Yesterday, the lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal discusses "the Obama Hiatus", where the current Administration is apparently postponing some of its more damaging regulatory actions until, perhaps, after the next election.
Many of the examples cited by the Journal involve the EPA. Unfortunately, mere delay is not enough. Building or refurbishing a power plant typically represents a 30- to 50-year investment decision. Delaying the onset of new regulations by 18 months is not going to jump start new investment. Investors and developers need to have some idea what the rules are going to be--and some assurance of future stability--before they commit millions or billions of dollars to new projects.
If anything, however, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Mentioning the 1,300+ Obamacare waivers, the Journal writes,
"By the way, this waiver process isn't in the law's statutory language. HHS has simply created it via regulation. In other words, the health bureaucracy knew the rules they were writing would be destructive and have created a political safety valve."
Good news for those receiving the waivers. But bad news for the rule of law. If our future depends on those who are skilled in the politics of obtaining a waiver, rather than engineering know how and financial acumen in creating wealth, our future looks bleaker by the day.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The "H" Stands for "Hoover"
Now resuming our regular programming. Walter Russell Mead has an interesting post on the 2011 parallels with Herbert Hoover.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Celebrate Magna Carta Day!
Wednesday, June 15th, marks Magna Carta Day. It has been 796 years since that day in 1215 when the seal of King John of England
The importance of the document to Western Civilization and the fate of the English-speaking peoples cannot be overstated. It established, in writing, the essential principle that no person, not even the ruling monarch, was above the law. In addition, it established that under the same rule of law, individuals had rights.
I recently finished reading A Brief History of The Magna Carta: The Story of the Origins of Liberty (Running Press, 2008), by Geoffrey Hindley. Although our modern republic bears little resemblance to the feudal society of medieval England
On anecdote that Hindley includes in his book jumped out as being very relevant to our current situation. In 1209, the town of Maidford Forest ”.
True, Magna Carta did not establish a Parliament. That innovation would take several more decades. Also, it is not clear how far below the baronial classes these hard won rights extended. But it is hard to imagine how we would have had a functioning democracy or a robust legal system if it were not for the events in that meadow in Runnymede nearly eight centuries ago.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Earth is Still Full
In today's edition (subscription required) William McGurn of the Wall Street Journal writes about the silliness of Thomas Friedman's recent column on overpopulation. Mr. McGurn lists the many times over the years the population bomb failed to explode (Club of Rome, etc.).
Look for more of this hype in the coming months. The global warming apocalypse has failed to arrive on schedule. Our intact planet is an awkward fact for the leftist foundations who spent more than a half billion dollars in an unsuccessful attempt to pass cap and trade. However, their endowments continue (even in this market) to produce billions of dollars in income and the non-profits who depend on their grants have big and expensive payrolls to meet.
With jobs and careers on the line, look for the environmental movement to cast about for a new cataclysm to sell. Until some consensus builds around the next big threat, they will trot out the tried and true: overpopulation, mercury, soot, etc. Why just the over day, I heard on the radio a desperate plea to save us from ozone.
Regardless of the threat, the solutions are always the same: fewer people, less capitalism, less wealth and more government control.
Look for more of this hype in the coming months. The global warming apocalypse has failed to arrive on schedule. Our intact planet is an awkward fact for the leftist foundations who spent more than a half billion dollars in an unsuccessful attempt to pass cap and trade. However, their endowments continue (even in this market) to produce billions of dollars in income and the non-profits who depend on their grants have big and expensive payrolls to meet.
With jobs and careers on the line, look for the environmental movement to cast about for a new cataclysm to sell. Until some consensus builds around the next big threat, they will trot out the tried and true: overpopulation, mercury, soot, etc. Why just the over day, I heard on the radio a desperate plea to save us from ozone.
Regardless of the threat, the solutions are always the same: fewer people, less capitalism, less wealth and more government control.
Bjorn Lomborg on How to Save the World
Writing in Newsweek, Bjorn Lomborg explains how to save the planet. He makes a point I have made many times. We will never run out of oil, for the exact same reason that we never ran out of whales.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Update: George Will on Obamacare's IPAB
In his syndicated column this week, George Will writes about the "death panels" embedded within the Obamacare legislation. (Yes, they really are in there, my words not George's.) What most disturbed me in Will's column was the fact that the decisions of the panels can be overturned only by a vote by Congress. And Congress can't vote to get rid of the panels before 2017. I'm speechless.
When, exactly, did our republic end? I don't think they delivered my paper that day.
Update: IPAB is the proper name for the panel, and it stands for The Independent Payment Advisory Board. National Review reports that there is growing, bipartisan opposition to IPAB.
When, exactly, did our republic end? I don't think they delivered my paper that day.
Update: IPAB is the proper name for the panel, and it stands for The Independent Payment Advisory Board. National Review reports that there is growing, bipartisan opposition to IPAB.
Victor Davis Hanson: The European Warning
In his syndicated column, Victor Davis Hanson points to some European warning signs as to what lays ahead for us.
Mr. Hanson writes,
"Subsidized wind and solar power have not led to much of an increase in European supplies of electricity, but have helped make power bills soar. Highly taxed gas runs about $10 a gallon, ensuring tiny cars and dependence on mass transit. Central planners love the resulting state-subsidized, high-density European apartment living, without garages, back yards, or third bedrooms. Yet the Japanese tsunami and accompanying nuclear contamination have reminded European governments that their similarly fragile models of highly urbanized, highly concentrated living make them equally vulnerable to such disasters.
"Popular culture may praise the use of the subway and train, but about every minute or two, some government grandee in a motorized entourage rushes through the streets as an escort of horn-blaring police forces traffic off to the side. A European technocratic class in limousines that runs government bureaus and international organizations — the class that includes the disgraced former International Monetary Fund chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn — live like 18th-century aristocrats at Versailles as they mouth socialist platitudes."
Mr. Hanson writes,
"Subsidized wind and solar power have not led to much of an increase in European supplies of electricity, but have helped make power bills soar. Highly taxed gas runs about $10 a gallon, ensuring tiny cars and dependence on mass transit. Central planners love the resulting state-subsidized, high-density European apartment living, without garages, back yards, or third bedrooms. Yet the Japanese tsunami and accompanying nuclear contamination have reminded European governments that their similarly fragile models of highly urbanized, highly concentrated living make them equally vulnerable to such disasters.
"Popular culture may praise the use of the subway and train, but about every minute or two, some government grandee in a motorized entourage rushes through the streets as an escort of horn-blaring police forces traffic off to the side. A European technocratic class in limousines that runs government bureaus and international organizations — the class that includes the disgraced former International Monetary Fund chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn — live like 18th-century aristocrats at Versailles as they mouth socialist platitudes."
The EPA's War on Jobs
...reads the headline of the lead editorial in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The subject is the new set of mercury rules jammed through by the EPA that threatens to shut down much of the nation's coal power capacity.
Predictably, the EPA claims that it will create jobs, not understanding the "parable of the broken window", which holds that you cannot, on net, create jobs by destroying functioning assets.
Predictably, the EPA claims that it will create jobs, not understanding the "parable of the broken window", which holds that you cannot, on net, create jobs by destroying functioning assets.
The Sustainability of Sustainability
Of all media outlets, the Minneapolis Star Tribune poses an interesting question in yesterday's Opinion page: "Is Sustainability Sustainable?" As I Tweeted yesterday, to ask the question is to answer it.
The piece, by Greg Breining, poses the question around the University of Minnesota's UMore Park project, a 5,000-acre gravel pit and former munitions site in suburban Dakota County. The University is seeking to develop a 20,000-30,000 person planned community on the site. I met with the UMore project developers a few years ago, and suggested that they pursue a District Energy-style infrastructure buildout, using conventional technology, but in a highly-efficient, locally-robust form. Instead, the University seem to be headed toward a less efficient, less reliable, but more fashionable route, relying on small-scale solar and wind power.
Mr. Breining poses some useful questions around 'what we are trying to sustain', and 'over what time frame.' For my money, "Sustainability" has devolved into a meaningless catch-phrase denoting whatever the politically correct thinking of the day indicates. True sustainability takes into account economic and cultural aspects, which are often missing in our discussion. As they say, "Read the whole thing."
Accompanying the Breining piece is a article by one of my favorite energy writers Robert Bryce on how "all energy comes with a cost." Robert is at his best, as he is here, when he brings mathematics to bear on the all-too-emotional subject of energy.
Speaking of Mr. Bryce, he also has a timely piece in today's Wall Street Journal, "America Needs the Shale Revolution" about the astounding renaissance in domestic oil and natural gas production made possible by hydraulic fracturing technology. The web link is subscription required, but the key takeaway is this passage from the last paragraph,
"A vibrant industrial base requires cheap, abundant and reliable sources of energy. The shale revolution now underway is the best news for North American energy since the discovery of the East Texas Field in 1930. We can't afford to let fear of a proven technology stop the much-needed resurgence of American industry."
The piece, by Greg Breining, poses the question around the University of Minnesota's UMore Park project, a 5,000-acre gravel pit and former munitions site in suburban Dakota County. The University is seeking to develop a 20,000-30,000 person planned community on the site. I met with the UMore project developers a few years ago, and suggested that they pursue a District Energy-style infrastructure buildout, using conventional technology, but in a highly-efficient, locally-robust form. Instead, the University seem to be headed toward a less efficient, less reliable, but more fashionable route, relying on small-scale solar and wind power.
Mr. Breining poses some useful questions around 'what we are trying to sustain', and 'over what time frame.' For my money, "Sustainability" has devolved into a meaningless catch-phrase denoting whatever the politically correct thinking of the day indicates. True sustainability takes into account economic and cultural aspects, which are often missing in our discussion. As they say, "Read the whole thing."
Accompanying the Breining piece is a article by one of my favorite energy writers Robert Bryce on how "all energy comes with a cost." Robert is at his best, as he is here, when he brings mathematics to bear on the all-too-emotional subject of energy.
Speaking of Mr. Bryce, he also has a timely piece in today's Wall Street Journal, "America Needs the Shale Revolution" about the astounding renaissance in domestic oil and natural gas production made possible by hydraulic fracturing technology. The web link is subscription required, but the key takeaway is this passage from the last paragraph,
"A vibrant industrial base requires cheap, abundant and reliable sources of energy. The shale revolution now underway is the best news for North American energy since the discovery of the East Texas Field in 1930. We can't afford to let fear of a proven technology stop the much-needed resurgence of American industry."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)