Environmental Economics

Yucks and grins

From the Stand-up Economist email: 

Details on upcoming shows: See my web calendar for all the details, but FYI the San Diego show in January is the 12th Annual American Economic Association Humor Session at the ASSA conference, where I'll also be a discussant on a (serious) paper at an environmental economics session on Friday afternoon. The Humor Session, free and open to the public on Saturday night, will feature (among other acts) Dave McEvoy presenting a paper on "Willingness Toupee" and yours truly joining Mandie Weinandt for a routine / parody called "The 2000-Year-Old Economist". Fun! 

The carbon tax vs. cap-and-trade Teutul meme | via @DrShewmake

In case you are wondering: The 'American Chopper' meme featuring Paul Teutul and son, explained

When you're dealing with the current EPA administration, the humor writes itself

Really, could you have made this up?

Hat Tip: Paul Jakus

 

If its what you say I love it especially later in the summer*

Yoram Bauman (via the Stand-up Economist email):

Just in time to help President Trump's advisors, I'm thrilled to report that the Cartoon Introduction to Economics is now available is Russian (ba-da-boom!) plus a dozen other languages. Cartoon Climate Change is becoming ever-more  important, and my co-author Grady Klein and I have finally finished a draft of Cartoon Calculus, so if you (or your students, etc.) want to provide feedback on the draft then email me and I'll send you more information (and maybe even a signed book when it's out next year :). Thank you!

*To quote one of President Trump's advisors.

"RePEc launches Top 5 Journal in Economics"

The RePEc blog:

Many academic departments in economics require from their junior faculty to publish in top 5 journals in order to gain tenure or get promotions. The top departments ask for several such articles, lower ranked ones may ask for only one. However, the space available in those journals is very limited, a couple hundred articles a year. Given that many already tenured faculty publish in those journals, the space for the newcomers is very scarce and few junior professors can count on top 5 journals for their tenure hopes.

This problem has become worse, as more and more departments strive for such impossible requirements, in part because they are forced to keep up with requirements in the other sciences of their university, where articles are much shorter and journals publish more frequently, thus making it easier to get top publications. Without intervention, economics may get into the situation of choking itself by making it impossible for most department to grant tenure to faculty.

In light of this upcoming catastrophe, RePEc is happy to come to the rescue with the launch of a new journal that will be accepting submissions from junior faculty aspiring for tenure, the

Top 5 Journal in Economics

will start today with volume 104 and a special issue on the Economics of Fisheries. For submissions and more information about the journal, click here.

They had me going until the part of about fisheries economics. Any idiot knows that fisheries economics is a joke.

Quote of my lifetime: We need a "That was some weird sh*t" category

I'm not sure why we haven't thought of this before, but we need a category for just plain odd statements from politicians/policy makers.  Thankfully, George W. Bush** has given us the perfect title for the category:

Former President George W. Bush reportedly thought President Trump's inauguration speech "was some weird shit."

Bush attended Trump's inauguration, sitting near former President Clinton and Hillary Clinton as well as former President Obama and Michelle Obama.

According to a new report by New York magazine, three people present at the event say they heard Bush say "That was some weird shit" after the swearing in ceremony concluded.

An example:

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is facing criticism over his decision not to ban a controversial farm pesticide. Pruitt insists his move is based on “sound science,” but it overrides his own agency’s research showing chlorpyrifos pose a health risk to children and farm workers, possibly inhibiting brain development.

That was some weird shit.

Another?

In case you needed reminding, it’s a bad time to be a scientist in the US. If you work for a federal research group, you’ve been muzzled, had your funding cut to historically low levels, and been told by a committee of anti-intellectual parrots that you’re constantly lying.

Earlier this month, the word “science” was removed from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) mission statement under the auspices of a man who doesn’t think carbon dioxide warms the planet. Now, it seems that the Department of Energy’s (DoE) climate change research office has banned the use of the phrase “climate change”.

As reported by Politico, a supervisor at the DoE’s Office of International Climate and Clean Energy told the staff in no uncertain terms that the phrases “climate change”, “emissions reduction”, and “Paris agreement” are not to be used in written memos, briefings, or any form of communication.

That was some weird shit.

I have a feeling this could quickly become our most populated category of post.

*Does anyone else find it funny when legitimate journalists have to write titles with words like 'shit' in them, and thy choose to just use an asterisk 'sh*t'?  I know that they are supposed to write at a 3rd grade level, but I'm pretty sure even a 3rd grader can figure out what the word is supposed to be.

**I love the irony in the same man who once said ""And so the fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there's jobs at the machine-making place." and "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country," and so many others, says Donald Trump's inauguration was weird shit.  I guess weird shit knows weird shit.

Ooh, Ooh, Ooh! Can I be King? Pleeeeeaaaaase!?

 Now things are really getting fun:

In an extraordinary speech the EU Commission president said he would push for Ohio and Texas to split from the rest of America if the Republican president does not change his tune and become more supportive of the EU. 

The remarks are diplomatic dynamite at a time when relations between Washington and Brussels are already strained over Europe’s meagre contributions to NATO and the US leader’s open preference for dealing with national governments. 

And in case you thought 'He didn't really say that, did he?'

He did.

 

"Nation's Economists Quietly Evacuating Their Families"

Is a strong dollar a good thing for the U.S. economy or a bad thing?

As employment stagnates, manufacturing continues its slump, and overall confidence in the U.S. financial system wavers, the nation’s economists have begun abandoning their homes and sending their loved ones overseas. “We’ve noticed a trend among the leading economic thinkers, be they Keynsians, supply-siders, or students of the Austrian school—they’re putting their families on one-way flights out of the country, often leaving half-finished survival bunkers behind them,” Paul Klement, an analyst with the Brookings Institute, told reporters Tuesday. “The flights aren’t on domestic carriers, either. I think they saw something in that last transportation industry report that really spooked them.” At press time, none of the nation’s economists could be reached for comment

via www.theonion.com

I looked it up ... and it turns out a strong dollar makes exports more expensive and imports less expensive. If you are a mercantilist (one who thinks a trade surplus is good for the economy because the national income accounting identity shows that GDP is smaller with a trade deficit) then you think this is a bad thing for the U.S. economy. But, if you have a more nuanced view of the social welfare of people in the U.S., you might consider inexpensive imports to be a good thing for U.S. consumers. Also, you might consider that a trade deficit is a symptom of a strong U.S. economy. If imports are normal goods then higher U.S. income leads to increased demand. Weak export demand might be symptomatic of a weak global economy. 

"Nation With Crumbling Bridges and Roads Excited to Build Giant Wall"

From the Borowitz Report:

As America’s bridges, roads, and other infrastructure dangerously deteriorate from decades of neglect, there is a mounting sense of urgency that it is time to build a giant wall.

Across the U.S., whose rail system is a rickety antique plagued by deadly accidents, Americans are increasingly recognizing that building a wall with Mexico, and possibly another one with Canada, should be the country’s top priority.

Harland Dorrinson, the executive director of a Washington-based think tank called the Center for Responsible Immigration, believes that most Americans favor the building of border walls over extravagant pet projects like structurally sound freeway overpasses.

“The estimated cost of a border wall with Mexico is five billion dollars,” he said. “We could easily blow the same amount of money on infrastructure repairs and have nothing to show for it but functioning highways.”

via www.newyorker.com

xkcd: Linear Regression

Source: http://xkcd.com/1725/