the fact is there are companies out there that, you know, take a trin tri industries, for example, a 100-year-old metal bending company. they now all of a sudden five years ago decided to continue on producing their railcars but also producing wind turbine towers. now they re hiring people. these are jobs. these are green jobs, because they are making wind turbine towers. i am all in favor of your green technologies. just don t ask taxpayers to pay for it. and there is no way you can make energy more expensive in the united states why shouldn t they pay for it? you can t make energy more expensive and production more expensive in the u.s., which the climate bill does, and expect that to create jobs. it creates jobs but in china and india. we need one of these world cup whistles. i tell you what, excellent discussion. we will continue to have it with you two guys. i think we ll call this carbon tax every week because it gets howard so fired up. i know. love it. again, a pe
unpalatable now? it may be. there s no question when i talk to republicans about this issue on the hill right now, they re kind of in the fetal position. i think it s the wrong position. look, we need the oil. i think we can do it safely especially in the shallow end of the watter. so i think we have to think about the implications on our oil prices and our gasoline prices if we re not drilling. let me just take this further. a lot of people in louisiana, for instance, so upset about this spill who are saying to the president, wait, wait, don t stop the offshore drilling because it s our livelihood, and, howard, we re not using a drop less oil as a result of this thing. that s right. if we re not drilling in the gulf of mexico, not a defense for it, someone is drilling and we re buying oil. well, i mean, clearly the fact is we use 20% of the world s oil. less than 5% of the population. and only produce 2% of it. this isn t necessarily making a huge, huge immakt. i agree t
that s been done. i think it s crazy as the administration says that they should actually have to pay for the cost of the moratorium on drilling. bp is opposed to that. you know, i don t see why they should be responsible for the jobs that have been killed by the president s decision not to do drilling. but this company, i think, is in big trouble and you ve seen its stock shares just plummet in the last couple weeks. you think the deal for climate change legislation is in trouble, too, as a result? i think it is in a lot of trouble, and i think it simply comes back to what we talk every week about on this show, which is jobs. the carbon tax is a big killer of jobs in the u.s. howard howard can t even sit still. not only is it not not only is it not a carbon tax, but the fact is it is not a job killer. it is a job creator. most people actually think how can you most people think if you let me speak for a second, i ll tell you how. most people actually think that
wind energy and offshore drilling all in the same breath. the same place. there was a bipartisan effort to get a climate bill, an energy bill out there. it was a bit derailed by the arizona immigration issue because the government sort of shifted its everyone situation and things started to come apart. senator majority leader harry reid wants to get moving on energy reform by july, but this bp disaster in the gulf of mexico has actually affected the ability of the administration to trade more offshore drilling for support for a carbon tax or a cap and trade legislation. so where are we now on this? howard gould and steven moore here. steven, i want to ask you about this. really, does the gulf oil spill and the fact that president obama can t put offshore drilling on the table at this point to appease some people, are there really a lot of republicans who are going to come out and say, no, no, we really want to keep going with more offshore drilling? isn t that just politically
around a 3% to 4% pace this year. so ben bernanke not ruling it out, of course, but saying that what we ve been through means, you know, you ve got to keep that possibility out there. there are some people who say 20% maybe is a possibility of a double dip. others like robert reich former secretary of labor in the u.s. he thinks the job numbers are what are affecting us. let s take a look. i put together a balance, a scale, of good and bad in the economy. let s have a look. on the good side, interest rates remain very low. very low. allows people to buy houses and invest, if you ve got good credit. the average puz 4.81% this week for a mortgage. generally good for people. houses are stabilizing and jobs are growing. you can put a sort of next to housing to housing, but that s potentially good. we ll talk about jobs in a second bp. good because it s sort of and not bad. that s an improvement. let s look at the bad side, though. europe. this whole continuing m