It would be a good question to ask them if they could define 'opportunity cost'. I doubt many members of Congress could and I doubt Obama could.

It would be a good question to ask them if they could define 'opportunity cost'. I doubt many members of Congress could and I doubt Obama could.

Big business does tend to benefit more from government interference because they hire the better hookers (ahem, 'lobbyists') to get the government to write anti-competitive regulation or give them subsidies and tax-breaks.

Or, to put it another way, assuming that enviromental and resource problems will have a technological fix is as big an error (and the same kind of error) as ignoring the possibility of such fixes.

(And did I say England rather than Florida in my prior comment? Ugh, I need to do a better job of editing my comments.)

Re growth and welfare, it's a little of both, though I'd frame the issues differently. For the former, I'd say “while money and happiness are highly corrolated, they aren't corrolated on a one to one basis,” for the second, I'd say that “economic growth tends, all else being equal, to benefit some people disproportionately; whatever one thinks about the justice of this, it is a reason why maximizing economic growth does not maximize welfare.” Of course, that leads to a whole host of additional questions and issues, but as I said, serious engagment of them is beyond the scope of a blog comment.

Not sure which reasons you have in mind for growth = welfare. Do you mean the “money can't buy happiness” sort of arguments or the “high growth can still leave people in poverty” arguments? Or something else I haven't thought of?

And, yes, you're right about climate mitigation and growth going in opposite directions, at least for a while.

I agree if Tucker Carlson deserves a blog post then Florida's opinions on the economy do, too, but it just shows how low the bar is to be considered an “intellectual” these days.

Nice to think us lowly blog commenter rate a 1. I would have thought on that scale we are the poster children for the 0 rating.

As for your final paragraph, I think the reason that you don't see those preferences correlated to a greater extent is that “aggressively limiting climate change” and “pro-growth policies” are not independent variables – that is, they are to a large extent not compatible. I would certainly agree that, in choosing policies that “aggressively limit climate change” one should choose those policies which tend to have the least impact on growth, but that's easier said than done and not, I think, terribly controversial.

Now, one can derive different conclusions from these basic facts, but unless one starts from the basic premise that, on the whole, big business (at least) gains far more from our system of government than it gives up (a conclusion that is almost inevitable if one consistently applies libertarian principles regarding how governments work – see, e.g., rent seeking), one will go seriously astray.

I know that doesn't answer your question, but it seems to be a useful way to think about this.

Funny thing is, if you wanted to be consistent, you ought to prefer both aggressively limiting climate change AND pro-growth policies if you have a low rate of time preference, or prefer both cushioning recessions AND not spending too much on climate change if you have a high rate of time preference. Of course, that's not how the usual left-right divisions work out.

Republicans are stupid (mostly because they act like democrats on economic matters, social freedoms are expanding in spite of them), but the democrats are retarded.

It would be pointless to have a serious discussion with you. You didn't even attempt to answer any of my questions because you can't. You believe in all-government-all-the-time-in-every-orifice. People like you are the enablers of statists and that goes as far as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.

Keep apologizing for incompetence and inefficiency.