Comments on: Green Reconstruction vs. Speculative Capital

By: Hubberts Peak

Hubberts Peak — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 03:52:27 +0000

I understand that peak oil is true and that we are now past the point of peak oil. I understand many of the current events have to do with this understanding and it won’t be long before the main stream media and population wake up and understand what is going on. For me and my family, we are preparing for the life after the crash.

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By: Craig Collins

Craig Collins — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:48:04 +0000

Wouldn’t a “Tobin Tax” be one of the best ways to raise the funds Mr. Pollin is looking for while somewhat discouraging future damaging financial speculation bubbles?

Tobin Taxes are simple sales taxes on currency trades across borders. The original proposal came from James Tobin, Ph.D., a Nobel laureate economist at Yale, but economists have since refined his approach. Tobin Taxes can be enacted domestically by national legislatures, but will require multilateral cooperation to be effectively enforced. Political will for passage is the major obstacle to be overcome, but citizen mobilization could be very effective given the current political & economic climate worldwide.

The proposal is important because it has the potential to raise enormous sums of money while discouraging future financial crises. The estimated $100 – $300 billion per year it could generate would make it possible to meet urgent global priorities, such as preventing global warming & turning the tide towards a green economy.

How Tobin-style Taxes would work:

* Currency speculators trade over $1.8 trillion dollars each day across borders. The market is huge, and volatile.
* Each trade would be taxed at 0.1 to 0.25 percent of volume (about 10 to 25 cents per hundred dollars)
* This would discourage short-term currency trades,about 90 percent speculative, but leave long-term productive investments intact.
* The currency market would thus shrink in volume, helping to restore national economic autonomy. Nations again could intervene effectively to protect their own currency from devaluation and financial crisis.
* Billions in revenue, estimated at $100 – $300 billion per year, would be generated.
* Revenue could go into earmarked trust funds to fund urgent international priorities.

This information and more on Tobin Taxes can be found at:
http://www.ceedweb.org/iirp/

By: Carl Davidson

Carl Davidson — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:19:49 +0000

Perhaps, but don’t count on it. Unfortunately, there’s new untapped fields still coming to light, with the prospect of more sources of carbon to take from the ground and pump into the air. I find ‘Peak Oil’ to be a moving goalpost, even though at some point it will truly peak

By: Kevin Carson

Kevin Carson — Fri, 22 May 2009 06:21:06 +0000

I think Peak Oil will go a long way toward creating incentives for Green investment. The more expensive long-distance shipping becomes, the more frantically corporations will be shortening their supply and distribution chains. When fuel prices go back up and over their 2008 peak, we can expect at least 20% of airline routes and trucks to shut down almost immediately. When fuel hits $12/gallon and truckers start parking their rigs, shoppers tired of near-empty produce sections will be snatching veggies off the tables at farmers’ markets as fast as they appear. And local market gardening is one industry whose supply is extremely elastic.

We can expect a drastic move toward relocalization in the face of Peak Oil. Warren Johnson described the process thirty years ago as “Muddling Toward Frugality.”