Friedman sells the Dems short
In an apparent attempt at cuteness, the NYT’s Thomas Friedman wrote a column written as if it were an “Iranian National Intelligence Estimate of America” to Ahmadinejad from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence
It included this bizarre assertion:
True, thanks to Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Congress decided to increase the miles per gallon required of U.S. car fleets by the year 2020 — which took us by surprise — but we nevertheless “strongly believe” this will not lead to any definitive breaking of America’s oil addiction, since none of the leading presidential candidates has offered an energy policy that would include a tax on oil or carbon that could trigger a truly transformational shift in America away from fossil fuels.
Therefore, it is “very likely” that Iran’s current level of high oil revenues will last for decades and insulate our regime from any decisive pressures from abroad or from our own people.
Except, as Kevin Drum explained, Friedman has it backwards.
All three of the leading Democratic candidates have proposed cap-and-trade plans that auction 100% of their CO2 permits. This is, economically speaking, the same thing as a carbon tax.
If Friedman is aware of this, he should say so. If he’s not, he should get his facts straight.
Not to mention that we don't buy a single drop of Iranian oil to begin with.
Wait a minute. Are you telling me that Tom Friedman constructed a shallow argument upon a false pretense?
I don't whether to be shocked or awed.
what u are missing is......when Friedman said .....
none of the leading presidential candidates has offered an energy policy that would include a tax on oil or carbon
he meant REPUBLICANS
democrats cant be leading anything (snark)
Kept man Tommy being kept man Tommy
Iran is a few years from consuming as much oil as it produces.
Iran's only meaningful export is oil.
Iran relies on foreign refineries for gasoline and diesel.
Rock, meet Hard Place.
This coming crisis may well be the secret behind all of the Iran posturing.
Since when have facts ever entered into a Tom Friedman discussion
His facts evolve from his imagination
Yea, like the supply of oil they have is going to last decades.
How many more years till we are all driving electric cars? It can't come quick enough for mother terra.
If Friedman is aware of anything, he should say so. Of course, we'll know he's lying again.
Does anyone else get tired of being exposed to the drivel of this NeoCon Zionist PR agent, composer of the ditty, 'Anything Olmert wants, Olmert gets'?
This author of 'The Flat Earth' is preparing a sequel, 'And God Gave It To The Jews'.
Hasn't his 15 minutes elapsed?
cap-and-trade plans that auction 100% of their CO2 permits????? Does anyone have any idea how in-efficient, bureaucratic and down right dumb this would be?? why do liberals think tax's are the only way to solve problems?
Friedman may be 'Selling the Dems', but he's 'Buying the Republicans', on the zionist theory of 'Buy Low', 'Sell High'.
"This is, economically speaking, the same thing as a carbon tax."
Except it's not, really.
A far more honest and true NIE for the US was put together by Chalmers Johnson in the January issue of the Atlantic:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/01/0081346
"carbon taxes as superior to carbon cap-and-trade systems for six fundamental reasons:
Carbon taxes will lend predictability to energy prices, whereas cap-and-trade systems will aggravate the price volatility that historically has discouraged investments in less carbon-intensive electricity generation, carbon-reducing energy efficiency and carbon-replacing renewable energy.
Carbon taxes can be implemented much sooner than complex cap-and-trade systems. Because of the urgency of the climate crisis, we do not have the luxury of waiting while the myriad details of a cap-and-trade system are resolved through lengthy negotiations.
Carbon taxes are transparent and easily understandable, making them more likely to elicit the necessary public support than an opaque and difficult to understand cap-and-trade system.
Carbon taxes can be implemented with far less opportunity for manipulation by special interests, while a cap-and-trade system’s complexity opens it to exploitation by special interests and perverse incentives that can undermine public confidence and undercut its effectiveness.
Carbon taxes address emissions of carbon from every sector, whereas cap-and-trade systems discussed to date have only targeted the electricity industry, which accounts for less than 40% of emissions.
Carbon tax revenues can be returned to the public through progressive tax-shifting, while the costs of cap-and-trade systems are likely to become a hidden tax as dollars flow to market participants, lawyers and consultants. "
http://www.carbontax.org/issues/carbon-taxes-vs-cap-and-trade/
chris @ 9:
This will open a whole new area of Congressional skullduggery, imagine Stevens putting an earmark on '100 billion CO2 credits' for an Alaskan used car dealer buddy of his, who has a penchant for burning worn out tires in his backyard?
>Yea, like the supply of oil they have is going to last decades.
Yosemite Bolton said on National radio in Canuckistan last nite that Iran's oil reserves "will last 300 years". .... he's never wrong is he?
Can Kevin Drum get a 'wanker of the day' award for this?
Entertainment-wise, this has the same comedic effect of playing a tape of a Congressional session in reverse, with the sound on max.
Not funny.
Thomas Friedman... republican cuteness at its finest...
When in hell will these babies grow up and behave like the adults their ages might indicate?! I really want an answer to this. I'm so fed up with the stupidity and partisan politics that appears in the MSM. Growup and get a life, you fools!
Preacher Boob @ 8:
You mean his 15 Friedman units?
Fried-Man
Paging Glenn Greenwald...Glenn Greenwald, someone is here to see you...
maf54 @ 1:
there you are... letting the facts get in the way of a good republican spin
chris @ 9:
one can only emagine they got that notion from watching the concervitives pissing tax dollars away in iraq~
earl @ 15:
Yeah, after we nuke them back to the stone age. Then the oil will just stay in the ground.
One would hope that these elitist wankers like Friedman and Joke Line, who have been on a comfy MSM perch for a long time are soon purged from the MSM by the common fact checks of the blogger community, left or right.
Weaseldog @ 5:
...and maybe the reason why they want nuclear power. Not necessarily to make bombs, but to generate electricity.
Friedman sells the Dems short
Boxers or briefs?
freejack @ 11:
It really is not the same thing. Cap and trade systems create a new market and a new "commodity" that depend on the initial number of permits issued and the caps set. Carbon taxes are meant to incorporate or account for externalities in the cost of production.
Now that is what I call pure propaganda bulls--t. Thomas Friedman just pulled a bunch of crap out of his ass regarding issues that have nothing to do with the Iranian nuclear issue at all. This is nothing more than a desperate spin attempt. The NIE report had torpedoed the Neocon ship and now they are looking for life preservers. In Thomas Friedman's case however, he is grasping at straws.
freejack @ 16:
Ummmm... what?
This isn't Atrios...
And... well, again, I ask, what?
Did you mean Friedman?
"Who needs nukes when you have this kind of America?
God is Great. Long Live the Iranian Revolution."
On the other hand, if one looks at the last lines in Friedman's fantasy Iranian NIE as being, let us say the real "Iranian take on America" then he has just proved, from another angle that the real NIE report is indeed factual.
The only thing Friedman got right in the last 5 years is the spelling of his name. Clueless. Just another village stenographer pontificating. The days of living off your reputation are over. There's this new technology, its called the computer. When you stack a pile of dung and call it a column, smart people look, check, and bust you. Time for a stark look in the mirror Friedman.
23
Weaseldog Says:
earl @ 15:
>Yea, like the supply of oil they have is going to last decades.
Yosemite Bolton said on National radio in Canuckistan last nite that Iran’s oil reserves “will last 300 years”. …. he’s never wrong is he?
Yeah, after we nuke them back to the stone age. Then the oil will just stay in the ground.
The air force probly has a special nuke that obliterates everyone/thing around but leaves the Oil intact ... I imagine its called the "10W30" or the "Jed Clampett" or some such ...
IN A RELATED STORY..... FRIEDMAN NOW STARRING IN HIS OWN VIDEO ON
U-TOOL
Friedman, wrong one more time.
Friedman is an Israeli firster plain and simple. Wrong about Iraq wrong about Iran. Everything he writes about the middle east comes from this vantage.
to be fair, I haven't heard word one from any of the three about energy...
holy cow. i don't believe i'm going to write this. but friedman is right and crooks and liars is wrong.... and about something important.
cap and trade is not a carbon tax.
and our presidential candidates should be including a carbon tax in their proposals. see all gore's recommendation for a carbon tax - please.
and see freejack's important comments above.
We don't need a tax. World oil production is in decline.
Capitalistic mechanisms will price oil, gas and coal into the stratosphere.
NO, NO, NO
A carbon tax is NOT the same as CAP and Trade. It is much better.
Cap and Trade does nothing to limit the usage of CO2, a carbon tax would.
Anyone serious about being green knows this.
Mike Donnelly
Chief Economist
PBP
It would have been more useful to describe the Friedman article as 'surpisingly coherent', and then mention the usual turd left at the end.
Then some of the commenters here might actually read it first.
Yes, as they say at slashdot, I'm new here.
The way out is technology, not regulation. With the technology we have we could have freedom from fossils fuels. Imagine what we could do with a pro-science government!
Does anyone really care what an imbecile like Fried Man says anymore? Ignore him.
Tommy Friedman can take his stank ass column and shove it up his flip-flopping ass. This one-time-war-cheerleader-now-critique-and-back-again is a disgrace on paper.
The world demand for oil is so great that even if we don't buy from Iran others will have to. Besides, supporting the Saudi regime by purchasing Saudi oil is just as dentrimental to the security interests of the U.S. as is supporting Iran by purchasing Iranian oil.
A cap and trade for CO2 emissions is great but it is aimed at CO2 emissions, not oil independence. It will promote cleaner energy and help reduce the demand for all hydrocarbons of which Middle Eastern oil is only a small part. The US gets 12% of its oil from the Middle East but much of that goes into our gas tanks which would not be subject to a cap and trade program.
Friedman is basically a troll. His background reaks of gov't cooperation. He appears to to be a liberal or a liberal hawk or whatever, he is as Democratic as Feinstein. There is nothing but a neocon infiltraitor.
Friedman behaves like a professional misinformationist. Can anyone really follow him? Has he confused the truth enough yet?
Friedman is part of the mega bucks club.
From Wiki:
Friedman's wife, Ann, is a graduate of Stanford University.[21] Her father, Matthew Bucksbaum, is the chairman of the board of General Growth Properties, the real estate development group that he co-founded with his brother in 1954. The Bucksbaums helped pioneer the development of shopping centers in the United States.[22] As of 2007, Forbes estimated the Bucksbaum family's assets at $4.1 billion, including about 18.6 million square meters of mall space.[23]
Ann and Thomas Friedman live in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The July 2006 issue of Washingtonian reported that they own "a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, currently valued at $9.3 million, on a 7½-acre parcel just blocks from I-495 and Bethesda Country Club."
If Friedman is aware of this, he should say so. If he’s not, he should get his facts straight.
Surely he knows what he's doing. Friedman and the ReTurds have made a career of 180 degree speaking. The truth to us is not the truth to them. Anything they can do to put a bad light on the Democrats they have chosen to do without remorse. When will we be free of their stupidity?
I don't know what the standard is for talking about the rest of the article but, despite his misrepresentation of the democratic candidates' positions, he still has a few good points.
I agree with him that the warmongers are making us stupid with fear, weather it's in regards to trade, immigration or terrorism. Also, his point that politics in this election cycle focuses too heavily on the "truthiness" of the bible is spot on. All I'm saying is that I don't think he is a complete buffoon.
Pete @ 29:
No I mean Drum. Even though this isn't Eschaton, you knew what I was referring to --Right? Good.
I not sure why such vitrole towards Friedman. Granted the Iran comparison was stupid, but when it comes to the cap and trade and carbon tax debate he was right.
As mentioned in many comments, cap and trade is not the same as direct carbon tax. Cap and trade only addresses large CO2 emitters mike coal fired power plants and other industry. Cap and trade has been effective in other pollutants, but I am not sure how effective this will be with CO2.
A carbon tax would be tacked on to every gallon of gas we purchase at the pump (currently the federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon) and probably on every kwh we use. Carbon tax may get the general public to change their ways through their pocket books. But carbon tax is political suicide for most politicians. I am not sure how much good a carbon tax would even do. Don't get me wrong, I am all for it because it MAY do what is needed. It was not long ago that people were grumbling about $2 gallon gas. Now that seems like a distant memory and I still see many new SUVs on the road. How high does gas need to go before people start demanding better solutions and stop buying SUVs and trucks to commute to work? $5? $6? $7?
Increasing the CAFE standards is long overdue. Europe has been at 35 mpg for years. Of course Europe is 50 percent diesel which helps loads. My Jetta diesel gets on average 45 mpg (50 mpg on the highway). But diesel has not been accepted here due to detroit's poor implementation in the 70's/80's and California's strick air pollution limits. Diesel technology has gotten better and emissions have gone done substantially. I am anxiously waiting for someone to introduce the diesel hybrid though.
The real travesty is that I have not heard any candidate proposing a "moon shoot" type of program to solve our energy problems. It is going to take all kinds of solutions and until the technology meets growing demands we still need coal fired plants, hydro, nuclear, etc. I would be for sticking solar panels on every house as a start. We also need more energy efficient homes. 2x4 built homes are not good. Why can people still buy an 80% efficient furnace? Again, a rethinking of producing, transmitting, and using energy is needed. No one has the guts to say that is what is really needed. We could be the leaders in this industry (and bring jobs and $$), but instead we use 19th century technology.
Facts?
Can you say it with Santa? Ho, ho, ho.
Me thinks very few of you actually bothered to read the article. I'm no fan of friedman, I've disliked his take on politics since the Lexus and the Olive Tree. Since you guys dont real i'll assume you haven't read it. Its not good. Anyway, this is the most liberal article friedman's written in years. It basically rips apart bush administration foreign policy. It is also pretty scathing of our political system in general. You guys on her love to whine about the spineless democrats, and now you're whining when a major columnist calls them out on it. Time to call the waaahmbulance.
Carbon trading isn't even close to a tax.
"Flat Earth" Friedman got it wrong again. What a surprise! Sometimes i think "Flat Earth" Friedman is paid good money to get it wrong. Why do we hear so much from guys like "Flat Earth" Friedman who always seem to get it wrong.
natas @ 54:
of course i get it wrong all the time, but looks what happens to a guy like Al Gore who got it right. there is no money or glory to be found in getting it right.
The only thing "flat" in this world is Friedman's head.
Its obvious that C&L is wrong on this one. In the interests of integrity you should probbably ammend this story to reflect the fact that a carbon tax is not the same as cap-and-trade
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