Coal is going to be much like soybeans: Subsidized by healthy government funding, need to the contrary. And like soybean farmers, coal miners will become another untouchable bloc of entitled Americans.
6
Guided by nostalgia? Would Trump deserved that much credit. Guided by ignorance and incomprehension would be more like it.
14
Old man, nostalgic imagination, stuck in the 1950s. America will sink under this retreat to the past.
10
“Unprecedented and misguided.” That’s just this Administration’s core principles.
9
Donald Trump's trade policy indeed largely looks to the past. His advisers have portrayed the tariffs as leverage to force China to open its markets and make other concessions, such as dropping demands that American companies to share technical know-how in order to operate in China, etc. It echoes a chapter of USA-China trade history called "Open Door Policy".
"... The Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the United States policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century that would allow for a system of trade in China open to all countries equally. It was used mainly to mediate the competing interests of different colonial powers in China...."
The agenda of Trump, Navarro, Lighthizer & Ross is to make "America great again" as it was in the 19th century. But this is not the 19th century. Chinese leaders will not tolerate their counterparts who act like colonial powers. They also aim to make China great again.
While Trump & his cohorts focused on saving legacy sectors, they are scared by China's determination to march forward with globalization, automation and innovation mapped out in the Made in China 2025 Plan. It's clear which country will emerge as the next great economic power.
8
Trump, who has a record of stiffing contractors and therefore hurting their employees, who has never done an honest day’s labor in his life, who makes his money by newspaper scandal and the attendant brand licensing, likes coal mining for nothing more than the image of dirty, sweaty men who have to follow the big bosses orders. It’s not policy, it’s playtime for a spoiled overgrown toddler.
12
President Trump isn't picking winners and losers on nostalgia, but political expediency. He only plays to his political base, especially in swing states.
For instance by attacking the Canadian dairy tariffs, he wants to positively effect the voting constituency in Wisconsin and Michigan.
This is why is going after the coal and steel vote in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
For a person who never ran for political office, he has excellent political common sense.
5
Good.
Industrial policy is 30 years overdue. Japan does it. Korea does it. Europe does it. China does it.
If America doesn't do it America will go under.
Lol. There is reason America doesn’t do it - nor does it have to do it.
1
He is wasting so much money on industries that have fallen into the past. He could be building on the roads, bridges, & railways to improve the industries we have now & those of the future. One of those things you notice about countries run by dictators is that time freezes in the past for them. They are afraid if they move on they will lose control of their people. The future is renewable energy & industries that can build & survive with renewable energy & products. The base of this wannabe dictator are people on the edge of being too old to work in coal mines. Young people do not want to work underground day in & day out breathing air that causes black lung disease. They do want jobs that will last & that will give them livings. Cannot build futures on roads that have crumbled back to dirt & gravel. He needs to stop the chaos & do what he promised in infrastructure, healthcare, & increased wages. Only seeing hate & injustice not helping American citizens.
10
“They’re the people I understand the best. Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.”
Really? He may have know some of the working class growing up, however I seriously doubt he understands them and I’d bet the farm he NEVER worked on a construction site.
12
IF, (big "if"), they can figure out how to burn coal cleanly let them.
A few years ago you couldn't get clean burning diesel vehicles and now you can. If they can do the same with coal why not let them?
1
when will he bring back the pony express?
9
Guided by nostalgia? Trump is guided by sheer stupidity instead. It happens whenever he exercises willful ignorance, which happens most of the time. And when in the manic state, he is unable, or unwilling, to listen to the voice of reason, based on the facts.
7
The administration's ever more frequent resorts to the use of emergency powers does not bode well for our democratic system of government. Are we being conditioned for a suspension of fundamental civil liberties based on some threat ginned up by Trump and his cohort?
7
Trump and his supporters want a return to their idealized version of the US in the 1950s, a world that no longer exists if it ever did.
10
trump is even low grade at destroying the economy. Bush and Reagan knew how to destroy the us and world economy! but then again it took them eight years each. look how much destruction trump has done in only one year!
8
Readership here again missing the forest through logging the trees...
Focusing on the concrete, specific industrial production that has been shipped overseas, product assembly, textiles, steel production, etc is missing the mark, and intentionally obtuse. What's critical is understanding the root issue, in that hyper-capitalism in the US is intent on eradicating any and all unskilled labor in this country, because there is more profit margin on paying penney labor wages to Asian workers than paying living wages to US workers. Yes, the administration is off the mark strategically in propping up coal, but mainly the derision of such "nostalgia" is cover for attacking the concept of pro-US labor policy, which is anathema to the globalist capital class who don't care one iota about long term health of the US economy, or the proles & blue collar workers.
Like Lenin said, one will be able to hang the capitalists by the rope they are selling.
4
The more Trump plays with his dictator hat on, the more he's pushing manufacturers, utilities, agriculture away.
Forcing utilities to buy more expensive power is not what utilities want or plan - forget coal, even plans for new natural gas power plants are shrinking year over year
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/seu-2018-survey-utilities-shaken-not-mo...
Republican states are top of the list for wind power, and continue to expand. California's in the top five (for now), but Texas is first, and Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa round out the list.
Trump's tariffs are generating hurt in the farms and ranches full of voters getting walloped by their traditional party -
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/opinion/sunday/trump-china-tariffs-tr...
Good thing for some of them that the wind farms leasing a bit of their land will be generating revenue while they suffer from tit-for-tat retaliation over Trump's power plays.
https://modernag.org/energy-conservation/farming-the-sky/
4
Trump just doesn't understand. Forget coal. The future is horses. Their fuel is natural and organic. Their pollution can be easily shoveled. They don't need open pit or underground mines. All they need are barns. And of course pastures. And cowboys!!
Ah, nostalgia. We an all proclaim the future: I'm Back in the Saddle Again. Oh what fun it is to rid in a one horse open sleigh.
I can smell us making America great again. Hi Ho Silver.
8
I guess Trump's schooling at all those excellent schools he claims to have attended must have stopped with the Industrial Revolution.
His knowledge of legislation that protects people from bad water, air and protects them at the workplace must have stopped before he understood why these things are enacted.
The great business with so many failures and bankruptcies seems to not understand basic principles of investment and how the economy benefits from new technologies.
It's tough having someone so ignorant playing a president in the D.C. version of a reality show.
The reality is that Trump is dumb and clueless and detrimental to those he thinks he can help.
Let's hear it for the bad old days!
9
make america great again...bring back slavery, no wage increase, no healthcare costs to employers, no schools, just a shack & a spot to grow some veggies & a pig & chicken or two. Won't even need electricity, just good old oil lamps. yep go for it
4
“They’re the people I understand the best. Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.”
oh yes.... the people he grew up with and with whom he worked.... lol PLEASE
12
"Trump Picks Economic Winners, Guided by Nostalgia
Image" -what an awful headline! Offering subsidies to coal miners is bad business at best and horrific public health policy, at worse. Mr. Trump's love of nostalgia is rooted in racism, misogyny, and anti-semitism. The only winners in Donald J. Trump's euphoric love of nostalgia...white anglo saxon protestants!
4
Is it possible to see what investments the trump klan has in coal and oil? That, other than immense stupidity, could be the only reason for his pro coal push. Did his daddy give him penny stocks in coal when he was a child??
4
That’s great - lets’s rebuild the coal & steel industries. Too bad our roads, rails & bridges are in such bad shape that we could not transport it. This administration needs to focus on the future not the past.
12
The occupant of the White House knows nothing, and refuses to learn anything, so it makes sense that all he can do is look to the past, his own youth, the last time he paid attention or took in any outside information. In trump-land it's still the magically re imagined sit-com 50's, and that's all it ever will be.
23
To Bob—I would bet it isn’t so much nostalgia—that takes a bit of feeling. No, I think it’s all about the mid-terms and an eye toward re-election. He’s a master at keeping the troops informed about the “ great” things he’s doing for THEM. And this is just the beginning.
6
Buffoonery at it worst. This man thinks he can snap his fingers and coal will be America's main fuel again. He understands nothing about global trade, global economics, and economies of the future. Coal is dead, it's from a bygone era, and has no place again as a fuel source when there are better, more efficient, cleaner, and less costly alternatives. This guy is a clown trying to sell a Commodore 64 computer to IBM and Microsoft as a state of the art system. Global economics is nowhere the same as selling an overpriced condo at Trump Tower. Not even close. I am convinced that he has somebody signed to a confidentiality agreement that really is the brains behind Trump business since he is truly clueless about very basic economics.
16
Next he'll want to reopen the typewriter factories and restore the secretarial pools.
12
Isn't it interesting that Trump thinks it is 1972?
6
In 1971 +/- the Indiana Power and Lighty, coal fired plant was belching its stacks over Indianapolis, but perhaps feeling the need to express some hope and/or remorse. A large sign on the plant proudly announced, "TOMORROW, EVERYTHING WILL BE CLEAN AND ELECTRIC!" Was Trump still in grad school or was it grade school?
It is, in part, crony capitalism. Many of these industries are still influential in states where Trump count on for votes. There is an element of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."
In another part, a lot of Americans buy into this type of nostalgia. Something like coal mining conjures an image of a tough "working man," whereas something like health services does not. Ironically, coal mining always been dangerous and detrimental to the health of miners. But instead of looking to cultivate other industries in areas that depend on coal mining, this administration is going to double down on a romantic image of an industry that is already obsolete.
4
The Republican Party has devolved to little more than a reactionary ideological movement.
Nowhere is the battle over government intervention in coal greater than at the Navajo Generating Station in Page, AZ.
Built by the US government and Peabody Coal 45 years ago, and owned by the Salt River Project utility company, it's purpose is to provide power to run pumps to move Colorado River water 300 miles backwards through canals to Phoenix and Tucson.
SRP wants to close the plant next year because it can buy power cheaper from gas fired competitor plants. That would cause the closure of the Kayenta coal mine.
The Navajos want this plant to close because it pollutes their air, water and soil, but Rep. Paul Gossar is writing a bill to help a Wall Street investment firm buy the plant (!!) Goasr's bill would prohibit release of pollution information to the tribe. It would require CAP, the entity that runs those giant pumps, to buy the power at greater cost per KwH.
The Navajos know what NGS operated by a WS firm would mean: reduced staff, less safety. They want to partner with utility companies to build and operate renewable plants on their tribal land.
The Arizona Corporation Commission has directed AZ utilities to focus on renewables and away from fossil fuel.
The Navajo Nation wants to move away from a plant that uses 270 coal cars a day of coal and to clean energy, but the Trump administration is painting this as saving Navajo jobs.
14
So who will be picking up the tab on these unprofitable coal plants?
Let me guess, the US taxpayer!
Coal is not clean and never will be. This country under trump has regressed 40 -50 years.
Renewable Energy, and yes gas when needed, but no coal.
14
A 1980's policy from a 1980's kind of guy. What else can we expect from a man who bases sweeping tax cuts on the debunked notion of trickle down economics? Jump in your DeLorean and strap on your seat belts, because it's "Back to the Future" here we come!
4
bring back the whaling industry in Nantucket!!!
Whale oil and corsets redux!!!
14
Why isn't Trump doing something about the textile, apparel, and furniture jobs that have been lost in the Carolinas and Georgia?
9
Because he manufactures those overseas for his brands.
11
Because your kosher Republican reps are free trade fanatics. Time to get some MAGA Congresspeople in there.
The point this article misses is that those "declining" industries, like TV manufacturing, which are labor-intensive, employ lots of people. The "fast growing" industries like pharmaceuticals, that are capital intensive, employ way less. We need a sensible long-term industrial policy that includes labor-intensive industies so we can be sure we have enough middle class jobs to go around.
3
How about renewable energy and infrastructure? The potential is there for good jobs at all levels that would also move us forward as a country. Trouble is, the established fossil-fuel money won’t allow such forward progress. The thinking with the Trumps, the Kochs, the Pruitts and the Zinkes of the world seems to be “old money for me is better than new money for someone else.”
8
The labor intensity of an old cathode-ray-tube TV (trivia for kids, that's where boob tube came from) was far more labor-intensive than today's flatscreen TVs with massively integrated circuitry, and robots doing pick-and-place of individual components will continue automating the assembly process for manufactured goods.
So a sensible long-term industrial policy will have to focus on more advanced manufacturing, no matter what industry is involved. The oil glut that crashed revenues in North Dakota, Texas and elsewhere for a while has ended, but while men were laid off, the industry added more automation so, like in coal, fewer workers get called back and they produce more.
And I'm glad I'm not responsible for having to plan both "sensible" and "long-term" given the acceleration of everything from 3-D printing to AI systems that will continue upending existing jobs. Maybe we'll think of something, but this process has been happening since draft animals carried more than people could.
3
Trump, a well-known capitalist, has decided that the Government can best pick tomorrow's winners and losers in our economy. The guy is swimming upstream in this endeavor, and, long term, he hasn't a chance. He has no sense for how technology drives both the "old" and "new" industries. whether in goods or services, the latter which now makes up 75% GDP. Everything he is doing will cost American jobs.
21
Trump prefers to personally pick the winners and losers because it makes him the center of attention. Where most administrators would design a process for getting to the best solution, he is still back in reality television.
Not only does he pick the winners and losers in industry, but also in the Middle East.
1
Obama picked winners (solar panel manufacturers, nurse practitioners, liberal coastal states) and losers (coal states, physicians, people who make income). Guess what? Our turn.
4
So now China has the monopoly on solar panels. President Obama was right. That's our loss.
And sorry to have to disillusion you, but the coal industry is coming back about the same time the whaling industry is coming back in New England.
15
Coal lost to fracking and horizontal drilling by the natural gas industry in Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, North Dakota and other places. It lost because it's too expensive to burn cleanly, once taxpayers got tired of footing the bill for damages from acid rain, sulfur compounds, nitrogen compounds and all-around illness and premature deaths the industry had been saddling us with.
But you claim to be a doctor, fighting for increased black lung among the miners, increased cardiovascular disease among people near coal plants, and dirtier drinking water near failing coal ash pits? You support a plan that will make people sicker while charging them artificially higher energy prices to support what sickens them? Re-read the Hippocratic Oath, if you've read it before.
Oh, by the way, how much more in taxes do you want to pay to "adapt" to increased coastal flooding along your coastal state? I know the Navy isn't happy about what's happening to all their expensive stuff which, oddly enough, they need right on the coast, like in Norfolk VA.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2016/07/29/rising-oceans-threat...
Something else for a Virginian to read, from Old Dominion U.
"Sea Level Rise and Flooding Risk in Virginia"
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/ccpo_pubs/102/
11
You oppose Obama's support of certain industries while simultaneously supporting Trump's anachronistic policy to bring back the coal industry. So your position, much like that of Trump, seems to be based not on sound economic policy but on a feeling of grievance, a fear of change, and a desire for retribution. A great way to rouse one's political base, but a lousy basis for sound economic policy.
10
I don't think it's nostalgia. He is just good at identifying pockets of maximum discontent where he can exploit people's fears like the demagogue that he is. Workers in declining industries are particularly vulnerable to his lies.
15
Trump is not motivated by nostalgia. As in all matters, he is inspired by hate and impelled by ignorance.*
In this case, Trump's problem is that the people who are advocating for renewable energy tend to be educated and with an understanding of science and the dangers of an overheated planet. Trump hates anyone who is intelligent, well educated and progressive. He does not have a science adviser 18 months in. Ergo, no renewables.
It is that simple.
*cf Bertrand Russell: The good life is guided by knowledge and inspired by love.
18
“I love these people so much, and the 1000s of lawsuits against me for stiffing these great people only prove it!”
-DJT
12
Welcome to the 21st Century...1950s style.
4
So when Trump supporters hear Donald beguile they're "the people I grew up with", do they look in the mirror and wonder:
* how come I don't live in a penthouse?
* how come I don't golf every other day?
* I don't remember Trump on my construction site?
When will this lying, tired old man receive his comeuppance?
25
not soon enough!
4
How come I don't have a gold toilet?
Really at the core of the trade deficits with US is the role the Dollar plays as a reserve currency and major trade currency of the world.
Every country whether it wants to buy oil or anything from any other country needs dollars. For example India wants to buy from Japan-it cant do it in rupees or even yuan. It has to be in dollars. So there is huge incentive to get those dollars from their source - USA.
No country has been able to keep purchasing gold, silver, oil, finished products by simply printing paper. Trump is well guided but what needs to be done is to abolish the dollar as the worlds reserve currency or use a basket of currencies or use IMF's SDRs or even go back to the era before Nixon to a quasi gold standard.
1
Having witnessed the decline and fall of the photographic giant Eastman Kodak company from the inside, I for one am looking forward to the day when our Dear President brings back film by making it too expensive to capture and share images using smart phones. Not. Going. To. Happen. It seems that market based economics has been dropped in favor of central planning. Not what I would have expected from a Republican President.
32
These are the same people who told Henry Ford that his horseless carriage wouldn't last.
They were also worried about putting the blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and horse farmers out of business.
14
I tell you these are the finest buggy whips we've ever made! As a country we can't afford to lose this technology. There should be a law requiring them in every automobile.
8
Of course he touts industries from the past. That's the last time he actually read anything! So, if coal was king when he was at Wharton he believes it still is. And if he believes it, then magically it is so. Our nation, its economy both nationally and internationally, is increasingly being dictated by the P resident's magical thinking.
20
Wasn't a major criticism of the Obama administration that the government was picking winners and losers? Oh well, turnabout is fair play in politics.
2
Sure, except that the Department of Energy under the Obama Administration was investing in CO2 sequestration, solar, energy efficiency, power storage, wind, efficient transmission, grid resilience, different battery and storage systems, fuel cells, energy-harvesting devices, smart building systems, and a zillion other approaches to increased efficiency or cleaner energy. Saving money and cleaning the environment.
https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=program-listing
Trump, on the other hand, tried to dump the Energy Star program, which is popular with the public and which companies VOLUNTARILY participate in. It's good advertising for manufacturers who make efficient devices, and has saved consumers money in reduced energy expenditure. One possible motivation, beyond his apparent spite:
"Trump's plan to kill Energy Star could benefit his properties"
"Trump's properties tend to receive low Energy Star ratings. The most recent scores from 2015 reveal that 11 of his 15 skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are less energy efficient than most comparable buildings. ...
A score of 50 or more means the property ranks in the top half of its category for energy conservation. Most of Trump's properties score below 50. Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, a luxurious glass tower completed in 2009, scored a 9. Trump Park Avenue, converted from a hotel to condominiums in 2002, earned a 7."
https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/politics/donald-trump-energy-star-epa/ind...
10
I'm considering a buggy whip factory, anyone else in?
14
He can personally screw up everything. Then blame the democrats. And people will believe him.
25
The people I grew up with? The people I worked with? Anyone so lacking in information about Trump's background that they believe and support him deserve the suffering they will experience due to his screw-the-poor policies. At a certain point people must take responsibility for what they know or don't know.
26
In spite of his claims to be an original, Donald Trump often is the ultimate copycat. His advisers probably told him that he is being criticized for championing old, low-tech industries with no future or hi-tech companies with a checkered past.
There is no way that Trump will abandon industries and companies which are paying him or his family well, but there is a way for him to appear as a man of the future; a man of vision.
Today, Donald Trump called upon the Pentagon to develop a “space force” as the sixth branch of the U.S. military.
We all remember something near and dear to Republican hearts from March of 1983. President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative in what became known as the “Star Wars Speech.”
Watching and listening to Donald Trump flailing about in desperate efforts to distract Americans from his failed, often cruel, policies and from the mounting evidence of his conspiracy with the Russians, it is not surprising how Trump repeatedly looks back to the future and basks in comfortable nostalgia.
18
Since we have lost our rights as citizens to choose our government (unless, of course, the majority of Americans wanted Vladimir Putin to call the shots), our only remaining power is that of the consumer. Thus, I am refusing to do business with any business that paid bribes to Trump via Michael Cohen. I am in the process of detaching all my services from AT&T and will buy power only from companies that rely on gas-fired generation or renewable energy. I may have to live in this toxic wasteland, but I refuse to subsidize it. If Trump insists on diverting our tax dollars to his financiers in the coal industry, there's nothing we can do about that unless we want to go to jail for tax evasion.
20
“They’re the people I understand the best. Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.”
A lot of steel workers and coal miners in downtown NYC are there?
38
Mr. Trump, you speak so fondly of these workers. Too bad your fondness included STIFFING these selfsame people. You must not be THAT fond of them. What a hypocrite.
25
Trump wants to make America mediocre, to go back to dying industries rather than to ensure that America remains a leader in innovation. Rather than propping up coal and other industries that really are not the future for America, Trump should put together tax incentives and other programs that encourage high tech to go rural. It is happening in parts of the country already and helps to transition workers from dying industries to flourishing industries. It would be a win-win for America and for rural America.
16
Please, oh please Uncle Donald, help reopen the steel mill, furniture factory, and two aluminum mills that I have worked in. All have been dismantled and sold for scrap but certainly that will not deter the world's best negotiator.
15
and were such fun to work in. How we long for the twelve hour back breaking days of old.
8
Trade wars are fun and easy to win! Just ask Herbert Hoover!
22
With wind and solar, you pull a unit out of a factory, put it someplace, and it sits there and cranks out electricity. Sure, parts wear out, parts are replaced, etc., but for the most part it just sits there and harvests high quality energy.
With coal, you drive a truck. You dig stuff up, You put it in a train and haul it someplace. NOW you get to crank out the electricity.
If other countries (including the inimical Sons of Chin) invest in the first, and the US invests in the second, who's going to be ahead in 20 years?
Much as with the whole global warming deal (which most climate scientists believe is a) real and b) caused mostly by humans) our Benevolent Leader has decided he can make something true that isn't, simply by force of will alone.
Pursuing this idiocy as a long-term strategy will simply push us toward second-rate nation status.
21
Ah, but the great DJT has such a beautiful magic wand! Why, just the other day, he waved it and said “Sleep well, America! North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat!” So if he waves his magical wand and says, “Congratulations America! Coal is great again!” it will be just as true and real as his North Korea pronouncement.
1
Investing in coal will vastly increase employment. In the Health Care industry.
41
This is not about nostalgia, it was a campaign promise that helped get Trump elected.
14
Hurray I say! For indeed I cherish the return of the steam engine and the mighty dreadnaught battleships that adorned our seas during the time of the Kaiser. How our foes will shudder at our might as we return to a time where child labor, consumption, and black lung disease made us strong! For coal and steel will define us just like it did in the 1820s. I say "Pshaw!" to any naive who dares to question whether falling behind in technology will ever hurt us. Surely, when has it ever??
27
Is it $50 billon in tariffs or tariffs on $50 billion? Aren’t they different things?
5
Remember Trump's fantasy North Korea video his White House produced so Trump could show Kim a video of what North Korea could become under capitalism? In that video of the future, there were bullet trains.
There are no bullet trains in the United States. Every state that has expressed an interest in high speed rail and upgrading train service, train routes and train stations has been slapped down by GOP government that doesn't want to invest any money in better train service.
I'm looking right at you, Chris Christie.
43
They get the bullet trains. We get the bullets!
22
Coal stinks, except if you are a coal tycoon or somebody like the Koch brothers that own huge coal reserves. Mercury in the tuna comes from coal, as does lots of global warming reality.
If Trump really cares about America, he should work to get big money out of US politics (reform both campaign finance and lobbying) because it distorts decisions away from the good of the working public who consume most of the GDP of the US. Trump, you cannot weaken the lower middle class forever and expect the country to continue to florish.
9
It is cruel to give hope that various jobs are coming back in a meaningful way. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things don't work out and you have to reposition yourself. Ask Pittsburgh.
17
Don't count on a "businessman" to make technology predictions, especially someone as stupid as Trump:
Some of the worst technology predictions of all time:
1876: "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." — William Preece, British Post Office.
1921: “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?”
1946: "Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." — Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox.
1955: "Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years." — Alex Lewyt, President of the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company.
1959: "Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail." — Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General.
1961: "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the United States." — T.A.M. Craven, Federal Communications
1876: "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." — William Orton, President of Western Union.
1889: “Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison
Etc.
23
1920: "That Professor Goddard, with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react — to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." _NEW YORK TIMES
1
Circa 1962: In the near future, nuclear power will be too cheap to meter.-- GENERAL ELECTRIC
5
It seems to me that he's not so much "guided by nostalgia" as he is by bribes to his consigliere, Cohen. Don Don bestows his beneficence on those whose tributes please him the most. I see that Korean aerospace company sent in a fat one and got a nice contract.
11
Nostalgia, yes, but also money given to him. He is all about rewarding donors. money is really all he understands. He has zero understanding of world trade, which is why he is doing very stupid things.
14
All industries, in fact almost everything has a 'life-span'. Targeting protection for 'mature' industries like coal and steel, has very limited advantages and actually will punish secondary and tertiary manufacturing industries. Putting tariffs on Chinese sectors that are the industries of the future without supporting the same US Industries, simply means the US will be behind the rest of the world in developing the new growth industries.
9
If you look at where the tariffs are being applied, most of it is not "high tech" at all, it's low-tech or medium-tech industrial intermediate goods and machinery that American factories use to make finished goods. I suppose if American companies can't buy a cheap Chinese machine they'll hire more low-wage workers? Not likely.
2
I don’t believe working in a coal mine is too rewarding, not to mention dangerous. Then using that coal to create energy also not so appealing for the air quality. I can’t see Americans beating down the door for a chance to work in a coal mine. But maybe I’m reading the average American incorrectly.
12
It’s a matter of National Security. If we don’t produce certain basic important economic staple items like steel then what happens if a war breaks out? What if there was a World War III that is a conventional war and we can’t manufacture the necessary armaments. Even without a war, what if there was a dispute between the US and China and China stops exporting steel to us? It’s not isolationism or mercantilism, it’s common sense. We have already allowed far too much manufacturing to leave the US.
National Security doesn't require capitalization, and doesn't require thermal coal any more, either. No foreign nation can stop the sun from shining or the wind from blowing, though.
Our national security would be enhanced if we put a price on carbon emissions, which would give nuclear a bit of a boost, while we continue rolling out the energy infrastructure that we (and the rest of the world) are shifting towards.
Coal's been losing market share and the lights stay on. As we finally mature as a civilization and stop using fire for our heating, power, transportation needs, we'll be a healthier society, and we'll have also addressed the fossil fuel addiction that our own military recognizes will make the world a less-stable, more dangerous place.
4
We make a lot of steel, It is just not in huge mills. "In 2014, the United States was the world’s third-largest producer of raw steel (after China and Japan), and the sixth-largest producer of pig iron. The industry produced 29 million metric tons of pig iron and 88 million tons of steel. Most iron and steel in the United States is now made from iron and steel scrap, rather than iron ore." (wikipedia). Relying on imports for some steel reduces possibility of war - that is one reasons the world trade was set up the way it is. Dolts like trump and his sycophants don't understand world trade so make stupid statements and polices.
2
My recommendation is for the administration to stop setting up an environment for war. Then you have nothing to worry about.
10
The word "progress" implies there is a goal, while "change" isn't clear on direction. We've got a lot of change going on, but without a clear goal (other than hoodwinking a few Democrats into voting Republican) we can't measure progress.
The trade deficit is up, so if that's the goal were going the wrong direction. If we're trying to create more manufacturing jobs, that was already happening without the phony trade war.
Real wages and real median household incomes are already close to their all-time high, although they grew faster under Obama.
The real problem our record-setting economy (since 2014) has remains the same: If we recast the 2012 income at the 1979 income distribution, the bottom 99% would have $7,000 more in income.
Rather than progress on that problem (as we had under Obama), we've got change.
9
This is what happens when a grown man who has never read beyond headlines about himself occupies the Oval Office. Trump has no understanding of history, the economy, geopolitics and bases his decisions on contradicting people for the sake of being spiteful then blaming them when it goes wrong. That has been his shtick all his adult life. His 95% (ers) wanted nostalgia so he gave them nostalgia. It is a dead end road which America will hit by 2020 but Trump doesn't care. A segment of the American population wanted an MGM musical version of America and Trump, a showman and snake oil salesman, gave it to them; deep.
27
It's like saying the model A Ford was a great car, we should have done all we could to keep production of that model going without changing the design.
16
How come no one ever talks about how the educated-class elites eliminated thousands upon thousands of solid, blue collar jobs when they started regulating the asbestos industry!
The asbestos industry assured everyone that there was no danger, but the administrative state just kept talking about "mesothelioma" this and "scientific consensus" that. And just look at how they've harassed the tobacco industry over the years. They treat any tobacco industry scientist who doubts the link between cigarettes and cancer as if they're lying. And all of a sudden it's "immoral" for a pharmaceutical and tobacco companies to downplay the addictive nature of their products? Just think about how many jobs we could create if we just let them do their thing! Why can't liberals stop speculating about how many millions of people have died or might die in the future and focus on job creation?
And now fossil fuel companies are going through the same thing. Coal companies pay many millions of dollars for scientists and lobbyists to refute their critics (Perry, back me up here); just like the asbestos, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries before them. Would they pay that kind of money for fraudulent scientific conclusions?
9
I hope this comment is intended as snark.
4
Yes, and just think how many jobs the US is losing because companies can’t taint baby formula. There’s huge profit in that! Those Democrats and liberals are just obstructionists!
10
It sounds similar to their advertising budget...
1
So coal has less people working for it than McDonalds. Less people than Starbucks, Less than Amazon. People Everywhere matter, but to be chained to a coal
Story is like being chained to blacksmiths (5-10 thousand in the US). I’m betting the equestrian industry is about the size of coal.
12
"Trump differs from his predecessors". Now that is the understatement of the year.
18
Trump also picks economic winners guided by greed. A few choice words from a president, leaked in advance to buddies like Icahn and Barrack, can make millions for them.
5
trump needed votes in West Virginia and Kentucky to get elected. now he is stuck with the coal miners who voted for him. Trump has no principles (except to give his voters whatever they want), and no plan for governing.
11
Construct economic policy regardless of its merits to firm up your political base is the primary strategy of a president potentially facing impeachment. The long term damage of this approach will hopefully be overlooked by 2020.
He doesn't represent this Republican voter! We should be making massive investments in renewable energy. The environmental blind spot in this administration will insure I cast my vote elsewhere.
11
All Republican politicians have this same "blind spot."
4
But where will you cast it? Have you the honour and honesty to cast it for a Democrat rather than a better Republican if that is what will ease us out of the corruption and destruction we are facing?
3
Why save thousands of clean energy jobs that pay well and work with modern technology in the real world when you can appease a bunch of coal miners yearning for black lung, and at the same time give the citizens that care about the air they breathe a good poke in the eye for not being Trump supporters.
His base is the least informed and deliberately ignorant group in the US today. That's why they were so very easy to fool... by a very accomplished con man who is now making sure that his marks think he is doing a good job. Sadly for Trump, everyone but his very base 'base' is holding their nose every time they read or hear the news.
Mr. Trump needs to leave his private unsecured phone in the White House, and take a trip out west via stagecoach. That would apparently fit in with his agenda, and would keep the world a safer, better place while he is making the long journey.
8
As one who experienced life in a coal mining community, I am thankful that I had a father who acknowledged that his greatest wish was that his children and grandchildren never set foot in a coal mine or work in the industry. He worked 40 years underground and died from complications of black lung disease before he was 60. His children, grandchildren and great grandchildren ave given him his wish.
Rational people want more for their children than that. It is easier to take a well paying job in coal mining than it is to fight for political and economic change in an area that has been strangled by big business and political leaders who prostituted themselves at the expense of their communities.
Our roots in the coal rich region go back to the late 1700s. None of us reside there due to lack of economic opportunities, adequate housing, poor air and water quality, depleted services, poor education systems and a lack of access to basic medical care.
Nostalgia for the “good old days “ and the support for Trump’s dreams of MAGA will put the region back even further from the ir dreams for their commmunities.
32
Thanks for the comment.
Each time Trump had a coal-promoting photo opportunity, I wondered if the fathers in that picture, the ones with oxygen tubes and tanks so they can stay alive, really intend to force their children into the same life. It would be like asking migrant workers in a slaughterhouse if they want their kids to join the family profession. Who'd wish black lung on their children?
8
I do not understand The Times' chronic predictable irresponsibility in covering energy issues. Whatever it is that you intend to say here, this isn't "nostalgia" at work. This is explicit favoritism of one kind of industry, explicitly at the expense of, and even the endangerment of, several others. You describe this with the smug numbness of uninvolved spectators.
Get on the ground where this war is happening, in the coastal cities where billions of dollars of the world's most valuable real estate is at risk. Get into the offices of FERC and ask them why, Trump appointments though they are, they are telling Trump that coal is done. You characterize instead of examining, and the outcome is an erroneous characterization like this headline that clarifies nothing.
4
This is not trade policy, it is tax policy. Who is going to start a new factory based on what could be a very temporary tariff? Would you invest a billion dollars into starting up a refrigerator company if you knew that two years from now you could be undersold by foreign competition? This is just a tax, and an incentive for foreign governments and companies to avoid talking to that crazy man in the park, until his care takers step up and start to take action...Well Speaker Ryan, when will Congress insert itself in protecting the economy?
2
Mister Art of the Deal is desperately out of touch with modern evolutionary capitalism, which makes defeating him not only much easier, but much more fun.
9
All the while China is investing in clean energy, artificial intelligence and it's national infrastructure.
8
The notion Mr. Trump "grew up with" and "worked on construction sites with" any of the blue collar workers he constantly woos is ludicrous. He grew up well off, and wasn't hanging out with any of the blue collar workers he loves to pat on the head with his rhetorical flourishes.
In reality, many blue collar folks from the New York area know that working for The Trump Organization put you at higher risk of not being paid for the work completed. Mr. Trump's gauzy portrayal of his unique relationship with them is just another aspect of his self-serving, non-stop marketing of himself at the expense of the truth.
31
The Trump phenomenon is largely one long, vicious temper tantrum in response to modernity. Pluralism, inclusiveness, environmentalism, and progressive economic policy are the boogie men to which Trump's base predictably recoils. They would as soon resurrect a corpse from the 1950s (or, at best, the 1980s) as try to make a go of it in the world that actually exists now. The silver lining is that time and change are always victorious eventually.
13
Fueled the nostalgia? Call it like it is: Fueled by ignorance AND corporate campaign donations.
8
As fossil fuel production and consumption continues to warm the planet, and especially as the documented increase in heat waves causes spikes in power demand, Trump & Co ignore the risk of forcing us to depend on large thermal power plants.
These plants require lots of water for cooling, and the water can't be too hot. Drought? Heat? Bad.
A 2012 study: "A study by European and University of Washington scientists published today in Nature Climate Change projects that in the next 50 years warmer water and lower flows will lead to more such power disruptions. The authors predict that thermoelectric power generating capacity from 2031 to 2060 will decrease by between 4 and 16 percent in the U.S. and 6 to 19 percent in Europe due to lack of cooling water. The likelihood of extreme drops in power generation—complete or almost-total shutdowns—is projected to almost triple."
http://www.washington.edu/news/2012/06/04/nuclear-and-coal-fired-electri...
Here's a list of US power curtailments due to heat and cooling issues :
"Water temperatures and water availability can affect the reliable operations of power plants in the United States.
Power plants can be affected by water resources if incoming water temperatures are too high, water discharge temperatures are too high, or if there is not enough water available to operate."
https://openei.org/wiki/Powerplant_Curtailments
2
Think of all those horse-drawn carriage drivers who need to be employed! Let's put our money on that one too, mr. president.
9
“The people that like me best are those people, the workers,” he told a rally in Missouri last year. “They’re the people I understand the best. Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.”
This is what I keep trying to explain to people - Trumps version of a successful America is that photograph "Lunch atop a skyscraper". Working white 'he-men' up in the air - no safety standards, no brown skins, lunched packed by their wives; building (as he imagines it) another Trump tower. He dreams of this era of America.
5
“We’re pushing through 3 percent” growth, Larry Kudlow said.
Correction – we are borrowing our way through 3 percent growth.
Since Trump assumed office our national debt has increased $1.2 trillion or 6 percent. Kudlow, and this administration, must stop telling half-truths which are misleading. This growth comes with a cost that he never discloses. It is Highly Unlikely the growth will continue at this pace. It is Highly Likely our national debt will continue to increase at this rate or faster.
We must find a way to hold self-interested and self-enriching Politicians and their staffers, from both parties, personally and financially liable, responsible and accountable for the lies they have told US, their gross mismanagement of our county, our $21T and growing national debt (106% of GDP), and approximately 80T in future, unfunded liabilities jeopardizing our economic and national security, while benefiting themselves, their party, and special interest donors.
http://www.usdebtforum.com
17
Economist do not agree on much, but economists across the ideological spectrum agree that tariffs cannot revive industries whose time has past.
The explicit point of tariffs is to intervene in the market by forcing purchases (companies and families) to buy products they otherwise would not buy. The market intervention is explicitly at freezing the status quo or, worse, returning to the past. You cannot argue for the market as the source of efficiency and innovation, but then impose tariffs.
So many people think that US tariffs "on China" or "on Canada" will be paid by Chinese or Canadians. No, tariffs re taxes paid by American purchasers, both companies and families. Taxes on American companies cost American jobs. You can't claim you are lowing taxes, but then impose tariffs.
These theoretical objections might be dismissed if there was any real prospect that tariffs will bring good jobs back home. They won't. Until recently, the education level of the American work force was the highest in the world. Now there are hundreds of millions of workers in China, India, and elsewhere with the equivalent of an American high school diploma, and higher. The simple fact is that workers of equal productivity abroad are prepared to accept lower wages than we demand. Investment in our people, in high tech (green?) industries may help. A more generous safety net, universal university education, and true free health care, might help. Tariffs will just prolong the pain.
12
Trump routinely pays 50% of the contract price and lets the other party sue him, knowing that such law suits cost a lot of money. The rationale: it is hard for others to fight back.
The same rationale justifies why the US, with 4% of the world's population, is entitled to use 24% of its resources (and Trump claims that we are being taken advantage of!). The rationale: it is hard for others to fight back.
Maybe if 2% more in resources went to Mexico, it wouldn't be so attractive for them to come here?
Most businessmen in the GOP would NOT do business with someone who routinely and consistently underpays like Trump, yet they would vote for him. They don't care to realize that they are reducing the country's credibility and soon the country to rubble? Dictator Trump is isolating us, that's why he doesn't care if there are tariffs. He is trying to clamp down on the media, so that we just won't know how abusive he is.
His old style mindset also believes that war is good for the economy. A war would make a nice justification for delaying the next election cycle.
7
Trump has no real understanding of economics as can be seen in his economic policies. The unfortunate thing is he has no real sound economic advise. This is reflected in his choice of advisors whose real qualification is that they have appeared on Television. This nation is currently being led by a crew of pretenders who haven't a clue to what is really going on.
1
If Trump is nostalgic, its for that first dollar he spent that wasn't followed by three withheld from someone else. How many of those he calls "his people" were left unpaid, or cheated by his fraudulent ventures in real estate classes and sham condo deals?
5
The old saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel needs to be changed to job creation is that safe place. Many of the recent acts of the Trump administration have been swaddled in saving or creating jobs. If you want to get someone’s attention threaten their livelihood. Trump has strategically targeted industries that turn to electoral success regardless of their effectiveness in helping the people or the nation. How long can he get away with this?
8
This guy is a two-dimensional thinker. He cannot comprehend the delicate balances of economics, nor consequences in general. There is nothing innovative about him, because innovation requires intelligence.
9
Don't underestimate him, he somehow won the Presidency, and that's never just by luck.
In many ways Trump's a genius, just like he tells us. The Trumpsters say he's playing 4-dimensional chess, and maybe so, since he's always one step ahead and no one is able to stop him.
1
Does anyone NOT think Trump and associates are profiting with insider information?
7
So Trump wants to name exactly what coal plants will get business? Grid operators will HAVE TO buy power from Trump favorites? And how will Trump come by his little list? What types of bribes will get your company's name on Trump's List?
Free Enterprise? Not in Trumpworld.
Trump apparently stopped thinking about many things in about 1970. I wouldn't call it 'nostalgia' but laziness and greed. You really don't have to think to hard when your entire goal in life is to bag as much money and women as you can for yourself.
Entire social and cultural movements seem to have passed Trump by. And he is probably still relying on the economic 'policy' told to him by his father.
4
Note the rapid recourse to “emergency powers”. This is not good. This is worse than Obama’s heavy reliance on executive powers to push policies though against implacable opposition.
3
Unfortunately when you have a person who doesn't read, daddy gave him his money, he didn't go to Viet Nam and is not involved in the current world, they have a tendency to exist in the past. The industrial past is littered with politicians and CEO's ,board members who refused to have a strategic vision position there companies as good stewards to address the changes that the future would bring. We can not go back. All these CEO's go to Aspen, technology meeting to see where the career /work positions are going to be, yet they still refuse to understand the world of science has moved on. The hearing with Facebook on Capital Hill showed how pathetic these politicians on the majority were, they didn't understand the answers nor the implications to the country of what Facebook had greedily done. The Europeans understood and the richest country didn't? Trump won't be happy till the country and the world is in another great depression. Ensuring that the safeguards for citizens removed so that the CEO can make more money for there future family members. What do we say to people who suffer from lung disease and they have no medical insurance ? What say you Trump and company to the families, your lives don't matter, your just the servants to the master race of corrupt rich people. Drain the swamp, the swamp is worst now than ever before. This morning we have been presented the facts about Roger Stone. He is just another example of corruption.
23
It's not nostalgia, it's ignorance. Trump has no idea what is going on in the real world.
16
"Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with." Uhhh, what?!! He really is off in his own reality.
11
Is this the "free market capitalism" the Republicans have been touting for generations? Hmmm. Opposed to any form of planned economy they now permit this madman to pick and choose the industry that serves his political interests first, and rational judgment never. And , what does he actually know about "industry"? His knowledge is real estate development. His history is checkered, and littered with bankruptcies and corruption. He deals in dishonesty. In fact, he is the most dishonest President ever, and arguably the most dishonest man any of us have ever known.
3
That is probably the best written lead I have ever read in the NYT. Bring it!
1
Trump, speaking about blue collar workers: "Those are the people I grew up with. Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.”
Another whopper of a lie from our Prez. Other than the servants who made up his bed each day, Trump probably never knew any working class people growing up, and I guarantee he never got his little hands dirty on any construction sites. Even on his projects, all the real work was done by others.
11
Donald is an elderly fool. He is going to create another farm crisis with his trade policies. He does not seem to realize that power plants are no longer fitted for coal and that converting back to coal is costly with a long long lead time. Finally, coal mining is now largely automated so there are no jobs to be created by returning to coal.
It's like listening to someone tell you about walking 2 miles to school in waist high snow wearing dress shoes when they were little.
5
" Those are the people I worked on construction sites with.”
The idea that Trump worked with someone on a construction site is amusing. And another lie.
16
Trump is incompetent to manage the American economy.
His track record consists of multiple bankruptcies.
He has no knowledge and is unaware of the complexities of the global economy. I fear he will harm our economy significantly with his amateurish and incoherent interventions.
11
How many Trump supporters will have to lose their jobs before they see that Trump's ignorant, intuitive trade policies are not going to fix trade deficits?
4
Trump's Republican party sure knows how to pick winners and losers- by the size of their "campaign" donations, AKA bribes.
1
This is beyond appalling, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of well paid jobs in the new economy for a few thousand dirty low paying jobs in the 1960s economy.
Where are the free market conservatives?
9
The correct headline: "Trump Backs Economic Losers, Guided by Donations"
The candidate who claimed his undocumented wealth meant he couldn't be bought was just kidding, like when he said he'd show his tax returns, or drain the swamp. So not surprising he's backing the overpriced, dangerous power source that just happens to have backed him with good old money during the campaign.
"How a Coal Baron’s Wish List Became President Trump’s To-Do List"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/climate/coal-murray-trump-memo.html
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/01/trump-donors-1-year-later/
4
Trump missed his calling back in 1985. He should have been cast in:
"Back to the Future"
3
And this is the point where China eat our lunch.
2
I think they are on to the third course already. They have 100 course banquets.
1
Nothing says "YUGE failure" like trying to implement policies that didn't work half a century ago. I hope never again to see an administration so clueless and directionless as the sad circus- led by the biggest clown in American history - we have now.
5
"By crafting an industrial policy that largely looks to the past, Mr. Trump differs from his predecessors, who often attempted to hasten the emergence of new industries and position the United States to lead the way."
Trump is caught in the past....and as a result,we are ceding our leadership in the goods and services of the future. The 20th Century was the American century....the 21st Century will belong to China and others due to this backward thinking. Through Trump's leadership we are handing it all over while disposing of our friends. Truly ignorant.
16
Reviving coal is Republican thinking at its best. Exactly like putting their money on the 3% of industry-shill scientists who say climate change is fake.
15
Interesting. A big part of the Trump administration's attack on China is about trying to undermine that country's industrial policy, which is geared towards the "industries of the future." Yet, here is the US, following an industrial policy of its own - but one geared towards resurrecting and subsidizing the dirty, obsolete industries of the past. All the while attacking and trying to sabotage the Chinese for just doing it better. Beside the hypocrisy and stupidity of this position, it is also worth noting that the US has had a long-running, direct government intervention industrial and social policy - it is called "funding for the Pentagon" and it absorbs an enormous chunk of direct government money.
5
The primary economic winner that Donald John Trump is picking is not guided by any nostalgia.
Trump is driven by whatever he is hiding from the American people in his personal and family income tax returns and business records. That is an immoral combination of the greatest sin aka pride along with the root of all evil aka the love of money. Greed is the path that Trump follows.
Trump inherited his landed wealth and power. Trump is no more a businessman than Queen Elizabeth II is a businesswoman. Winning the human genetic socioeconomic historical political lottery is not based on any merit nor qualifications. Trump's base hears his bigoted dog-whistles and follows him to their individual disadvantage.
14
"^MISguided by Nostalgia"
2
We are all in trouble after a year and a half of Mr. Trumps ignorance, ineptitude, and unwillingness to learn.
A dirtier environment, diminished American influence, and less-prepared workforce will be his legacy.
5
What is taking Mr Mueller so long
4
Sorry to say this, but NOTHING will come out of this ‘investigation’. The GOP and their wingnut donors will see to that. Trump is perfect for them. He keep the sheep entertained while blindly signing any piece of paper they put in front of him.
2
Nothing but a bunch of pesky facts.
4
yyaif Trump wants to revive the traditional manufacturing industries like Steel,. then he needs to cretae con
I think it is safe to say that Donald Trump without a doubt has the lowest IQ of any President before him.
12
Trump will go down in history as one of the most disgusting despicable human being that ever walked the earth.
10
Trump picks economic "winners" based on his lack of knowledge of everything.
Maybe he can bring back the buggywhip industry.
8
“Those are the people I grew up with.” He must have grown up in a different part of Queens than I did. Even today, the closest thing in Jamaica to a mine was the E/F Subway platforms. I must give him credit, he has the greatest memory when it comes to non-occurring events and revisionist facts. These aren't "his people" that he speaks of, these are the people his daddy would have had the "Help" release the dogs on if they came to his door or he would have had thrown out of a building he wanted to renovate.
6
Yeah, “Those are the people I grew up with.” would more accurately read "Those are the people I grew up stiffing when they subcontracted on my projects."
4
I'm just so sick and tired of stupid. Stupid ideas, stupid policies. When can we get some good common sense and fact-based governmental policies. What we have in the US now is a nightmare.
7
The Trump agenda is to sell poor, rural, aging white folks on a heavenly past that never existed.
It is delusional for them and disastrous to the rest of us, who actually want to live in the real present and prepare for the real future.
25
And who is surprised, really, that an unchecked fool would pursue foolish policies?
5
When you're guided by ossified prejudices and unable to see changes in the world, much less react to them, this is what you get.
3
… but sadly, not newspapers.
1
Bring back the IBM Selectric..and wordprocessors..and heck, why not carrier pigeons while we're at it.
13
And why not prospective tenant lists where the landlord could put a "C" next to the unwanted!
2
Because they have all been superseded by smoke signals. At night we prefer the drums.
1
Why stop there ?
How about coal-powered smoke signals?
1
with some luck, maybe he can bring back telephone switchboard operator, elevator operator, typewriter repair jobs...
/s
7
Trump's Chumps
Trump Chumps
We're the Trump Chumps
What kind of fools become the Trump Chumps?
Liars
Doormats
Fools without a brain
Bigots
Coal Heads
Even fools who are insane love
Trump Chumps
Holy Trump Chumps
The Chumps who've earned their lumps
2
Trump would be subsidizing the horse carriage factory on the outskirts of Detroit in 1908.
11
Did Trump heat the White House with coal this winter?
9
The Fake Dictator in Chief on all things is driving fast forward with his eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror … looking at himself … his ego and lies are his guiding compass.
America, its future, its wellbeing and its prosperity, does not matter to the Lier in Chief.
America is paying the price for his damaging and misguided strategies based on lies in all things.
10
Putting the word “winners” in quotation marks would be more truthful.
3
Be truthful. "Losers" is the Trump & Perry pick. Takes a loser to recognize one.
2
It's what a simpleton would do, tell Trump that Railroad Stock is not a big money maker any more.
3
I absolutely do not understand why anyone is surprised at President Trump's very successful way of operating. What else would you expect from a brilliant student, who graduated summa cum laude from The Joseph Goebbels College of Marketing and magma cum laude from The Joseph Stalin Institute of Loyalty for his dissertation, "Using Apprentices When 'Lock Him Up' Aint Enough: The Case of Leon Trotsky."
10
There's no fool like an old, demented, evil fool.
10
Let’s Make America 2050, not 1950.
8
One nice outcome of the flailing approach Trump is taking to try refilling the pockets of some of his big donors is he's driving even bigger wedges into the fossil fuel as a collective entity that's been fighting against our required need to stop using their products.
It's not even that he's picking winners, he's backing losers.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission looked at the first attempt at propping up coal, submitted by DOE head "Oops" Perry last year and said, basically, that he's nuts.
Utilities are benefiting from lowering power demand, and benefiting from a broader array of power supply - and the cheapest is more and more often coming from a wind farm or solar farm. For example, coal plants can't propose a 24 cents per megawatt hour wholesale price for a 25-year contract, like this solar provide is:
"On June 1, NV Energy filed for approval of a 300 MW power purchase agreement with the Eagle Shadow Mountain solar project at $23.76/MWh for 25 years. That price beats a $24.99/MWh contract signed this month in Arizona that GTM Research says was the lowest-cost solar contract in the nation. "
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nv-energy-23-cent-solar-contract-could-...
4
Mr. Trump's view of international trade and the U.S. economy fossilized sometime in the 1980's. He operates on outdated and erroneous assumptions. He does not take secondary, tertiary, or subsequent effects of his actions into account: for example, his imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum benefits U.S. steel and aluminum producers but disadvantages all who use imported steel and aluminum, far more significant for the economy. He and his crew of amateurs are about to inflict far more damages on our economy than benefits with his "easy to win" trade war misconception. Increases in COLA thanks to tariff retaliations will more than wipe out any gains in income received by the vast majority of us from the obscene Tax Cut Act. Remember in November!
6
This might help solve the problem. Letting Trump decide who gets to be a billionaire might not play well with the billionaire class. They might just spend some money to get rid of Trump.
Also, tech didn't exist in the "good old days" so Zuckerberg and others might wake up in time...
2
Trump condemned prior president for picking "winners" by subsidizing certain industries in emerging technologies. His solution, instead, essentially is to pick rust industry losers -- coal and steel, for example.
His protectionist schemes are antiquated and will actually hurt jobs. His steel tariffs illustrate the wrong-headedness of his policies. His steel tariffs seek to protect the production of raw steel, but in fact the thriving "steel" manufacturers in the U.S. import steel in the form of slabs and coils, rather than making it from iron ore. His tariffs will only hurt these domestic steel manufacturers by raising their acquisition costs of steel.
4
Pulling for the coal industry is like hoping that the Pony Express will make a comeback.
3
The future is inevitable, the past will never return despite Mr.Trump's efforts to force coal production.Coal was what we used to heat our homes seventy five years ago.It was dirty and it smelled.I have to smile when I see Trump holding tightly to old technologies to retain jobs.My great grandfather was a whaler and for some years harvested the whale oil used in lamps before electricity.No one worried about putting whalers out of business- they rightfully embraced the wonderful new technology of electricity!Mr.Trump, get over whale oil and coal and embrace wind and solar.Move into the twenty first century.
8
Typical, the GOP's greatest ideas have, at least for the few decades, whatever happened in the 1950's. They have been this on social as well as economic and defense issues. Only tax policy has seen any kind of modernization, to the detriment of deficits.
3
These are the people he grew up with?I dont think so ,he grew up in jamaica estates quuens and area of big beautiful homes,that these people that he refers to could never afford,He did not attend public school and then went to the Military academy because he was a bad boy.I should know I was one of these people who grew up in the very middle class part of queens and went only to public school until college where I got a full ride ,otherwise it would have been QUEENS COLLEGE a great city college
2
With the incredible increase production of natural gas, from fracking and other more efficient production techniques, per BTU, natural gas is about as cheap as coal. However, gas fired turbine electrical generators have no solid wastes to consider nor funky ponds to put that waste in. Turbines can be started up and shut down almost instantaneously compared to cumbersome coal fired facilities. Then of course, there are the added environmental considerations and obvious benefits. Simply stated, generating power from natural gas is both less expensive than coal and the facilities are much cheaper to run, which is why power companies are shutting down their coal operations and turning to gas turbines, regardless of what the Trump administration tells them. Forcing them to burn coal by law or edict from the Department of Energy, is tantamount to forcing companies to prohibit the use of computers and hiring more accountants.
3
with those hand-cranked pencil sharpeners !!
1
Now he is committing thousands of instances of child abuse, according to that ‘fake news site’ the United Nations. No action from any other GOP leader at any level. Words, yes, but still no action from the weak Congressional leaders or the politicized US Supreme Court. So I guess the rest of us are to obediently sit here on our hands while a former talk show host destroys families, loots a charity and obstructs justice on a daily basis? Methinks it’s not just the water in Flint.
4
Trump needs coal politically. There's no other justification or explanation needed. Protecting coal is not an economic decision despite whatever Larry Kudlow says. If Trump loses Coal Country, the Rust Belt will follow. You can imagine the Midwest manufacturing towns aren't far behind. Not to mention the damage Trump's trade war is causing throughout all the above regions and more. He's toast in 2020 without coal's support. The industry is symbolic to the larger commitment he's not fulfilling.
The most terrifying part however is the DOE memo. Seizing control of energy resources under false pretenses is not something that happens in first world countries. We should be very afraid that the idea was even suggested. Where is the public reprimand? What say you Congress?
17
]Once again the GOP proves what a bunch of rank hypocrites they are. For generations, they have been yelling that government is the problem, that government interfering with business is "socialism", they accuse the Democrats of social engineerings, of wanting to create massive wealth distribution..what do you call this? With Coal, businesses made decisions based on their best interests and coal, like carbureutors on cars, went the way of the dinosaur. So now suddenly the GOP is basically telling businesses to use coal or else, how is this any different than the 5 year plans in the old USSR? Rather than giving people a path to the future, the GOP is trying to remake the past and it is going to fail. Despite the GOP making every attempt it can to sink alternative energy, the solar industry and windfarms have made great strides and unless the GOP puts huge taxes on them, they no longer need subsididies to be profitable, they are becoming cheaper than oil or gas in many cases. Trump putting Tarriffs on Chinese goods is part of this, the US turned its back on Solar development, the Chinese have run with it and the price and output of solar cells has soared, so Trump is using the Tariff to try and make Solar power too costly again, it isn't like he is trying to protect US makers.
But hey, let's go back to the 1950's, where everyone was white, well paid, and a man and everyone one else knew their place. Ladies and Gentleman, "Caucasian Park" is open for business.
3
Of course President Obama’s policy to encourage alternative energy has created numerous manufacturing jobs, in other countries.
Modern is wonderful but where are the jobs?
We had quite a few of them here in New Mexico, well paying ones too, designing and installing solar systems for residential and commercial use. As an immediate impact of increased tariffs on those solar panels, those jobs disappeared.
5
They're out there.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/25/climate/todays-energy-job...
1
Psst! Hey Donald! If you outlaw the use of heavy machinery in coal mining, there will be more jobs for coal miners!
[Of course, this would make coal more expensive, but the DOE already has a fix for that.]
2
To indulge #45's embrace of nostalgia, I suggest taking away his cellphone (no more tweets) and replacing it with a pay phone booth in the oval office.
13
Brilliant.
Pretty soon we'll see the return of horse-drawn carriages and the cotton gin. Hurray for regression!
2
No you won’t. Trump enjoys his helicopter and airplanes too much. As for
You, back to horse drawn carriages as you are no Trump
1
Anyone who believes that Trump is acting in America's best interest and not the best interest of the super-wealthy corporatists who helped grease him into office, is well....a classic Trump fan. No other way to put it.
6
Why limit the lifeline to coal and gas? While we're at it, we can provide incentives to increase production of records and CDs and landline telephones and fight to restore jobs for elevator operators.
9
And while he’s at it, Trump might as well bring back smithing horseshoes.
2
Oil and natural gas depend heavily on foreign suppliers. The US has huge proven coal reserves. There is a legitimate strategic interest in retaining the capacity for self-sufficiency.
Fission plants are attractive for this reason, too, among others.
"Eww, yucky" as a gut reaction shouldn't be both the start and end of one's policy position.
5
John....manmade fossil-fuel-based global warming is real and is dangerous.
Coal is the filthiest fossil fuel out there; subsidizing it is both uneconomical and environmentally disastrous, akin to sticking your head in a coal mine for the fresh air.
https://chemical-materials.elsevier.com/chemical-rd/coal-worst-fossil-fu...
What's the point of subsidizing a filthy losing technology ?
There is a legitimate strategic interest in preserving the planet instead of raping Mother Nature.
58
I'm aware of the scientific consensus on climate change and concur with it.
The strategic interest is maintaining generation capacity that could be operated solely on domestically sourced fuel.
Coal may have historically been mined and burned dirtily, but it doesn't have to be.
Farmers are subsidized annually because we believe it's in our interest to keep them around.
There is no alternative to eating food.
Coal can be replaced by clean energy - wind, solar, geo etc and topped up with nuclear.
Coal is the low performer - it is dropping off the list of economic choices.
look forward - not back
1
Nobody will ever accuse him of being intelligent or even mildly smart. His string of business failures attest to his pathetic lack of reality acumen. His political scenario is no different. He is heading for total disaster and, of course, he will President Obama, the Martians and the Venusians but never the real culprit...himself.
19
Nuclear power plants, e.g., Diablo Canyon in CA and Three Mile Island in PA, are being shutdown for economic reasons. The builders of these plants vastly underestimated the maintenance costs, just ask the owners of the San Onofre plants in SoCal. In this instance, the primary heat exchangers failed. Rather than fix this multi-millions of dollars problem, the owners decided to shut down all the reactors at this site. It is always the economics folks.
9
Are we really sure Trump is not a Russian agent. That is what Putin would do to weaken the US, no?
31
There really is not one area of Presidential thought that is not half-baked or totally devoid of sense. This one isn't just stupid it is destructive to both our economy and the planet. So of course over the cliff we go, screaming lies with bravado as we plunge. Yee-hah!
19
It's incredible how wrong-headed Trump's actions are.
On the one hand, he cuts regulations citing them as reins on the economy, while on the other, he sets up trade barriers and contemplates mandating which energy sources may be used setting up even bigger reins on the economy.
It's hypocritical to say the least.
6
“Those are the people I grew up with.” Really? I had no idea that so many coal miners and steelworkers were really rich kids who were working in tough jobs just for the fun of it.
Most depressing is that, without a doubt, the crowd responded to Trump’s comments with cheers and chants of “Lock her up”, instead of howls of derisive laughter as they would have had it been anyone other than Trump. It is sad to see so many people revel in the whining, malicious, ignorant and gullible cartoon that Trump has made of them.
I read recently that the 800 jobs that were created when a steel plant reopened will be offset by the loss of 12,000 jobs in industries that use steel.
34
The authors say that President Trump is supporting "workforces [that] have been hurt by globalization, automation and innovation." They leave out that workers have been hurt by an attack on union rights and the rights of workers. What many commentators, left & right, miss is that coal & steel were not good jobs because of something magic about those industries. They were good jobs because they were unionized. If the administration wants to support good jobs for working class people it should be supporting union rights across all industries.
51
The only union Trump loves is the one for prison guards.
1
There are a lot of secretaries and receptionists out there who lost their jobs in the 80s when PCs and voicemail came in.
Why not ban computers and mobile phones and make everyone use typewriters and write pink slips for messages?
38
Noooooooo.....if you ban cell phones, tRump won't be able to communicate, if that's what it's called...........Oh, wait, on second thought.....
2
Trump basically wants to return to the 1950s not only economically but socially and politically. He wants the world the way it was then, when white male Americans were all that counted, and other races, genders and nationalities (except maybe Russian men) were invisible or silenced.
15
The bottom has already dropped out. That's the point.
1
State-controlled markets! Trump is promoting sectors of the economy that are not only more expensive and less efficient, but also approaching obsolescence!
16
Trump and his supporters are nostalgic for a time when jobs required little education, when the little woman stayed home to take care of the kids, when minorities knew their place and there wasn't all this equal opportunity nonsense.
Since the dawn of time the human race has had to adapt to change in order to survive. We are not going to uninvent computers, robots, or renewable energy just so somebody can have the same job that his daddy and grampa had. Trump lies and claims he will turn back the clock and his base just eats it up. They won't change, they won't adapt, in the long run they'll end up on the ash heap of history.
50
As a child in the 60's, I recall hearing on the news how the coal miners suffered with diseases and in particular black lung. I remember parents and grandparents dying so their children wouldn't have to work in the killing mines. I also remember the weekly reports of cave in's, with "X" number of fatalities and methane explosions. They had these jobs because there were no alternatives but they prayed hard their kids would be spared from this sentence.
The children of these "suffering for many generations" people voted for a man who is working to bring back the very painful death their kin worked so hard to free them of, is not lost to irony. Instead of moving them forward, he is committing them to poverty, sickness and death of which he has no concern and in fact, expects them to say "Thank You" for their measure. If they didn't bring this pox upon themselves, it could be construed as pitiful.
6
and to think republicans blasted Obama for “picking winners.”
Oh the hypocrisy. Anyone at the DNC listening? Or will you be trotting out Warren, Saunders, Booker, Biden aka, “the unelectables” as the answer?
6
This is an electoral strategy, not an economic one. Coal mining and metal manufacturing are in states that gave him the presidency. He's paying off his supporters and looking to the next election.
15
Trump is guided by our most needy, which is the right and compassionate thing to do. Our industrial and manufacturing sectors were key to making this country great.
Just because our fool politicians have signed "free" (not "fair") trade deals with countries like China, it doesn't mean we should completely abandon our workers. Yes, the jobs aren't coming back, but we can stop the hemorrhaging and give our workers time to adjust. We owe them that much.
"at the expense of some of the country’s fastest-growing sectors .... and the retaliatory tariffs China has threatened to impose — will end up hurting America’s own growth industries."
Trump is not hurting our growth industries with respect to China. China is hurting them. China completely bans our best and most innovative technology companies from competing in China. It bans Facebook ($570B market cap). It bans Google ($800B market cap). It bans Twitter. It bans Snapchat. It bans the NY Times. It bans Pinterest. It bans Instagram. It bans most Hollywood films. It bans Apple's iBooks and iTunes Movies offerings and Disney's video-streaming service.
It bans our most valuable, growing technology companies.
Worse, China strongly favors domestic competitors, such as Tencent, Alibaba, ZTE, etc.
Previous administrations have taken this lying down. No more. Trump gets personally aggravated when ripped off and is imposing tariffs to gain leverage ahead of negotiations.
2
Trump strongly favors ZTE - but hey, it has nothing to do with his own family's business dealings in China, I'm sure.
So, the coal industry has been shedding jobs for decades as automation increased, as the Powder River mines outcompeted the shrinking number of workable seams in Appalachia, and as the free market and fracking blew up the coal companies that bet gas was getting more expensive, not less, a decade ago.
So you claim Trump cares for the poor? Their electricity will get more expensive under his order. Pollution from outdated plants will continue, because Pruitt the petty grifter wants to benefit the owners at the expense of everybody's health. The tax package rewards the wealthy, and builds deficits. Lame-duck Ryan promised when that law passed (without being read) that he'd now turn to cutting the safety net because deficits!
Trump and his party's attacks on healthcare during an opioid epidemic aren't helping, and will make it harder for the workers coping with addiction get work again. I'm hoping the Trump voters in Ohio, West Virginia and New Hampshire (hardest hit by addiction) pay attention to how caring he is.
Maybe you define poor differently?
36
Funny you mention ZTE. He's trying to save them too even though our own military and intelligence professionals say they are a threat! Ahh, the art of the deal! MAGA!
5
Trump knows absolutely nothing about compassion and neither do you.
Who wants to invest in my effort to revitalize the buggy whip industry?
15
Me, me! And I don't care if it will increase the costs to the buggy-whip-buying public! Come to think of it, won't his tariffs on metals make buggies themselves more competitive nowadays, with so much of their construction being wood? Time to invest in coach horses and manure collection services again.
2
"By crafting an industrial policy that largely looks to the past, Mr. Trump differs from his predecessors"
please stop this. he is "crafting" nothing. please find this word in a good dictionary and take in the historic context of it's meaning. you are part of the problem...... as a supposed gate keeper of the truth you have failed by normalizing what this man is doing.
33
This is so true, and I am sorry that I can only recommend this once.
Trump and his enablers are economic gangsters, and although they have a rational plan for their protection racket, “craft” is not a word that I’d apply in any of its normal senses.
2
Other countries should co-ordinate their tariffs against the US. No soybeans anywhere. No Kentucky whiskey. Trump started a trade war. Those countries who are the traditional allies to America but are now pose "a danger to our national security" like Canada should follow international agreements like the WTO, but they should work in concert against the bad actor.
9
News Flash: Trump to revive the telegram industry.
Facing unfair competition from texting, email and smartphones, Trump has vowed to restore the telegraph industry to its former glory. Millions of people will be hired to transport telegrams to recipients on bicycles. Hotel lobbies will once again have telegram bell boys to deliver telegrams to people in restaurants, bars and lobbies.
23
So Trump’s trade policy is just to stoke those Rust Belt voters that got him elected. The workers in cutting edge industries didn’t vote for him. In general, all of Trump’s policies are to serve Trump, and only Trump, regardless of what they do to the country.
19
News Flash!
Trump is a socialist! In fact, Trump is the worst kind of socialist. He is a Soviet style socialist. This should not surprise anyone as he idolizes a Soviet born and bred authoritarian dictator.
Trump is attempting to implement a Soviet style planned economy where the government dictates how capital resources are allocated for purely political and control reasons. This is a complete abandonment of a Western style free market economy. This is the ultimate extension of picking winners and losers. He is going beyond price incentives and dictating how companies must spend their money.
The reason coal is dying is because the market is replacing it with cheaper and better alternatives. Even with subsidies, no one is being forced to buy any particular source of green power. The requirements implemented with clean power don't say how those goals should be met, just be met. Anyway, liberals do stuff like that, not conservative libertarian Republicans. Something to do with saving the planet and life quality issues.
One could make the same argument against ethanol, which is a huge waste of money and consumes as much energy as it saves, if not more. But two wrongs don't make a right.
So maybe Trump isn't a fascist after all. maybe he is becoming a Stalinist style dictator. After all,he does have a good teacher in Vladimir Putin.
29
I would not call Putin a "good teacher", just one that keeps his people addicted to drugs and alcohol long enough to get them to support him and their bad behaviors.
Russia...a country in decline, and the US will follow if it does not rid itself of tRump soon.
1
Just like keeping the ice block business afloat now that we have refrigerators doesn't make sense, so to does halting a transition in energy generation. We need to move forward with new technology to produce more climate friendly alternatives that will leave the air we breathe just a bit better.
That being said, we cannot forget the people whose entire lives have depended on these fossil fuel dependent jobs. We should be training these workers for the future so that they don't get left out of a new economy. Training in green energy, coding, or anything else. We need the Appalachian Regional Commission to keep this going. Trump's initial cut proposal for the program shows that he wants to keep these fossil fuel workers right where they are, vulnerable.
An economy is strongest when everyone gets involved. From sea to shining sea. Having a job that has a bright future and can make enough money to support themselves and their family should not be something reserved for the lucky few. We're too stuck in the past and we need leaders who can look ahead to the future.
19
This is what happens tyranny of the religious, regressive, Republican, backward minority is allowed to flourish.
Instead of a clean, economical solar and wind technology revolution, you get a 'beautiful', delicious, nutritious filthy coal devolution.
Instead of voting rights; you get voter suppression.
Instead of leading the world with American smarts and ingenuity; you get a world embarrassment of Dumb and Dumber Whites R Us making a mockery of Jesus Christ with their anti-Christ behavior.
Instead of leading a human rights, you get a Racist-In-Chief ripping children from their mother's arm who helps ban contraception worldwide with Global Gag Orders.
Instead of healthcare, you get nothing...and a beautiful lump of black coal.
63 million Deplorables voted for this backward demagogue who validates their spite and stupidity.
Vote on November 6 2018 for mart adult oversight of America's Moron-In-Chief who is intent on making intelligence obsolete.
71
A possible slogan by the coal industry for the next election- 'A lump of coal in every stocking'
4
That it's what you get when, instead of winding the mighty sword of truth, Democrats wave the sorry triangle of retreat, compromise, and capitulation. Democrats have triangulate themselves out of office
The Republicans have now proven they don't believe in anything except tax cuts and lying.
Can't we stop negotiating with proud professional liars as if they haven't led and lied for decades?
1
The good old boys cabal yearns for the days of death, destruction, no regulation and using underpaid, under-educated peons to maintain their stolen wealth.
Time for the good old boys to give it up. WE THE PEOPLE do not want the kind of world they envision.
Not now. Not ever again.
28
The problem is that there are some Americans who still work in “nostalgia” industries. Not everyone is able to work in hip industries. As President Trump stated in his historical inauguration address, the American worker will no longer be forgotten, as he/she had been by previous administrations. I would add to President Trump’s remark, that the American worker would no longer be maligned and marginalized and dismissed because their work is environmentally incorrect.
3
Maybe you could open a buggy shop. That's a nostalgia industry. The world will move forward with or without us.
Lead, follow or get out of the way. We are moving toward getting out of the way.
1
@Southern Boy - You really need to read the article: "The solar industry alone now employs twice as many people as the coal industry does. Solar installers, wind technicians and oil and gas drill operators are all expected to be among the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics."
1
Imagine it is the year 1900 and the president has a choice whether to prop up the buggy-whip industry, or to encourage and support the new industry of automobiles. Which would you think would be best for America? Of course we know the answer, and the same holds today - there is no turning the clock back, at least not if you want America to stay a leader in innovation.
1
"On energy, both the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations enacted tax breaks and federal loan guarantees for emerging technologies like wind power or electric cars that were not initially competitive but, they believed, would eventually become widespread as the world shifted toward cleaner energy."
Here is an example Trump is honestly consistent - He not only blames China's support of high tech industries like Obama but also does not do the heavy lifting for the domestic ones. It seems that we are saying he is terribly wrong.
3
On Wednesday Trump plans to meet with the buggy whip lobby.
103
And on Thursday, a delegation from the typewriter and carbon paper sector, because Trump hears that some people are saying that this computer thing won't last.
5
Existing coal-fired power plants should be shut down and converted to natural gas or replaced by new nuclear plants. Existing nuclear plants should not be shut down. Research should be subsidized by the government into advanced reactor designs that are safer and "burn" more of the nuclear fuel, reducing the amount of waste. Renewables are a vital part of the energy mix, but they should not be the only technology that we use. Wind and solar are intermittent and need to be backed up by natural gas and nuclear. Otherwise, we will not be able to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. Coal is a technology of the past; nuclear is not.
21
Wind and solar can be leveled with battery storage. The argument that they’re intermittent is long out of date.
In fact, nuclear power itself is intermittent, although on a longer time scale, as reactors need refuelling and repair (if that’s even possible after some accidents). Its time has come and gone.
10
Global Charm:
Solar is intermittent on a daily time scale; wind is intermittent because the wind doesn't always blow. To store all of the power needed to "level" the intermittency of wind and solar would require huge battery facilities or the deployment of a fleet vast fleet of electric vehicles. Manufacturing batteries requires mining of lithium and other metals. Batteries have a finite life and would need to be disposed of and replaced. Solar panels have a life of 20-30 years and would need to be replaced also, generating hazardous waste containing heavy metals. Modular reactors are being developed that could obviate the need to shut down a single large reactor for refueling by substituting multiple small reactors for a large one. Reactor technologies are available that would extract more energy from the nuclear fuel, drastically reducing waste. There are economic and environmental costs for all energy-generating technologies. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Every thing was good until your second sentence.
1
Trump is like the pied piper of German folklore, except instead of luring the rats out of town, he's encouraging them to return. Forces far stronger than the government can counter have brought an end to coal, and efforts to revive this dinosaur will prove fruitless and harmful. Trump doesn't make his plans based on any scientific approach to what's best for America's future, but rather on a direct appeal to the likes and needs of his base. What feels good right now is not always best for our future.
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
52
Maybe the hand shovel industry can come back by restraining the use of hydraulic power in earth moving equipment.
48
This policy is much, much easier to understand if you recognize it as part of the ongoing war against the middle class. The plutocrats that actually run this country are prevailing in their efforts to roll back the economic equality measures that were put into place during the 1930s to forestall a Communist revolution.
The pro-pollution environmental policies only make sense if you recognize them as a sop to the fossil fuel industries - an attempt to keep them from having to deal with trillions of dollar sin stranded assets.
The heartless immigration policies are a perfect tool to terrorize the immigrants amongst us into shutting the heck up, reducing pressure to improve working conditions or wage, and thereby lowering wages for the native-born.
The effectiveness of demonizing "The Other" has been proven time and time again..... and this won't stop until our voters recognize what is being done to them.
51
Well said, sir.
2
Maybe we should reconsider the concept of stranded assets in the fossil-fuel context. The underground reservoirs of petroleum are not assets in the sense that a warehouse full of manufactured products is. They are largely just leases, options, the contractual rights to spend huge sums to extract the stuff, process it, and sell it at a profit. Each lease comes with risks such as dry holes and BP-grade blowouts, not to mention the slowly tightening screws on the future of widespread reliance on fossil fuels.
So they're only assets in the sense that the owners can take risks for profits in exploiting them.
What puzzles me is why the titans of oil and gas don't direct their clout and resources toward becoming the titans of renewables. Really invest in technologies, exploit economies of scale, garner market share (and even dominance) on merit, and be respected and admired as they move their companies into a healthier, sustainable future.
For captains of industry, they sure are short on imagination and vision.
4
Mr. Trump is not a forward thinking person. He's stuck in a bygone era. As are many of his supporters.
115
Hey Trump, don’t forget the buggy whip industry! Bring back the buggy whip industry and all those jobs lost when horseless carriages started taking over our streets. It is not fair that those people lost their jobs!
And think about all those people in the horse & stable industry that lost jobs as those infernal internal combustion engines started burning gasoline instead of hay. It’s not fair and the hay farmers and groomsmen vote too. Remember that when you are picking and choosing winners and losers in our economy.
Our past is glorious; everything was wonderful, no one suffered or was oppressed. Everyone worked 6 or 7 days a week to make ends meet, and at low wages too! It was a glorious time for New York landlords and tenant owners. Who could not love that past?
6
Gee, why not bring back video rental stores?
Trump neglected to mention that he failed to pay many of the construction workers on his job sites.
141
Yeah, and that comment about working alongside them. He has never worked a day in his life.
4
He knows how to talk to construction wishes because he has been lying to then for decades.
1
Trump’s failure to pay for work arises out of backward-looking to before work was done. For Trump, not paying makes sense. One does not pay for work not done. His workers disagreed, but they are not billionaires and do not see tricks. How else would they get so rich?
I wouldn't look in last night's garbage to create today's meal. Always looking backward. I'm thinking he does it on purpose to further weaken the US. "She's taking water, Lads! More coal!"
40
...and the world moves on without us.
The GOP/trump has reduced our national value to ash.
67
Trump is the rider sitting backwards in the saddle. The horse, aka technology, doesn't care what he says or does.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are moving right along experimenting with solar panels in roads!
I don't know whether to weep or vomit.
152
you can probably do both!.... and right after? sign up for a class in mandarin.
1
Funny, but when reading your first sentence, I had an image of trump looking in a mirror.
1
Both would seem appropriate.
1
"While administration officials are still debating how they might do so, any plan to rescue these power plants would probably entail dramatic government intervention in America’s energy markets and come at the expense of newer, cheaper power sources like natural gas or wind."
I thought people like Trump hated big government that meddled in certain industries, picked winners and losers for subsidies in emerging technologies!
So what's the difference between meddling to pick winners in dead sectors and meddling to subsidize the growth of future ones? The former can only be of finite advantage while the latter at least recognizes reality.
I'd read about that forcing the American consumer, and businesses, to purchase electricity off an outdated, propped up coal producing energy source and how it would cost more for dirtier product.
This president keeps reinventing the wheels of industries whose glory days were almost two centuries ago, while ignoring the future.
This is what happens when you put into an office a person who knows absolutely nothing about how the world works outside his private (and often corrupt) little world of real estate, golf courses, and "branding.
This will not end well.
107
@Christine McM Re: "So what's the difference between meddling to pick winners in dead sectors and meddling to subsidize the growth of future ones?"
Here's the difference: Trump has buddies in the coal industry, not in solar/wind industries, so his heart, mind and policies support a dying technology rather than one the technology of the future (which is actually here now). Trump favors the welfare of his few accomplices in the coal industry rather than the likes of you and me.
39
For these reasons, and others, his policy will fail and the US economy will ultimately stall out into decline. These old industries have been declining for a reason, they were no longer competitive in a global marketplace. Wishing it were not so will not change reality.
This is the exact issue - Pres. "Not-Obama" is picking winners and losers, sacrificing 400,000 American jobs that will be lost/not created, in order to give jobs (maybe ?) to his voters.
And the way the Trumpists are doing this is through raising taxes (um, er, tariffs).
23
@R.Law - In this case, Trump is putting our money on losers.
2
If this corruption and madness of a an economic policy continues, it will into a boomerang and at some point in the future come back and hit the US economy hard. Trump’s use of Twitter cannot disguise the fact that he pursues the dream of a yesteryear world.
26
obama tried to pick winners in the renewables..and the NYT/Left cheered. maybe the NYT/Left ought to be more intellectually consistent and ask that the govt stop supporting ANY industry. wouldnt that be nice?
1
NY state paid for the Erie Canal and NYC surged past Philadelphia and Boston in growth. The federal government subsidized the railroads, the electronic grid, oil and gas exploration, highways, airports, internet and weather and communication satellites. Smart government policies look to the future, not the past.
163
Government is supposed to work for the health and wellbeing of all citizens. Supporting industries that benefit the country should be part of sound government policy.
29
We on the left don't believe that the government shouldn't support industry. We just believe that the government should support industries that are on their way up, not ones that are dying out for good reason.
And the government has a very strong track record pushing technological progress forward: rural electrification, the Manhattan Project, the space race, the internet, etc.
In Trump's case, it's not a problem that he's picking some winners. It's that he's literally pulling technological progress backwards.
And, interestingly enough, Republicans should agree with us. Coal is dying because of natural, free market forces. Renewable energy has numerous benefits that coal simply does not, so when renewables become cost-efficient relative to coal, as is happening quickly, coal should die -- and everyone will be better off.
187
"By crafting an industrial policy that largely looks to the past, Mr. Trump differs from his prredessors....." I expext the White House to announce a new policy designed to re-invigorate the lost industry of buggy manufactoring. Let's make buggys and make America great again.
30
Every village needs a blacksmith.
3
This is the Trump agenda in a nutshell.
It's a 'revanchist' one, in a cultural sense.
That's why nothing he's doing makes sense in an objective way, but resonates with his followers.
It recalls that scholar of the Nazis, Fritz Stern, who described the “conservative revolution” that prefigured National Socialism in the following manner:
“The movement did embody a paradox: its followers sought to destroy the despised present in order to recapture an idealized past in an imaginary future.”
Didn't work then. Won't work now.
264
Nostialischer revanchismus an einem engen Seil (on a tight rope)....
Great quote!
I know Trump does not read, but, someone in his administration needs to read the Empire of Cotton---which, describes in great detail how relentless capitalism is in pursuing cheaper materials and cheaper labor--You would think Trump, Mr. Capitalism, would understand the iron law of markets.
51
Trump's economic policies have nothing to do with markets, capitalism, or even economics, for that matter. He's doing this solely for voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio. The fact that it's bad policy makes no difference if it wins him swing state votes.
75
Mr. Capitalism, hah. Trump isn't any good at the stuff he's supposed to be good at. Using Trump's own numbers, since 1976, he has underperformed the commercial real estate market by 57%(MarketWatch). What could he possible know about real business?
7
Too bad Democrats didn't offer to help rust belt workers, with policies that would actually work. They were too busy trying to appease the Republican Party.
Trump's deplorables have been left behind.
How about leaded gasoline and paint? More jobs
How about no more internet commerce and technology? More jobs
How about no more minimum wage? More jobs
The future? Be afraid, be very afraid.
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Trump's trade wars will likely lead to Trump's recession. Think about that!
32
he'll never take ownership. it will be a democrat caused recession and his zombie followers will agree.
11
A handsome gratuity comes from the established, fading industries. Trump Inc., a brand that accepts all emoluments.
59
OK then - lets build a coal fired power station next to Mar A Lago. If it's OK for the rest of the nation why should Palm Beach Florida miss out?
343
you realize, of course, that the Left is the most NIMBY? can we build a garbage recycling plant and needle distribution center next to you? this NIMBY stuff is a bad argument. better to debate the merits
2
What's OK for America would not be OK for Mar A Lago? Why is that? I'm actually advocating sharing - both the spoils of wealth and the spoilage needed to create it.
Great idea. Old-school, unregulated design, the cheapest, dirtiest technology, sited upwind and running at full capacity 24/7. No automation, no local transit, no nearby affordable housing, so the pretty place where the rich folk live can choke on a local rush hour three times a day and a steady stream of giant coal trucks or a grimy rail spur. No on-site cafeteria, so develop a little fast-food ghetto next door.
It might make them beg for a few windmills offshore instead.
3
Remember the days when Republicans were sharply and universally criticizing the Obama administration for "picking winners and losers" because his administration was encouraging development of clean energy (think Solyndra). To hear them talk Obama was following his "Socialist" tendencies and inappropriately applying the heavy hand of government into what they considered the wonderfulness of the "free market".
Now these same sycophants are 100% in support of the Trump administration ignoring market realities and doing everything in their power to push coal, an outmoded and filthy energy source. All in the name of politics.
Obama correctly decided that is IS appropriate to use the government to push the marketplace in a direction beneficial to the well being of the people. Capitalism isn't perfect. Governments can, indeed should, use their powers to nudge it in the right direction when needed.
Republicans, on the other hand, have capriciously decided to ignore their "fundamental" belief AND have made a bad choice as to which "winner" they have picked.
In one stroke Republicans have demonstrated both their profound hypocrisy AND their regressive stupidity. I guess we should congratulate them for being efficient.
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Solyndra was a solar company started under the Bush, not Obama administration, and it was funded by the Bush team. It did fail, and who knows if it wasn't designed to fail so GOPers could point to its collapse... Everywhere else solar companies are thriving, despite Trump trying to run them out of business by raising tariffs on solar panels and giving big subsidies to coal.
4
Well, it's clearly not socialist if it gets *you* a job.
1
GOP stalwarts, like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul, have always been big Ayn Rand fans. In her books, big govt bad guys protected failing and dying industries, instead of letting markets and freedom do its job of evolving industries.
Trump is opposite of Ayn Rand, wanting to force protection of coal plants, when the clear winners are Natural Gas, solar, and wind.
Funny when GOP is champions of govt interference.
54
In "Atlas Shrugged", John Galt solves energy issues by inventing a heat engine that violates the second law of thermodynamics.
10
Ayn Rand didn't have court side seats to Kentucky Basketball games.
1