After listening to Steven Levitt talk about his chapter on global warming in Super Freakonomics and the ensuing backlash from the global warming religious cohort, I find it very interesting that a new poll shows that only 35% of Americans believe man is causing global warming.
Levitt said the other night that he was a global warming believer, but that he wanted us to be smart about the money we are prepared to waste over global warming. Not surprisingly, he's been attacked for having the audacity to question it or to suggest out of the box thinking.
Friday, October 23, 2009
New Poll Shows Increased American Skepticism of Global Warming
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9 comments:
And half of all Americans believe in angels. What is your statistic supposed to prove?
Just that overtime, people are starting to question something that's supposedly fact.
^ I wish that applies to religious people.
Why? No religious person ever asked you to spend trillions and destroy the economy.
George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa
Seriously?! Look at who the source of that statement is and tell me it's objective.
"No religious person ever asked you to spend trillions and destroy the economy."
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36859
He seems to favor wars which have cost us somewhere in the ballpark of "trillions." Who knows how our economy would look with that money still in the coffers or back in our pockets.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see how the Iraq War harmed our economy. Have you seen what Obama's done to the deficit?
"According to the Congressional Budget Office's January 2009 estimate for fiscal year 2009, outlays were projected to be $3,543 billion and revenues were projected to be $2,357 billion, leaving a deficit of $1,186 billion. Keep in mind that these estimates were made before Obama took office, based on existing law and policy, and did not take into account any actions that Obama might implement.
Therefore, unless one thinks that McCain would have somehow or other raised taxes and cut spending (with a Democratic Congress), rather than enacting a stimulus of his own, then a deficit of $1.2 trillion was baked in the cake the day Obama took office. Any suggestion that McCain would have brought in a lower deficit is simply fanciful.
Now let's fast forward to the end of fiscal year 2009, which ended on September 30. According to CBO, it ended with spending at $3,515 billion and revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion.
To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected, but spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.
It should be further noted that revenues are lower to a large extent because of tax cuts included in the February stimulus. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, these tax cuts reduced revenues in FY2009 by $98 billion over what would otherwise have been the case. This is important because the Republican position has consistently been that tax cuts and only tax cuts are an appropriate response to the economic crisis."
http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1200/why-economy-needs-spending-not-tax-cuts
Bruce Bartlett was one of the original supply-siders, so you can't write him off as some crazy liberal. Now, that is only through fiscal 2009, and there is a lot more spending to come, but it is naive to blame all of the budget woes on Obama.
Did the Iraq war directly harm our economy? No, but the money could have been put to more productive uses over the years like more tax cuts or paying down the debt. If we had an extra $1 trillion lying around it sure would look nice filling 66% of 2009's gap.
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