests now.
And I've smoked "Mexican weed" that puts most of the shit coming out of Humboldt to shame, we're seeing that unconscious privilege rearing its head again. Ask Klondike if you don't understand, he'll gladly explain how secretly you are racist as hell and the secret is kept by your subconscious even from you.
Brown people can grow weed just as well as white people. The marijuana world does not look like Johnny Depp flying a plane to somewhere in Chihuahua province and buying bulk middies from some farmer anymore. And the weed world is also not privileged lily-white 1%ers buying head-grade, poor people need marijuana they can actually afford to buy to smoke too. Why you would make light of their racial economic plight is mysterious and saddening. But hey, if that's where you need to go to rip on some Republican congressman, that's a-ok. The rules you apply to everyone else about race and class don't apply to you.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://s11.postimg.org/genyoqcab/osha.png)
