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“What do you think of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed Green New Deal?”Where do I even start…First, I think the sheer chutzpah of a mere freshman Congresswoman not yet 30 years old thinking she has the clout to play in the “FDR League” and craft any sort of society-transforming “New Deal” is simply precious.Words mean more than just their dictionary definitions, and if you want to appropriate the words of one of the most influential Presidents in American history, you’d better have the chops to back it up.Second, like virtually everything I’ve heard Ocasio-Cortez say so far, it’s a pretty dream (I suppose), but entirely out of touch with reality.A Green New Deal | Alexandria Ocasio-CortezI’m not going to go through line-by-line, because a lot of it is legal-ish boilerplate but here are some highlights:2(A)(i)(d):provide opportunities for high income work, entrepreneurship and cooperative and public ownership;Sorry, but “opportunities for high income work” don’t happen in an environment of dramatically increased regulation. Jobs and wages get cut when you tell businesses that they have to do things the vastly more expensive way because Nanny State Knows Best. Oh, but I’ll bet she’s thinking of “green sector” jobs… and how many of those does she think there will actually be? Enough to offset the losses in every other blue-collar sector? Sweet dreams, Alex…Also, if “public ownership” were an efficient way to operate, we’d be seeing more of it already. But I guess she was obligated to work socialism in somewhere—it’s pretty much her “brand”.2(B):INVESTIGATIVE JURISDICTION — In furtherance of the mandate set forth in paragraph (2)(A), the select committee shall have the authority to investigate, study, make findings, convene experts and leaders from industry, academia, local communities, labor, finance, technology and any other industry or group that the select committee deems to be a relevant resource. The select committee may, at its discretion and as its members may deem appropriate, hold public hearings in connection with any aspect of its investigative functions.Woohoo! More authorization for political theater!Then we can look forward to “public hearings” in which eager progressives compete with each other to see who can ask the very most hostile and condescending questions of the various defendan… errm… executives who will be frog marched in front of the Green Inquisition.I can see it all now… “Are you now, or have you ever been an Eco-Villain?”6(A):Ahh, the enviro-meat of the proposal:The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall be developed in order to achieve the following goals, in each case in no longer than 10 years from the start of execution of the Plan:100% of national power generation from renewable sources;building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety;decarbonizing the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries;decarbonizing, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure;funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases;making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely carbon neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.Others have already talked about the virtual impossibility of getting to 100% renewable energy in 10 years, so I won’t belabor the point.But the rest of this…#2 is actually not too bad an idea—the national grid is quite inefficient and vulnerable.#3… seriously??? How do you propose to do that? Even if it’s a system of “credits” or “grants”, it would be outlandishly expensive, but credits and grants won’t ensure 100% buy-in. Some people won’t want to make the extensive renovations that would be required, even if it’s fully paid for by someone else. So… what? We use eminent domain to effectively nationalize all those buildings? Stop playing Buzzword Bingo, Lexie, and join us on Planet Reality.And speaking of Buzzword Bingo… in #4, what is “decarbonizing” supposed to even mean? I get “carbon reduction” or whatever, but “decarbonizing” is A) not a word, and B) seems to indicate something further than that. How, exactly, does one “decarbonize” a herd of cattle, for instance? Sounds painful, and probably not SPCA-approved… But seriously, #4 and #5 are vague enviro-platitudes. They’re not even goals, much less action items—they’re just fuzzy “mission statements”, like how every school in existence says it “strives to achieve academic excellence”.However, when we get to #6, that’s where we finally get to be surprised! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talking about “funding” something “massive” with no consideration of where such “massive funding” will come from?!? Say it ain’t so!!But, you know, I’m going to let #7 slide… I mean, if, somehow, we discover the magic wand that allows us to achieve #1–6, then I guess why not seek to export it to the world? Sure, I’ll go with that.6(B):And here’s the socialist gravy…The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that a national, industrial, economic mobilization of this scope and scale is a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United States and to make prosperity, wealth and economic security available to everyone participating in the transformation. In furtherance of the foregoing, the Plan (and the draft legislation) shall:provide all members of our society, across all regions and all communities, the opportunity, training and education to be a full and equal participant in the transition, including through a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one;take into account and be responsive to the historical and present-day experiences of low-income communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, rural and urban communities and the front-line communities most affected by climate change, pollution and other environmental harm;mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth (including, without limitation, ensuring that federal and other investment will be equitably distributed to historically impoverished, low income, deindustrialized or other marginalized communities);include additional measures such as basic income programs, universal health care programs and any others as the select committee may deem appropriate to promote economic security, labor market flexibility and entrepreneurism; and>deeply involve national and local labor unions to take a leadership role in the process of job training and worker deployment.So, just that first paragraph… you know what, never mind. We’re already deep in Fairy-Tale Land—if I keep pointing out every time she drops some utopian BS into the mix, we’ll be here all day. Down to the specifics, then.So, #1. Leaving aside the question of how we even determine a “living wage”, how in the world does she expect to create all these new jobs? Let’s face it, the data is in—job creation is not a thing top-down government is even remotely competent in. Oh, wait, I forgot! This is socialist Fairy-Tale Land! Obviously, the jobs will be directly offered by the government, whether they’re doing anything genuinely useful or not, and the well-above-market salaries will be paid for by the tax dollars of people working real jobs!#2 and #3 are meaningless pablum. At most, they mean, “We’re going to do this whole thing with race/gender/etc.-conscious policies and hope everyone forgets that Adarand Constructors v. Peña exists.”#4 is a stealth-expansion of the Committee’s mandate to include pretty much every socialist dream.And #5… really?? Because unions have such a great track record of efficiency and efficacy in the modern era, right? If I wanted to make damn sure that workers don’t develop job skills commensurate with their natural abilities, I’d outsource the task to unions. They didn’t invent Tall poppy syndrome or Crab mentality, but they sure did perfect it.And finally… 6(C):The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that innovative public and other financing structures are a crucial component in achieving and furthering the goals and guidelines relating to social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality and cooperative and public ownership set forth in paragraphs (2)(A)(i) and (6)(B). The Plan (and the draft legislation) shall, accordingly, ensure that the majority of financing of the Plan shall be accomplished by the federal government, using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks, public venture funds and such other vehicles or structures that the select committee deems appropriate, in order to ensure that interest and other investment returns generated from public investments made in connection with the Plan will be returned to the treasury, reduce taxpayer burden and allow for more investment.So, not only does the government dump tons of money into this… the majority of it will be, in essence government-owned.Got to give credit where credit is due, I guess—this last paragraph is a clever way of saying, “We’re aiming for real, actual socialism, not merely Western ‘socialism-lite’,” without actually saying so directly and alarming people.So, the answer to the question, in case I’ve been unclear…I’m not a fan.

Basic Answer: Diversification. Bond-like assets have hedged equity-like assets very well in the past 15 years.Wealthfront's higher risk portfolios have a larger allocation to "risk-on" assets with high correlation to the equity markets, while the lower risk portfolios contain more fixed income assets that are correlated to bonds.It is easy to construct an example to show this effect.In the past 15 years, allocating to bonds have drastically curtailed your overall drawdowns. Below is a table of stocks, bills, and bonds returns from NYU. You can see that long bonds gained during the two bear markets in stocks we had in the 2000's ( 2000-2002 & 2008 ),In fact, if you allocated 50% of your portfolio to bonds in 2008, your gains from bonds would have cut your drawdown by 75%. (From -36.5% to -8.5% )You can visually confirm the benefits of diversification from this chart that compares a 50%/50% portfolio (blue) versus 100% S&P 500 position (red). See how ridiculously smooth the blue line is.So yes, diversification works. But there is a worrying trend: because of the Fed's asset purchase programs, all assets have been appreciating of late. Therefore, the correlation between assets (bonds and stocks) have also been increasing. So does this mean both stocks and bonds will go down during the next bear market? Sure - it certainly happened before in the 70's.

100% of national power generation from renewable sources.Building a national energy-efficient “smart” grid.Upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety.Decarbonising manufacturing, agricultural and other industries.Decarbonising, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure.Funding massive investment in the drawdown and capture of greenhouse gases.Making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the US, helping other countries transition to carbon-neutral economies.I could potentially support most of that (with some modifications) even as a conservative Republican except for one very major problem.[1] Look at the last two pointers on the Green New Deal."Provide all members of society a job guarantee programme to assure a living wage job.Basic income programmes and universal health care."This is where Democrats shoot themselves in the foot every time, and why US has such pushback. They have never put forth a workable plan and even this one can't work, because they insist on using AGW as a tool to make completely unrelated major socialist changes to the US economy.In many of my conversations with denialists, it always comes up ultimately. First they try to deny Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). But at some point it becomes a socialist plot, or a communist plot, or a Chinese plot, or a Russian plot, or Al Gore's plot...to destroy the US form of capitalism and substitute socialism.And there it is yet again...... universal health care and various socialist welfare programs attached directly to AGW mitigation strategy. Yet again we see the Democrats selling out and not really giving a damn about really solving AGW but rather simply using the issue to scare people into accepting a socialist or communist state.It's not going to happen. All it can possibly do is fuel the fires of the opposition even further.I have spent YEARS campaigning hard to show that AGW mitigation strategy is possible within a conservative framework and isn't just some commie tree huggers plot to make America a socialist state.Then along comes this green new deal, and what? In one fail swoop it undermines not only mine, but every attempt in the US to actually get a deal done. And why? Because the proposal is so myopic as to not even come close to understanding what causes such hard pushback in the first place.Put up a mitigation strategy that is fiscally sound AGW mitigation, and it will certainly pass. But put that commie Green New Deal strategy up that bankrupts the whole country and any gains you made will be lost 5 fold, and have nothing to do with AGW mitigation. I guess to the left a bankrupt economy is 1/2 the plan. Make everyone equally poor and fossil fuel use would certainly go down. But that’s not a future we conservatives want to see.I am an organic farmer. I am not afraid of change. I am the change.Relaxed. Researched. Respectful. - War ElephantFootnotes[1] Explainer: Why some US Democrats want a ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change | Carbon Brief