End corporate subsidies for coal

Paul Krugman links us to this eye-popping paper by Muller, Mendelsohn, and Nordhaus, whose abstract reads in part:

Solid waste combustion, sewage treatment, stone quarrying, marinas, and oil and coal-fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value added. The largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal-fired electric generation, whose damages range from 0.8 to 5.6 times value added.

That’s right. It costs almost as much or more to burn coal than it adds to the economy. If we just shut down all coal plants, we’d be richer.

How the Chinese control social unrest

There’s a fascinating video by the Financial Times on how the Chinese government exploits an ancient system by which people petition the government for grievances to identify and jail troublemakers. See Rahul Jacob and Zhou Ping for more.

An additional article by Jamil Anderlini traces it to the Zhou dynasty 3000 years ago. Petitioners can be beaten or even held in “black jails,” completely outside of due process.

This is the terrible thing about China. Despite the country’s enormous economic gains, and its rising world influence, its system of governance, and the standard of living of the majority remain far from potential. There are no effective mechanisms to expose and eliminate corruption. There is no real freedom of assembly or petition. Their media is tightly controlled.

In short, they’re very much like us.