I missed the State of the Union last night – I was actually busy interviewing a guest for this Saturday’s Northern Alliance broadcast – but I heard some of National Public Radio’s post speech wrap up.
The hosts discussed the conversation about the Keystone XL pipeline; the NPR “analysts” were careful to note that “the number of permanent jobs is actually quite small”; they’d be mostly temporary construction jobs.
Which is true, and all that.
I’m just trying to remember any similar commentary about Pres. Obama’s “Shovel Ready Jobs” six years ago.
Here’s how the math works:
Your infrastructure project (Keystone XL) = worthless temporary jobs.
My infrastructure project (Vikings stadium) = good “middle class” jobs.
Guess I’ve never really heard of any “permanent” construction jobs. Most of the time, the project gets built, a business gets underway and the construction workers go to the next site, if there is one. AKA seasonal employment. Not a full time teat-sucking job like working for government, but one that provides a necessary service, unlike a government job.
Hey now, GolfDoc, we government bureaucrats resemble that. This is an important job, you know — those papers aren’t gonna shuffle themselves!
Obama called for the “elimination of tax breaks on inheritances”. So my parent dies, and by letting me keep the family property, that is a “tax break”?
Let me sort out the differences for you, since you seem determined to be willfully ignorant.
The nation or smaller entities, states, counties, and individual municipalities, all benefit from those infrastructure jobs the president spoke of, in more ways than just jobs, in addition to creating MORE jobs than the pipeline does. They generate construction job money, but also contribute to jobs by way of providing better transportation for both businesses and consumers, as well as the suppliers of the equipent and materials used. This also presumes that while borrowing is relatively cheap – as it is now – the construction actually last well beyond the period when the costs are paid off, meaning the value of the infrastructure exceeds the expense.
In contrast, there is no public benefit to the pipeline, which is owned by a combination of Canada and the Koch brothers. Port Arthur, where the pipeline is intended to end is a duty free port. The benefits of improved infrastructure benefit the tax base of those places where it is performed. The pipe for the pipeline — which the Keystone folks have insisted be thinner than is safe btw, not as heavy or durable as other pipelines — has already been purchased; it was made in India, not the US — so no materials benefit here. Obviously, US materials and equipment are used in the President’s projects in contrast.
NO oil pipline to date has been without leaks and spills. NO oil company that owns one of those pipeline to date has cleaned up a spill to pre-spill conditions, and many spills have never been more than at best minimally cleaned up, thereby posing a loss and a liability to the property ownes who own the land they cross. Furhter — unlike the president’s proposals — the right of eminent domain is being exercised to benefit private business, not public good (like roads and bridges) the way it is supposed to do, to the detriment of American citizens who own the properties involved. We have enough infrastructure in bad shape to keep construction workers employed more or less permanently.
What Keystone XL does is socialize – aka make public – the risks, losses and costs of the pipeline, while privatizing profits (with much of those profits benefiting owners in Canada, not the US). For example, after it is in the ground, the land owner has the responsibility of removing it and cleaning up after it, should use be discontinued, which is a considerable expense, on top of the losses and liabilities from leaks, which renders the land largely too toxic for most use for a considerable time. The president’s proposals, in contrast, don’t do that, and in many cases actually enhance the property value for American citizens and American communities and states.
These might seem like you are comparing similar things, when you compare and contrast the President’s shovel ready projects and the Keystone XL, but you would be mistaken.
Btw there are actually a surprising number of construction jobs that DO go year round, and clearly there are large parts of the country where winter doesn’t pose the obstacles it does along the northern tier of states, and is effectively year-round.
And Chuck – re the inheritance tax, removing it has disproportionately benefited the rich, greatly increasing wealth inequality. The poor and middle-class are well within the amounts that aren’t affected or minimally affected by it, while the rich use it to dramatically concentrate their wealth.
Contrary to what Marco Rubio has been saying about taxing the wealthy, we do as a nation do better economically when we do that. And it means that the wealthy (in this case a fraction of 1%) are paying their fair share of federal revenue. We had a similar disproportionate benefit to the wealthy, part of our problem with wealth and income inequality, under the Dubya tax cuts. We did not see the promised growth in jobs or GDP, and we saw a decline in what would have otherwise been federal revenue, leading to increased federal deficits.
Conservatives are either persistently stupid in their failed grasp of the fundamentals of economics, or like Rubio, they seem to know they’re lying, protecting their wealthy donors, and don’t have any compunctions about manipulating the wilfully ignorant with the bogus claims of class warfare — while waging redistributive class warfare on the middle and lower economic classes.
Dog Gone, you are completely ignorant on the topic of economics, perhaps as even as ignorant as Obama (there is no evidence that Obama even took an undergrad economics class).
You are also under the delusion that the top concerns of the bourgeois — like income inequality — are the top concerns of the poor and working people the bourgeois disdain.
DG, you forgot to put your abstract at the beginning of your post, let me fix that for ya:
“What a colossal load of crap.”
Doggonomics strikes again! Did you actually point to “…. the President’s shovel ready projects” long after he himself admitted there was no such thing?? And you say “waging redistributive class warfare” when referencing letting people keep more of the money they earn ?? seems kinda oxymoronic …… emphasis on the ‘moron’ portion of that word. I believe PM is correct in assessing your economics quotient as “completely ignorant”
Oil pipeline paid for by oil companies = Apple; construction project paid for by taxpayers = Orange.
Apple =/= Orange.
Dog Gone = ?????????
DG’s comment calls for this quote from the fictional The Theory and Practice of Oligarchial Collectivism by Orwell:
Doggone, so there is no public benefit to a pipeline that would greatly increase the supply of Canadian petroleum to the U.S., ease the transport of Bakken Formation petroleum to market, reduce the number of trucks and trains carrying petroleum on roads and through rails, and thus reduce overall prices for petroleum products here in the U.S.?
Whatever you’re smoking, it must be good. Just ask the residents of Lac Megantic in Quebec how they think tar sands oil ought to be transported. You will not hear “trains” or “trucks” as a response, to put it mildly.
Moreover, there are permanent jobs that would occur with a pipeline–just ask those working in Alaska on their big pipe–and there are NOT permanent jobs attributable to the “spend-u-more” program of Comrade Obama.
Honestly, whatever school you went to, you need to demand a refund. These facts are not up for debate.
“Conservatives are either persistently stupid in their failed grasp of the fundamentals of economics…”
Ignore the content, marvel in it’s failed grasp of syntax.
Not only is the DG ignorant, but it lacks the ability to even communicate it’s ignorance. That’s gotta be tough.
Remember when someone (who I think was banned) used to do this little trick here?
Conservatives are either persistently stupid in their failed grasp of the fundamentals of economics, or like Rubio, they seem to know they’re lying, protecting their wealthy donors, and don’t have any compunctions about manipulating the wilfully ignorant with the bogus claims of class warfare — while waging redistributive class warfare on the middle and lower economic classes.
Progressives are either persistently stupid in their failed grasp of the fundamentals of economics, or like Obama, they seem to know they’re lying, protecting their wealthy donors, and don’t have any compunctions about manipulating the wilfully ignorant with the bogus claims of class warfare — while waging redistributive class warfare on the middle and lower economic classes.
OK, to pile on lil’ puppy, if history proves that soaking the rich benefits the economy, please explain the Reagan economic boom, which followed large tax cuts for all, including the rich? And please explain the last eight years of stagnation with Democrats soaking the rich, and please explain the Great Depression, when Democrats soaked the rich? Please explain the boom after 1963, when Kennedy cut taxes.
And, for that matter, explain to me how government officials, who cannot profit from good or poor decisions, will make better economic decisions than those in the private sector, who can profit from good decisions. Keep in mind here that it is the government that gave us the Chevy Volt and Solyndra.
“And, for that matter, explain to me how government officials, who cannot profit from good or poor decisions, will make better economic decisions than those in the private sector, who can profit from good decisions.”
If you get that explanation bb, ask them how come no one – I mean no one, not beloved government bureaucrats, unbiased university economists or even (evil) highly (evil) over-compensated (evil) CEO’s at (evil) for-profit corporations – saw <$50 per barrel oil coming?
Look at all the usual people and enterprises that "predict" what commodity prices will do. Not one saw this coming. There were a few that were saying maybe $80 as a long shot as late as June 2014.
Now Sweet Barry gets to tout his economic miracle (due to something that he said would never happen less than four years ago) "and middle-class" prosperity because when the former Governor of Alaska said 'drill-baby-drill" some NoDak's were already at it.
The Dog Gone proposal:
In place of a pipeline, hire inner city youths to hand-carry buckets of oil from Canada to the Gulf @ $25/hr.
What to do about the land polluted from occasional spills?
Why, just leave the buckets empty!
It would create jobs AND be better for the environment!
It’s win-win all around!
DG- First, why should wealth be “more equal”? Typical Liberal in that you start from a false premise “that wealth should be more equal”, so everyone that disagrees with you is wrong. Begin by proving the first point, and more importantly, how it would be done. Second, the Koch brothers have nothing to do with Keystone. And you do realize that the Keystone pipeline, all several thousand miles of it, is up and running and this controversy is just over a new section, phase four, otherwise know as XL? And that we have about 55,000 miles of other pipelines carrying crude oil besides KS? A rational person might ask if all that old pipeline is ok, what’s different about this section, that would be built even safer?
jimf, it’s the typical Marxist philosophy. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. It’s simply not fair that a businessman accumulates billions of dollars of wealth, while there are “children starving to death”. I shall remove the excess from those that have, and distribute it as I see fit amongst those that have not….and happily let the government skim a bunch off the top.
We’ll just ignore the inconvenient truth that they focus exclusively on conservative businessMEN embodied by the Koch brothers, Truett Cathy and Sheldon Adelson (but never businesswomen). We never hear the calls for George Soros or Tom Steyer (or Steve Jobs when he was still alive) to fork over their fortunes or how evil they are/were. And they also ignore all the money floating around in DC, Hollywood and sports stadiums. But, as always, if it weren’t for double standards, they would have none.
Like Mitch likes to say, a simple street thug is more honorable than progressives. The street thug holds the gun on you himself. Progressives hide behind the shield of government.
What Keystone XL does is socialize – aka make public – the risks, losses and costs of the pipeline, while privatizing profits (with much of those profits benefiting owners in Canada, not the US).
In economic terms, this is called externalizing costs while internalizing gains. Everyone does it all the time. Drive your car more than average? You are externalizing the costs of your use of public roads while internalizing the gains of your ‘extra’ use of the public roads. This is a trivial truth, not a mandate from Heaven for the federal government.
The anti-democratic nature of Dog Gone’s speech about how the government must protect us from greedy capitalists making the costs of their failures equivalent to spending public money is obvious. Dog Gone would reject the idea that the people actually be allowed to vote on XL — the reason that Obama is in such a pickle over the project is because it is popular with the public.
Regulatory capture is huge problem with the federal government (the least democratic level of the government, BTW). Liberals who go on and on about the public costs of pollution never seem to worry about the public costs of crony capitalism or regulatory capture of the agencies they favor. Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is ripe for regulatory capture. The CFPB is not financed by congress, meaning the people’s representatives have almost no control over its actions. Unlike the Federal reserve Bank, Warren’s CFPB will make decisions that affect consumers directly. Their will be three partners in every loan you take out or investment you make — you, the bank, and the CFPB.
DG: TL;DR
Penigma’s Chihuahua is leaving messes around here again? Cleanup for the carpet please!
I recently learned about a Stanford Binet Scale, and DG is definitely an Idiot.
If the entire GOP Congressional delegation would quit and free up all those jobs for the unemployed, you would then create ten times more jobs than the “Keystone Job Creation Bill”.
Sometimes, Emery, symbolism matters.
The government doesn’t need to create jobs, it merely needs to get the Hell out of the way so ordinary people can create jobs. Keystone doesn’t need Obama out there swinging a shovel, it needs Obama to sign a Permit so pipeline workers can swing their own shovels. Bust out that pen, O-man, and let the people get to work!
Emery, so you’re saying that the provision of millions of barrels of Canadian oil to U.S. markets would provide few jobs? You smoking with DG?
I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that 800 people work maintenance on the Alaska pipeline. That is far more than the number of members of Congress, let alone GOP members. Employment for a pipeline from Canada would be similar, really.
And even if not many people were required to maintain it, you still have a huge benefit from reliable, less expensive fuel. Just because the Blagojevich administration doesn’t do the math doesn’t mean the argument isn’t valid.
The Keystone XL pipeline controversy is a farce. Both proponents and opponents overstate their positions. Environmentalists have doctored the numbers to suit their propaganda needs and unnecessarily demonized Canadian producers. In the same spirit, proponents have over–stated the “jobs creation” aspect of the Keystone XL project. This project will be similar to any other high volume pipeline. Just a few maintenance workers and a lot of computer monitors, pressure sensors, and cameras. Keystone XL is what Ottawa wants to sell to Washington. Keystone is vital to Canadian strategic interests, not America’s. Keystone’s end product will be sold on the world market.
On the other hand, I’m more pro energy security and renewable energy than most, and also happen to be concerned about anthropogenic climate change. I also work in the industry and understand just how much time it takes to turn our infrastructure around. Tar sands represent the scraping of the bottom of the petroleum barrel. After we’re done scraping that, and have scraped a good part of the Earth’s surface bare of every living thing in the process, we might be able to get by a little longer with Fischer-Tropsch oil made from coal.