Hennessy's View

DailyTech – Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.

Let’s give credit where it’s due: Al Gore.

When Al Gore speaks, the opposite happens. Where Al Gore goes, snow is sure to follow. So when Al Gore frightened a bunch of German kids by telling them that the North Pole would be gone in 5 years, that Santa Claus would die along with his reindeer, and that Polar Bears would either become extinct or catch the last few ice floes south to Europe where they’d “eat little kiddies like you,” you just knew that the Arctic would grow ice faster than Joe Biden’s head grows hair plugs.

And that’s just what’s happened.

Keep in mind, though, that we have only 30 years of satellite data on Arctic ice. So the melts of the past few summers might be dramatic–or they might very common. What do know beyond a doubt is that the Arctic ice experts know no more about Arctic ice than you or I. They were all 180 degrees off about the properties of “new” sea ice.

Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

So the next time an expert at NSIDC says the Arctic is meltic, remember that there is no such thing as an Arctic ice expert.

Technorati Tags: AGW, Arctic Sea Ice, Al Gore

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Let’s give credit where it’s due, if it’s due. 

If Barack Obama sends a $300 billion tax cut proposal to Congress as the meat of his stimulus package, he deserves high marks.

Tax Cuts Increase Tax Revenue

A large tax cut aimed at tax payers–individual and business alike–will not only stimulate the economy, it will increase federal revenue, defraying the irresponsible and dangerous spending of Paulson and Bernanke. As Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush 43 understood, tax cuts, to a point, increase federal revenue.  Economist Arthur Laffer showed how in his famous, but seemingly forgotten, Laffer Curve:

• At 0 percent taxation and at 100 percent taxation, tax revenue is zero.  The reason for no revenue at 0 percent is obvious.  At 100 percent, people have no incentive to work–so they don’t.
• Somewhere between these poles lies maximum or optimal revenue. 
• Laffer’s curve did not determine the exact location of this peak.
• There are actually two peaks:  one for absolute tax levels, and one for marginal taxes.

The Curve Applies to Specific Activities

This curve applies both to aggregate taxes and specific economic activities.  If we increase the tax on capital gains closer to 100 percent, then people will stop doing things that result in capital gains.  If we tax dividends more heavily than capital gains, investors will favor growth stocks over steady stocks that pay dividends.  It’s not very complicated.

Some economists have suggested eliminating business taxes altogether.  These taxes are always passed through either in the form of prices to customers or salary cuts to employees.  Either way, they reduce spending.  And spending generates income.

Kudos to Obama

But enough economics.  This story is really about Obama’s apparent willingness to step across the aisle into the Supply Side world.  That would be a great thing for the economy and a liberating moment for Barack Obama.  It’s so much easier to let the people decide how best to spend their own money. 

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