“Although estimates of the costs of ballast treatment may be imprecise and vary from vessel to
vessel, there is some general agreement on average costs.14 For example, it may cost an estimated $400,000 per vessel for modification of container/bulk vessels to use onshore ballast water treatment facilities at California ports. More generally, the cost of retrofitting vessels to treat
ballast water has been estimated at between $200,000 and $310,000 per vessel for mechanical
treatment and around $300,000 for chemical treatment.15 Most of this expense will be borne by
foreign shipping companies, as the U.S. flag fleet is a small percentage of the global fleet,16 and
likely passed along to consumers of products imported on these ships.”

Although this type of legislation may hurt our current largest employers, in the long run it may even help produce jobs that will stay in America, if implemented fast enough. The longer we delay, we are allowing the foreign shipping industry to prepare for “change” while Americans are out of work. Currently the only work being done is another delay for a twenty year Coast Guard phase in and some ships are going towards that direction now, because the life of their investment will be assured despite better technology?
If this continues on for another six years there will not be much hope for America ever again to become cost competitive manufactures.

Krugman the opportunist has egomania which in most cases drives out critical analysis, substituting it with “what I think you should know” sophistry.

Let’s begin with the notion of just printing money. While it appears to be a panacea, it cannot be done in isolation. If you print you must also destroy. Bond holders must be told to redeem interest bearing bonds, notes and bills in exchange for currency. Then the interest bearing instruments must never be issued agaian. This monetization does not produce inflation because M3 has not changed.

As is the case now, there must be idle labor and a demand for capital, to absorb the new money. When demand for goods and services and the supply of same are in balance and new money enters the economy inflation is not far behind.

A second point that Krugman and others fail to properly discuss is the role of fiat money in a system where there are no interest charges to the Federal Government to fund its budget. The example I like is that represented by Abraham Lincoln’s “Greenbacks.” He rebuffed Eastern Bankers who sought to take advantage of his need to finance the Union’s war effort, by offering $4-500 million at 26%-30% interest. Lincoln, instead, ordered the issuance of “Greenbacks” as legal tender backed by the good faith and credit of the Union. He won the war and created an environment for the Federal government to mount public programs without creating deficits. His debt free currency is a mechanism that is not without merit in present day circumstances, where the Fed generates both fiat money and real inflation through book entry fractional reserve banking.

Maybe the Federal government and other State governments need to take a hard look at what the Bank of N. Dakota has accomplished over the past 9 years:

1. “… the state’s GNP has grown 56%, personal income has grown 43%, and wages have grown 34%. This year the state has a budget surplus of $1.2 billion!” (Ellen Brown, March 11th, 2009)

2. All state and local government agencies are required to place their funds in the bank. Other entities may also open accounts at the Bank; however, BND offers fewer retail services than other institutions, and has only one office, limiting its competitiveness in consumer banking. There are fees and a minimal income tax system but essentially the debt free funding to state agencies allows N. Dakota to carry a large surplus every year and fund long and short term public needs.

Krugman would do well to use his forum to inform his readers of real monetary options rather than admonish us for using terms that reflect the state of what’s likely in the near term, given our obviously, superior capability for critical thinking.

I’m holding my breath.

It is also important to note that printing additional new money does not make new things. It just gives the government the ability to purchase those things that exist with new money (or new access to the existing capital structure), before the increase in price caused by inflation takes hold. My point is that the thing had to exist before the warring state can purchase it. With sufficient will from the population, the accumulated capital that the government accesses by deficit financing could have been directed to the ends government directs it to, but without the deception and unlimited scale that modern finance lends. There was a time when the population distrusted monarchs, and the monarchs limited ability to finance war led to limited war. Unlike our current situation.

Hard money serves as an important check on the ability of the state to enslave and destroy the population. Anyone who doesn’t believe that has their time focus set too short. Fiat money and fraudulant finance only have the capability to destroy – long term.

Treat Krugman like what he is, an egomaniac.

no, i don’t resile from my original statement. even today’s much degraded america is far less steeped in egalitarianism than australia. haven’t you got bored of hearing how selfish, dog-eat-dog the americans are, and how lucky we are?

I’m not stating that Australia had a nice history however if the Yanks take a step back their history isn’t exactly pretty either. However, what does it mean that “Australians don’t have the same attachment to liberty”? Does it matter that the Australian Constitution doesn’t have equivalent statements to the U.S. Constitution’s 1st and 2nd Amendments? Alternatively, how exactly are Australians “collective” in a way Americans aren’t? So Australian have laws for minimum wages too, and . . .? Some Aussies and Yanks get misty-eyed about the concept of Social Justice, so . . .? The progression of the West from the 1800s sorta-laissez-faire to the 1900s welfare state happened fairly similarly across the West. Now had you said “the American are being as welfare-statist as the Swedes” I could understand where you might be coming from.

Wrong, actually. Brazil was later (since it used a gradualist approach to abolition, there were still some slaves quite late), and I think Spain (e.g. in Cuba) was a bit later too.

But the whole Australia welfare thing started much earlier (one key date is the “Harvester decision” of the early 20th century, effectively setting up a minimum wage system through judicial activism). The submission to authority thing goes right back to the nature of Australia’s establishment as a government enterprise; that goes further than just the influence of the convict system.

well, no. australia has never had the same attachment to liberty as the us, probably because we did go with the flow. if the americans are sliding towards our more collectivist mentality, it’s precisely because they’ve lost much of their old spirit of self-reliance and hatred of the yoke.

Maybe we just found a way to World Peace: if you want to wage war, you gotta pay cash. None of this money printing business. Whaddya say?

Speaking of which, Jefferson agrees with you.
“Though much an enemy to the system of borrowing, yet I feel strongly the necessity of preserving the power to borrow. Without this, we might be overwhelmed by another nation, merely by the force of its credit.”

but that’s tempered by

“…that we shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves…”

If we have borrowed future generations into slavery we have lost the war anyway.

Besides, if you were correct, then you should regret the war of independence, and hail former king George III. Because the war was funded through fiat money and non-honored bonds.

As for the historical argument, however, I partially agree with you. But I still believe in checks on government, specially constutitional checks. You have to remember that when the USA government started to wage wars around the globe, the first of them was waged against Spain in 1898; and it wasn’t, as the wars the came next also weren’t, waged against the will of the people. The people claimed for it. Just one day after the japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, six million americans tried to enlist in the army…and even Vietnam was a popular war, until the media turned against the government.
Do not just blame the government, as an institution, for wars. Blame the people first, for governments are only a reflection of the innermost people’s desires.

Lastly, we have considerable historical evidence that governments are entirely too ready to create “emergencies” which warrant their “emergency powers.”

In his writing, basic questions aren’t asked about his assumptions. Arguments against his policy recommendations are hobbled because he routinely and intentionally fails to paint the whole picture and correctly state the counter arguments. Any logical model put forth in his popular writing can usually be dismantled with basic economic knowledge.

Whenever reading to Krugman, it is important to remember what he is: A partisan hack without ethics.

In the war of independence, didn’t the government issued bonds in order to finance the war effort, bonds that were never really payed back? Yet, it was the necessary thing to do. There was no other way.

Sometimes, extraordinary powers are necessary. Even if the ultimate culprit of the present crysis is the government.