Liberty

Not true. It's correlated with GDP, but it's mostly enacted through environmental regulations because market forces tend to be very weak on environmental issues, too few price signals and too many costs externalized to others in very diffuse ways, below the threshold of triggering reactions but still doing lots of damage in aggregate. When you're very poor, environmental issues seem a luxury, so of course there's less focus on those. But a hypothetical wealthy country like the US with no environmental regulations would have huge incentives to do worse than its doing now. Can save some money on water treatment? Can sell cars without catalytic converters? Can build power plants without strict PM emission limits? Can dispose of coal fly ash full of mercury however you want? Can incinerate trash as cheaply as possible? Can reduce the number of expensive water and soil tests? Can run diesel engines as long a you want without emission tests? Can buy cheaper fuel that has lead or extra sulfur in it? etc, etc, etc. No, basically people who value the environment end up putting pressure on politicians so that they pass laws to protect the environment for everyone, because otherwise you have a huge free rider and tragedy of the commons problem. California has a right to have stricter standards if it wants, and it'll deal with the consequences both ways. It might miss on some trade, but it has also gained by being a leader in these technologies and having others adopt its standards...

You misunderstood what I said. I'm saying that even if there are indirect benefits to letting ICEs stay at lower efficiencies because it makes them less competitive with EVs, it's far from the best way to go about things and the downsides very likely negate those benefits because the operating cost of ICEs isn't a top priority for auto buyers and lower EV sales in the short term make the scale investments that will dramatically lower the cost of EVs and improve their performance less feasible, so they'll delay the transition non-linearly.

Congrats on a more nuanced post than usual! It's kind of 50/50 with the "liberals this" and "liberals that", but at least you've shown some thoughtfulness here, so kudos. Personally, I'm an independent, and I look at things issue by issue, on the merits. So I don't really care if people who agree with me on one issue disagree with me on a different issue. Everybody ends up thinking that I'm "on the other side" because of this (some lefty friends think I'm on the right, some friends on the right think I'm on the left, etc), but I've gotten used to it. I think the central government is well positioned to put a floor below which it shouldn't be permissible to go for some things like for human rights, but that it shouldn't ever prevent states who want to do better in that area or in other areas, like the environment. What's the point of having 50 states if the democratically elected government of one can't decide that they want to reduce pollution or CO2 emissions or have even cleaner water or whatever? Does stricter environmental rules increase the price of some things? Indeed. Life's all trade offs. You get what you pay for a lot of the time. But in this particular case, I don't think people look at the costs properly. Clean power will be cheaper (the multi-decade trend is clear) than dirty power if it already isn't if you properly account for the externalized costs of pollution, and EVs will be cheaper than ICEs at some point in the next few years if you account maintenance and fuel cost, so making these things happen faster might cost a bit more up front, but will save people money over time as well as improve their lives and the lives of their kids by allowing them to live on a planet in better shape and with less costly global warming related costs down the line (even if just stronger hurricanes for coastal communities).

I'm not saying there can't be indirect benefits, but it looks like the costs will outweigh the benefits. An even better approach is to keep tightening CAFE standards to push for ICE innovation while reducing oil support and helping EV develop as fast as possible through the early adopter phase, and allow states that want to do more to experiment. But Trump is also saying that he wants to reduce CAFE standards and thinks global warming is a hoax... basically anything the coal and auto lobbyists tell him (do you think he could even understand a book or scientist explaining these things to him?). There are historical graphs that show fuel economy improvements over time, and it's quite clear that without CAFE standards pushing for more, there's very little that happens. Decades of stagnation when standards remained the same, followed by rapid improvement when standards tightened. I think one of the successful roles of goverment is pushing forward safety and environmental technology by creating level playing fields (everybody has to meet the same thing). If catalytic converters were optional, or you could save money by having your house dump its toilets straight in the river rather than pay for a water treatment plant, few would pay up for them, but everybody would pay the price (tragedy of the commons-style). Same for fuel economy. If you can dump your pollution out in the air and water at no cost (externalized), those who try to be cleaner will always be penalized against those who don't care. It's a classic market failure. Ideally we'd tax "bads" (toxins, greenhouse gas) instead of "goods" (like labor and capital) and align incentives that way, but we're pretty far from that system.

You know anything about me? You chose to take it in that direction. I know that you show your feelings by how many anti-Trump posts you make. Yeah. What has that to do with state rights? And why do you always try so hard to make everything into a political debate? We already know you're an ideologue and that you judge everything based on "sides" and "tribes" rather than thinking things through, no need to prove it again and again.

it's bad for the environment for all of us, and a stupid decision from a scientific point of view. I'm not sure this is so clearly stupid from a scientific point of view. If you believe that at some point in the next 5-10 years EVs will dominate the industry without regulatory intervention (which I do), does it really make sense to force the auto industry (i.e., consumers via pass through of costs) to spend $10s (maybe $100s) of billions of dollars rushing so the 80MM cars produced from 2020-2025 are marginally more efficient? Without trying to get too deep into politics/ethics, meat consumption causes just as much, if not more, pollution as all cars. It's MUCH cheaper to regulate meat consumption than fuel consumption. I don't see anyone advocating for that... or calling the lack of regulation "clearly stupid from a scientific point of view." It's stupid because it slows the rate at which EVs pass the threshold at which they become so evidently superior to ICE that the transition starts to happen much faster. Investments/support during that early phase moves that point forward and will make a big difference when it comes to carbon emissions and pollution. If there was no time element to global warming, then sure, take your time, we know EVs are the future. But in this case, there's some urgency, and moves that obviously slow the transition down will just make the problem bigger and harder to deal with later. It's also stupid because of the massive double-standard used to justify it: The oil & gas & coal industry received massive direct and indirect subsidies for decades, to the tune of probably hundreds of billions of dollars if you include military protection and such, but hey, if you want to help push EVs a little so that the transition takes place at a higher velocity (and that the US stays ahead when it comes to EVs and other clean techs rather than fall behind), that's too much... At least if they removed all current fossil fuel subsidies the playing field would be a bit more even, but even that isn't being discussed. Also, as far as air quality is concerned, there are quite good scientific basis for reducing particulate matter. If California wants to do better than other states, why should it be forced to be kept down. There are also lots of other places that follow California's lead on these matters or that adopt technologies developed there, so attacking it will have far reaching impacts.

You know anything about me? You chose to take it in that direction.

Inverse. You could also say that almost everything is political in some way. Should everything be on the poltics forum? What matters in the end is what we're talking about, and I'm talking about how this is a bad thing for the competitiveness of the US and californian companies from a technological standpoint, and how it's bad for the environment for all of us, and a stupid decision from a scientific point of view. On top of that you could argue it's bad for states rights and shows an overreaching central government and all that, but whatever, that's not my point here.. You're the one who made it about politics.

I don't want to discuss the politics of preventing a state from doing better than other states when it comes to the environmental or clean tech, I want to point out the environmental and scientific repercusions. And the Dirty Money episode is about the business life of Trump, not his politics. You should watch it. The fact that you don't want to hear it doesn't make it political. Nobody's forcing you to click.

We have quite a bit of environmental and scientific news here. This is the main angle.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-23/trump-is-said-to-seek-repeal-of-california-s-smog-fighting-power No lobbies left behind.

Glad you liked it.

Good piece: http://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2018/07/19/pareto/ http://theirrelevantinvestor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/CAP.png http://theirrelevantinvestor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/decile.png

Yes. Read his book or listen to the podcast linked, it's worth it.

http://time.com/5340545/bill-browder-vladimir-putin-magnitsky-act-donald-trump/ "I'm Bill Browder. Here's the Biggest Mistake Putin Made When Trying to Get Access to Me Through Trump"

The last one about Trump and his company and business deals. Trust me, it's worth watching. https://www.netflix.com/title/80118100?s=i&trkid=13752289

Podcast with Browder: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/death-sergei-magnitsky-bill-browder/

Finally watching to talk by Brian Bares that everybody was watching a couple months ago: Good stuff, he's no BS and I like that.

Glad you enjoyed it. I probably should reread it at some point, because I mostly remember liking it, I don't really remember that much what's in it specifically.

http://smbc-comics.com/comic/time-2

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/10/hedge-fund-legend-seth-klarmans-investing-classic-margin-of-safety-.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/10/hedge-fund-legend-seth-klarmans-investing-classic-margin-of-safety-.html

A mathematician wakes up to find his house on fire. He frantically looks around before seeing the fire extinguisher on the far wall of the room. "Aha!" he says, "a solution exists!" and goes back to sleep. -- Popular math students' joke

Interesting interview by Rhonda Patrick of Aubrey de Grey, two very smart people who know the topic of the biology of aging: https://podtail.com/en/podcast/foundmyfitness/dr-aubrey-de-grey-and-dr-rhonda-patrick-talk/ It's already a couple of years old, so there's been developments since, but it's still very interesting and I'm sure most outside the field can learn a lot from it.