The Battle of Billionaires

By the end of last year, as is the custom when a decade ends, I started thinking about the future. Obsessively. Climate change, environmental degradation, the collapse of democracy –  if you project those facts into the future, you have to wonder: are we are living at the end of times? But there is an odd fact right under our nose, a small fact that sounds more like a piece of gossip than real news: The battle of billionaires.

Yet this is no fluffy gossip, it’s very real! We tend to discount the political role of billionaires. We shouldn’t. Consider that not all billionaires are bad news. Some fight for social justice and the preservation of the environment. A battle between the two kinds of billionaires is shaping up and could last well into the coming decade. I just wrote about this in an article for Impakter, here’s the opening:

The 2010s are coming to a close. Reviewing the decade, what can we say about the future? A tech person will look at technological progress (stunning). A sociologist will look at cultural diversity (explosive). My take (disclosure: I’m an economist) is that this decade, with growing income inequality, saw an unprecedented number of billionaires taking center stage. “Good” billionaires like Bill Gates concerned about climate change and equity, “bad” ones like Betty De Vos, defunding and dismantling America’s public education system.

This fact alone, the rise of the billionaires, will shape our future, for better (a peaceful, balanced world) or for worse (climate Armageddon).

Much depends on what kind of billionaire takes power. Some of them can be alarmingly aggressive, for example, Trump ordering the summary execution of  Iran’s General Qassem Suleimani killed last Friday at Baghdad airport via a drone strike. A strike that could escalate dangerously in the Middle East’s explosive environment.

Unsurprisingly, the 2020 campaign for the US presidency is seeing the rise of left-wing Democrat Bernie Sanders with declarations like this one (in Los Angeles on 21 December):

“Our campaign is not only about defeating Trump, our campaign is about a political revolution. It is about transforming this country, it is about creating a government and an economy that works for all people and not just the 1%.” 

I am highlighting this because it is a remarkable statement. It marks the distance we’ve covered in a single decade: This is the language of the Occupy Wall Street movement that opened the decade in 2011. And now the once derided concept of the 1% against the 99% has gone mainstream. So much so that it can buoy a candidate in his bid for the White House (Sanders, as I write, is just behind Biden and ahead of Warren).

You see rants in headlines, like this one from C-Net’ s Jackson Ryan:  “We see the effects of climate change and our leaders continue to ignore the science”. A rant coming not just from journalists but scientists too.

Now, in 2019, we can all agree that the “world is on fire” and that the 2010s have been a “lost decade”. Yet back in 2013, K.C. Green, a talented cartoonist could still joke about it in a stunning piece of black humor. This is the closing panel of his 6-panel piece (screenshot):

Read the rest on Impakter, click here.

Let me know what you think!

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The Real Impact of US Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord

I am happy to reblog this Editorial Board piece of Impakter Magazine, I wholly subscribe to what is said here and it really needs to be said.

THE REAL IMPACT OF US WITHDRAWAL FROM THE PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD

by MICHELE BONANNO on June 10, 2017

IMPAKTER EDITORIAL BOARD

 

President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement is likely to have two major consequences. The first is environmental, the other political.

Starting with environmental impact. It will be bad for the planet, but it will be bad primarily for the United States.

Above all, it means that the Federal Government will play no supporting role in the move to a non-fossil fueled economy, in total contrast to what governments of all other countries plan to do and are already doing. This leaves the United States at a clear disadvantage in the concert of nations. And it is already happening, to see this go no further than India, the world’s third largest polluter after China and the US: Prime Minister Modi has made abandoning coal-fueled electricity an official policy. India is embracing green energy because it is both cheaper and cleaner.

Can the American private sector fill in the void left by the Federal Government? Probably. The momentum is there, California is committed to a carbon-neutral future and California is a big player among American States with its 80 million people. Moreover, many States are following its example.

Equally important: Hundreds of American corporations have pledged to reduce their carbon footprint and have done so most recently in an open letter on the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps not all signatories are serious about fighting global warming, some have been caught funding anti-climate lobbies. But eventually their “green washing” is likely to turn into the real thing, as consumers and public opinion hold them to their pledge.

Yet, because the American economy will be lacking any Federal stimulus as environmental protection policies are eliminated, it is likely that job creation will be slowed down in what are today the more technologically advanced sectors of the economy. The new green energy sector won’t get the subsidies and tax breaks it needs in contrast to what will happen in other countries. Meanwhile, deregulation of American fossil-fuel industries that already enjoy tax breaks and subsidies will sustain their expansion.

This brings up an issue that has not been sufficiently raised in the media: The public health cost of an expansion in fossil-fueled industries, a cost that President Trump has not factored in. He has talked in terms of defending American jobs in the fossil fuel sector, he has never mentioned the loss of American lives and productivity, as people get sick.

A surge in coal production and fracking will clearly threaten the quality of water and air, this is not a matter for conjecture. The data is in, we can calculate the impact of diseases related to air and water pollution, and tally up the early deaths and cost to the Gross National Product in terms of increased cost care and work hours lost, and worse, the number of deaths. The numbers are staggering. For example, a recent scientific report on air pollution caused by energy production in the U.S. over a decade (2002-2011) concluded that, while there was an improvement as fossil fuel-industries were cut back, the damage still amounted to at least $131 billion in the year 2011 alone, thus confirming the success of more stringent emissions regulations on the energy sector while also pointing out the need to continue cracking down. A need that went unheeded by the Trump Administration.

To read the rest on Impakter, click here.