Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics The Debate: Is America’s future capitalist or socialist?

God, I hope they approve you Loggy...prayers for best turnout.

'
Are we going to Hell in capitalist Rolls Royce or in socialist mass transit?

Some people might think the destination more important than the mode of transport.
.

'
Western civilization collapsed in 1914, as ancient Rome collapsed in 476 AD.

Read Margaret MacMillan's THE WAR THAT ENDED PEACE.

Ever since then, we have lived in an age of barbarism that shows no signs of ever ending.
.

Why mathew, it's so good to see you!
An end is finally in sight now, climate change should pretty much wipe us out in the next couple hundred years unless we make some pretty drastic changes.
I don't really see any changes on the horizon.

When you actually look at the carbon cycle model, with all the compartments and flows, you notice that putting carbon into the soil could actually offset all the fossil fuel burning and more. If we did that to the extent that the soil had before we farmed it to death, CO2 movement into the atmosphere would turn negative. Of course, once we got the soil saturated with carbon, it would rise again but maybe no faster than movement from the atmosphere into the ocean would handle.

It's an interesting model because it has very short, short, and long sequestration loops as burning fuel crops, soil carbon coming out over the course of decades, and limestone deposits locking up carbon for epochs, respectively. I suppose all the models are incorrect because they don't include methane clathrates bubbling out of the not-so-permafrost.

Soil carbon is an important piece of our model.

I have been getting a lot of inquiries in the past several weeks, and the range of applications is very interesting. Yesterday I spoke with a fellow with a new sawmill venture in Dolores, CO. They will be generating a lot of waste (about half of the wood in a log is turned into waste biomass when sawing boards) and they will need to dry the lumber. If they use pyrolyzers instead of biomass burners to make the heat for the kilns they can avoid using fossil fuels and make as much money from the biochar as they will make from the lumber. He was pretty enthused.

Thursday I visited a pecan processor in Las Cruces, NM, who is currently giving away the shells as they are a waste liability. I was looking for a source of shells since we presently can't get any woody biomass from the Forest Service and I happened to ask if they had any process heat needs. As it happens, they buy $4,400 worth of natural gas every month to sterilize the nuts in a hot water bath and to dry them afterwards. I did a pro forma this morning that indicates we could provide them with a biochar+heat pyrolysis system that would replace their NG bill using about 20% of their shell production and make $500,000 in char (at below the rock bottom of current market prices). The ROI on the heat component alone would be 20% annually, and with char sales included the ROI would be 200%. They are kind of excited at the prospect. As it happens, two of the owners are also pecan farmers, so they can use the biochar in their orchards and then market their demonstrated soil improvements to the rest of their supply chain, thus building the market for the char.

So what do you call it - Capitalism, or Socialism - if a person became wealthy as a result of using their time and money to create sustainable local economies where large numbers of people benefitted, where lots of jobs were made, and environmental problems were reversed?

I am calling it Americanism. The Green New Deal needs to adopt this approach.

It is capitalism but with zero externalization of costs. In fact, the "costs" of the business are negative, which should mean that a lot of people will start doing it. People do like to make money, you know! In this unusual case they don't have to screw anybody or the environment over to do that. That's real technological progress.

That right there is capitalism, plain and simple. Entrepreneurism if you put a finer point on it.

It would be a mixed system if half his "wealth" went to the state to insure that everyone was well taken care of and...If a person worked and the state became wealthier, thus increasing the wealth of all then it would be a socialist system.

Whether his endeavor was a good thing environmentally or a bad thing doesn't effect the system. Sustainability is an entirely new concept.
Survival hasn't so much been an issue before either...

I'm afeared you boys are just skittering along on the surface of this thing. If a person looks the part that follows the quote above, you will see that a big chunk of the purpose of using that time and money is to improve the general welfare of all - some directly, more indirectly.

There have been lawsuits where shareholders in corporations have sued their boards of directors for pursuing objectives that were not strictly about increasing their capital. That is Capitalism at its most raw-bonedness. In our organizing documents it clearly states that the purpose of the company is to improve the triple-bottom-line - people, planet, and profit. So far, every single one of my investors has declared that their top interest in the company is climate change... second is community vitality and sustainability. There are about a dozen expected benefits and the last on everyone's list is making money - in fact five of the six (so far) say they only hope to not lose their money.

I don't think this model fits in the box of Capitalism, or in the box of Socialism. That's why I claim a new box ... Americanism!

I'd like to play in your sandbox, Log. I agree it is "Americanism" - it aims at balancing free market economics, the strive for social fairness and the sustainable use and protection of the natural resources. Four Pillars.