The Environment

Although many central bankers have claimed the central banks are instrumental in ushering in a more green economy, a closer look suggests the opposite is true.

The popular notion that indigenous peoples residing in a precapitalist order are particularly skillful at managing the earth's resources is a myth.

The so-called CLEAN Future Act is as poorly designed as its acronym. Like the Green New Deal, it consists of radical new spending proposals that the bill’s supporters would have liked for other reasons, and which aren’t even compatible. 

As H. L. Mencken wrote, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” The EU's Green Deal is the latest example.

While the legislation introduced in the US Congress remains fiction under a Republican executive and senate, the Brussels initiative will become law unless there is considerable opposition from EU member states.

Hunter-gatherer societies stripped the local environment of resources and then moved on to another place. There was nothing environmentally responsible about this sort of economy, in spite of modern efforts to portray prehistoric humans as tree huggers.

Easy-money policies pushed by central banks may be redirecting wealth away from investment, and toward greater production and consumption of cheap consumer goods. That's not "green."

Central planners cannot calculate the costs and benefits of environmental policy.

The State of California is now forcing insurance companies to cover homeowners who put their houses in some of the most fire-prone areas. What could go wrong?

The ECB, always happy to repeat the mistakes of Japan, is likely to start new programs of debt monetization for green projects and claim it is a different, radical and new measure.