[shkkmo]

I'm not a particular supporter of the green new deal as a whole, however most attacks on the cost of it seem rather simplistic at best and factually misleading at worst.

A substantial portion of that cost estimate is the single payer healthcare, but this is money that is mostly already being spent by the US gov, individuals and companies. Regardless of the wisdom of a single payer system, this is mostly just shifting the cost, not creating a new one.

The other major part of this is guaranteed jobs, is a pretty broad estimate that spans a whole order of magnitude.

In order to get that 10 trillion a year estimate you have to ignore the first issue, take the top estimate for the second and then round up. Also, the global GDP is about 75 trillion so that 1/3rd number is pretty far from true regardless of the other issues.

Which is not to say it isn't an expensive plan, but throwing around misleading numbers is unhelpful.

[dev_dull]

> A substantial portion of that cost estimate is the single payer healthcare

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s both everything and nothing at the same time. And worst yet if I openly come out against it I come off as some kind of climate denier? The whole thing stinks. It’s the worst kind of politics I’ve ever experienced. It’s as if the bill was just a simple way to divide people up into tribes.

Also that 36 trillion came from the first link on google for a search of “how much money is there in the world”[1]. Not that it matters.

1. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-much-money-is-there-...

[dahart]

That link says “physical” money right at the top. Ignoring that it’s a wild guess, it’s barely even related to the sum total financial wealth of the world.

36 trillion is incredibly far off, there’s a lot more wealth than that in the US alone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_Un...

Wikipedia lists over 300 trillion in global wealth, and people on Quora suggest it’s actually over 1 quadrillion. So 10 trillion isn’t more than 3% of global wealth, and might be less than 1%.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_w...

https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-is-in-the-world

I don’t know much about the GND, but I’m not sure I understand what’s wrong with a price tag on fixing the environment. We’re going to pay it either way. It’ll be cheaper the sooner we start, and extremely expensive if we wait even longer. It won’t take very long to lose 10 trillion dollars when we lose a few coastal cities to rising sea levels.