The Straight Skinny About Liberal Dreams

of Tree-Hugging

                Good stewardship of the earth, as in conservation of resources and threatened environments and animal and plant life; prevention of toxic effects and substances despoiling the planet; some sort of wise and attractive balance between mankind and the natural world; and n0n-polluting power sources are what liberals call “no-brainers.” Unfortunately, not using your brain to go beyond these obvious desiderata and the practical implications for individual people and their governments is the reason that so many liberals seemingly act like they don’t have a pea-brain in their heads. 

                The amazing ability of green enthusiasts to demand draconian measures (including ultra-extreme population control methods) which show less than small regard for their fellow man while championing the survival of menaced mice, mosquitoes and mildew is shocking in its obvious misanthropy. In a perfect world: everybody would be green conscious philanthropists who think of fellow humans first.

                The green contingent’s miniscule regard for homo sapiens is easiest seen in the abhorrent and extreme population control methods advocated by Obama’s Science and Technology Czar John Holdren in a 1973 book he co-authored with the notorious Ehrlichs (Paul and Anne) in their “Human Ecology.” The book, said to have played a role in the passing of Roe vs. Wade later in the year, championed forced abortions, mass sterilization (via secret chemical additions via the water supply), mandatory body non-fertility implants and also paid more than lip service to eugenics. 

                The Ehrlichs and Holdren wrote: “a fetus is no more a complete human being than a blueprint is a building. The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being . . . a fetus” is not considered a “person” under the U.S. Constitution until it is born” thus the rationale behind forced abortions etc. on “potential human beings.” Since the born child years after birth will ultimately develop into a human being, infanticide sounds reasonable, too, no?

However, Holdren, an enthusiastic worshipper of notorious eugenicist Harrison Brown is not alone among the “liberal elite” (is that an oxymoron or what?) in believing that only certain types of special people should be allowed to live . . . recently Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a rather shocking interview with the New York Times said, "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of."

There’s good reason to think that Einstein, who didn’t speak until age five, might well have been labeled as “a population” that Ginsburg “doesn’t want to have too many of . . .” Of course, 20/20 hindsight clairvoyance would help Rajjpuut decide his first candidates for abortion would be Ginsburg, Holdren, the Ehrlichs and Harrison Brown as well as mass murderers, tyrants, child molesters and all supporters of government spending and government interference boondoggles (GSBs and GIBs).  In fairness to the lady justice, it may well be that she only meant “poor people” we don’t want so many of . . . ???

If you were to make a litmus test to discover idiots from the ultra-right wing, it would probably include belief in absolutely no abortions even in case of rape or incest; creationism taught in all public school science classes and evolution banned; religion taught in public schools; and howitzers for every six-year old capable of hunting small game.  To discover extreme liberals perverts, however, the litmus test listing could be much, much shorter -- let’s shrink the list of beliefs down to just one item: POPULATION CONTROL whether that means ZPG (zero population growth) or NPG (negative population growth). One item? Is Rajjputt crazy? Consider this:

1.        Abortion on demand: plays first violin in their population control symphony.

2.      Global warming/cap and trade/green tech: all these supposed problems and impractical solutions are their bass instruments in the NPG or ZPG movement of our “Unwashed Symphony.”

3.      End of Life Counselors in Obamacare: any potential chance to refuse medicines or services to the elderly for cost control or intercede in the natural decision to live as long as possible is clearly their brass section since Medicare is the problem ($34 TRillion in obligations now and officially bankrupt in 2016) and the last six months of life cost one-half of a person’s lifetime health care expenses . . . the temptation to control costs by “omission of care” to the elderly is surely too great to be avoided.

4.      Curtailing human endeavor for the sake of “endangered species” (such as the delta smelt in California stopping irrigation of the country’s largest and most fertile vegetable growing region and driving unemployment nearby to 41%) is their greenie symphony conductor letting the world know who’s more valuable: mankind or a two-inch fish too stupid to avoid irrigation piping.

5.      Etc., etc. the main message of radical environmentalism is that people are the problem and the planet would be better off without any people, except radical environmentalists, of course, leaving no one to hum along with their symphony.

Rajjpuut finds this approach disingenuous, if nutcase greenies really cared for the planet, surely their own suicides would be the logical and integral acts affirming their love of the natural planet and hate for humankind? Save the planet^^, Greenie, kill yourself now! 

Of course, Mother Nature herself has on two separate occasions pretty well cleaned things up on her own without any help from Wall Street and other “polluters.” The comet 65 million years ago that brought on the demise of the dinosaurs and eventually the rise of mammals and even primates and mankind also wiped out 96% of all life on the planet: plant or animal; and 420 million years earlier over 98% of Earth’s life was extinctED, to coin a term, by widespread super-volcanic activity bringing down upon the planet a total ice age lasting about six million years if Rajjpuut’s memory of pre-pre-history serves correctly. Given that background a little more reverence for the preciousness of human life might surely be in order in Rajjpuut’s not so humble opinion.

 The more vocal the green advocate whether their primary focus is global warming, other ecology, or green tech . . . the more likely they are to be an advocate of ZPG or NPG. In fact many Negative Population Growth fans literally are promulgating desired human population numbers ranging from as low as 180,000 to as high as two million for the entire planet. To put that in perspective, 29 out of every 30 people living on earth would have to die to satisfy the two million figure; and 33, 332 out of every 33, 333 people now living would be sacrificed to the whims of those favoring 180,000. If that seems like some sort of cruel intellectual parlor game to you . . . you’re right . . . that is exactly the sort of Maoist-Hitleresque mentality that it takes to dream up this sort of philosophy of life. One suspects that the earth-firsters would see the necessity of including themselves in the 180,000 valuable survivors, eh?

The main reason that “thinking lefties and greenies and even anarchists” (Rajjpuut knows, yes, that’s an awful lot of oxymorons) are so in favor of forcing green tech down our throats (even at the cost of $675,000 and 2.2 real jobs** for every green temporary green tech job created by government intervention) is their fervent belief that the planet’s only hope, regardless of quiescent human population is to develop a power source that is non-polluting. In that desire and understanding is the only agreement that greenies and Rajjpuut have. Green tech is ultimately desirable. Green tech would be a godsend. However, it’s in the little matter of PRACTICALITY that we differ. To insist upon cap and trade laws now or on financing green tech now is putting the cart before the horse. Right now practical, AFFORDABLE, SUSTAINABLE green technology is a dream only.

A whole lot of people marvel at Da Vinci being beyond his time with drawings of tanks, helicopters, and submarines centuries before those ideas became practical. That’s the way it is with green tech. Let’s say that 40 years from now, 89-90% of the greenies’ fondest wishes come true and a 21^st Century Edison-clone comes along and does for power generation and green tech what Edison did for electricity . . . hurrah! What we must NOT do now is to spend today’s dollars and eliminated today’s jobs on pipe dreams. Now’s definitely NOT the time to spend money on green tech jobs and converting the power grids . . . not 40 years too early, for crying out loud. 

What we can do now is to fund research, and only research, by bona fide scientists/inventors (not global warming enthusiasts friendly to the administration’s viewpoints)who've proven their credentials most practically of all by winning contests open to anyone where anybody with a non-polluting or extremely-lightly polluting non-traditional energy source ideas can demonstrate the efficacy of their ideas. Winners win cash prizes, free patents and government research bucks for, say, ten years. When we find our Edison, then we spend and convert the energy grids, not before.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

** This data comes from a longitudinal study of the Spanish experience with funneling tax money into green-tech and furthermore it showed that only one in ten green-tech jobs was permanent. Many of the green tech jobs of the five million Obama promised/threatened to create will only last three weeks or a month, or perhaps six months. This means that 22 real jobs are sacrificed to create one permanent green tech job, which alas, only pays $10-$16 per hour.

1.        The art of making wise economic decisions in America comes from three places:

a.        An understanding and appreciation for the free market system that helped make the United States the freest and most respected country in the world

b.      An understanding of simple economic fundamentals (economics though it’s been called the “dismal science” is actually all about common sense and attempts to shroud it in mystery and use smoke and mirrors to magically enhance this effect or magically diminish this consequence are always doomed to failure) and simple logic that considers not just the preferred ends but also ALL the other consequences.

c.       A deep respect for the systems in place and a wise reluctance to “tinker” --- just as the wise physician follows the Hippocratic Oath, the wise politician “first does no harm”

2.       Just as a coin has two sides, every economic action has two consequences: the intended results and the direct but (unintended results) that appear as a natural consequence to the action. The blind emphasis of only the “intended consequences” as the only meaningful results of an action are equivalent in a court of law to a deliberate half-truth. If a president for example “creates”  five-million green jobs, we know from the Spanish example that it’s quite likely that those five million jobs came about from the loss of eleven million jobs in the broader economy (each green job in the Spanish study of their own results COST 2.2 other jobs); it is quite likely that only one in ten of the green jobs created winds up as a permanent addition to the economy so now we have a loss of ten and a half million jobs: is the creator of the five hundred thousand lasting green jobs and 4.5 million temporary green jobs not also the destroyer of the eleven million other jobs? That is why tinkering is unwise, except for extraordinary moments in economic history (war, for example) the most efficient economic functioning occurs when the government stays completely out of market activities.

3.       With even these simple economic truths come simple economic implications. To speak for example of “making brand new credit markets available” is to also speak of “creating huge amounts of debt” because as noted above the coin has two sides. To speak of “great benefits from increased government spending” is to also speak of great losses to individual tax payers” for they are the victims of government spending and seldom the benefactors. To say we “must raise farm prices” is to say we “must make food more expensive.” To say we “must increase tariffs on foreign auto imports to save the U.S. auto industry” is to say that everyone in every other industry must subsidize the auto industry and we must make cars in general more expensive.” If we are told that “increasing the minimum wage will create a ripple effect upward that will raise all wages in the country and thus bring prosperity,” we should also hear that “increasing the cost of all production and services in the country will make all products and services in the country more expensive.”

4.       We must also realize that a coin has sides, however thin. In our economic metaphor those sides represent government waste. The government hires people from the private sector luring them with higher wages and higher benefits which the tax payer must finance. The government never actually produces anything, it just supplies a lot of inefficient bureaucratic hands for money to filter through on its way to the intended benefit or action. Putting a price on things. Roughly ¼ of government spending never gets to its intended point. This is the seldom noticed “side of the coin.” Other signature “middle men” of note beside government itself are the unions. Unions produce nothing.

5.       Common sense is the first, middle and last rule of economics. Acts that would bankrupt a household or business bankrupt a government and people. Simple “cause and effect” reveals a lot. Gold has been removed from the money. Money is now printed at will and specifically all government debt is literally “monetized” which means if there is a deficit of one trillion dollars than one trillion dollars is printed up by the Federal Reserve and placed into circulation. The result is wild inflation, a hidden tax on the people. In the 32 fiscal years following World War II up to 1978 prices more than tripled as a result of inflation. The government has changed the basis for revealing the Consumer Price Index several times since than to cover up the shameful effect of inflation.    A little research, however, shows that prices from 1978 to May, 2009 have risen 3.25 times so in short what a dollar would buy in 1946 is now equivalent to what it takes ten dollars to buy in 2009. 

If we see a gallon of gas was fifteen cents in 1946, a loaf of bread thirteen cents, a postage stamp just three cents, and the average cost of a new car was $1,300 we get a feel for just how much the purchasing power of the dollar has diminished.   Today’s gallon of gas cost 2.05, bread has gone up to 2.79, the postage stamp is now forty-two cents and the average new car $28,000. So while prices have gone up by a factor of ten, wages have gone up 6.25 times and now many if not most families have to rely on two wage-earners. Because of government intervention and deliberate inflation (those money printing presses do NOT load and run themselves and turn themselves on) the American citizen is worse off than he was 64 years ago.

6.       Government cannot create wealth. By “redistributing wealth” taking from the "hated rich" and giving to the “deserving poor,” government punishes the EXCESS of production from which all advances come from that create new technology, new jobs, new opportunities. While some minimum redistribution is presumably necessary for stability in society, the tendency to make all people poorer (taxes aimed at the wealthy almost invariably, only irritate the wealthy and really sting the middle class) and less likely to share in the nation’s growth and create two distinctive classes: poor and rich and create more instability rather than less.

7.       Make-work programs and job creation programs, cost jobs because the government is a far less efficient job creator than the free market is.   As in the Spanish green-tech job example, sometimes these make work programs cost an abysmally huge amount of jobs. People’s faith in government to solve their problems has in virtually every case been terribly misplaced.

8.       When governments take over markets and/or inflate the currency too much a “shadow economy” or “black-market” typically springs up and produces an enormous amount of jobs, services and opportunities that the government had bottle-necked because taxes in such shadow economies are impossible to collect the government resorts to even greater inflation to run the day-to-day governments.  When inflation gets big enough, normal civilization cannot exist.  All descends into chaos.

9.       A free market is a living breathing thing that needs to be nourished not stymied.  Until some government somewhere on earth, somewhere in history can be shown to be a better creator of prosperity, jobs and opportunity than the uncontrolled free markets, governments need to respectfully BUTT OUT of the markets.

10.   If a doctor, did to a patient what President Obama did to the free markets with his utterly stupid interventions, the patient would have died and the doctor would be facing a malpractice death suit. The president is working mightily to kill the golden goose . . . shame on his ignorance, shame on him.  And shame on those who elected him and now abet him

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

First Year/First Semester Obamonomics Earns “F”

            Economics 101 instructor Rajjpuut’s grades for our Freshman President, followed by comment on the student’s strengths and weaknesses:

Here is the critical economic area’ report card for the student:

Creation of jobs for Czars and Czardine staffs     A + +

            Comments: The new president has shown amazing creativity in the heretofore little used area of “creating czars” even though this aspect did hurt his grade on Constitutional Economics according to WV Democratic Senator Robert Byrd his instructor for that class, Rajjpuut is dumbfounded by the sheer beauty of the President’s approach. Perhaps the student should consider designing an “Independent Study” class whose purpose was to create 34 million new czar positions? We eagerly look forward to the next quarter.

            Economic Boost from Green Job Development     A+

            Comments: The encouragement of the new president has produced amazing results increasing green jobs in the nation already by 60% from 10 to 16. Congratulations, Mr. Obama.

            Broader Economic Development                             D-

            Comments: Unfortunately, the 6 new green jobs in the economy came at the cost of 13 full-time jobs and one part-time job in the broader economy.

            Understanding Economic Statistics                         F - -

            Comments: After hearing that the Spanish attempt at forcing green job development cost 2.2 jobs from the broader Spanish economy, the Obama press secretary made a joke about not buying windmill parts from them anymore. Rajjpuut is not amused when students attempt to cover ignorance with lame humor.

Helping Chrysler and GM                                        A +

Comments: It appears they will survive, Hurrah!

            Helping Liberal-supporting UAW workers            A++

            Comments: Not only did a lot of Chrysler jobs get saved for the union, but UAW members were elevated in the normal bankruptcy pecking order above secured-creditors, amazing!

            Trampling on bankruptcy laws                               F - -

            Comments: It must have shocked the bankruptcy lawyers and judges in the country to see the President of the United States orchestrating two auto-maker bankruptcies. It must have made the founding fathers roll over in their graves to see him elevating the UAW with virtually no status over secured creditors.

Hurting the State of Indiana                                    F - -

Comments: With the cooperation of the United States Supreme Courts and lower appellate courts, Obama was able to put the State of Indiana pension funds into virtual bankruptcy, oops, were they the secured creditors?  Gosh,  his bad.

Castrating Ford                                                         F - -

Comments: The only somewhat fiscally-responsible U.S. auto maker now not only has to face competition from GM, Chrysler and a host of foreign rivals, but also the knowledge that the playing field has just been tilted in favor of its two American rivals which now have Obama at running back for both teams.

            Protection for jobs ITOs                                           B+

            Protection for Fat Cat executives in ITOs              A -

            Comments: The presidents ability to save jobs and salaries in Industries Taken Over (ITOs) has been amazing. Bonuses for top executives in failed industries saved count as extra credit.

            Helping those affected by ITOs                               F - -

            Comments: Unfortunately, the president’s use of taxpayer dollars has taken a lot of capital from industries that were virtually destroyed by the abuses of the ITOs. The construction industry, for example, is only a shadow of its former self with little prospect for the near future.  Home prices continue to slump.  Since most taxpayers consider their home their single biggest investment, the low grade was well-deserved.

            Helping FOAs                                                            B+

           Firing Inspector Generals harassing FOAs                F - -

            Comment: By breaking the very IG laws he himself helped draft and get passed by firing two IG’s in order to protect his friends under investigation, Mr. Obama has shown a cynicism unseen since Richard Nixon was in the business of firing special prosecutors and Attorney Generals.  By closing profitable Chrysler dealerships owned by supporters of the McCain campaign and Profitable Chrysler dealerships surrounding FOA Chrysler dealerships, the President has shown that promises of an "open" administration were untrue.  Students are expected to tell the truth in class.

            Creation of part-time or gap-jobs                            C-

            Comments: The net gain in part-time or gap (generally undesirable short-term jobs; or jobs without benefits or desirable futures) positions has helped slow the ascent of the jobless rate.

            Creation of “real jobs”                                             F+

            Comments: Where are the real jobs, Mr. Obama. A helluva lot of money has been spent but where are all the infrastructure jobs you promised?

            The following areas need much improvement by the student and giving even a grade of F - - would be far too generous:

Protecting, preserving, defending Constitution      3%  taught by WV Dem. Senator Robert Byrd

Understanding Panoramic Nature of Econ.            0%

Protecting the Value of the Dollar                           0%

Protecting Capitalism/Avoiding Socialism              0%

Deficit Spending                                                        0%

Restoring Imbalances/Mortgage Guarantee Acts 1%

Solidifying Freddy Mac and Ginny Mae                1%

Helping Taxpayers                                                    -50%

Comments: We think the student needs to repeat the “community organizer class” for about fifteen consecutive years to gain a better understanding how a Republic and a Democracy and a capitalist society actually work. In particular he understands none of his kindergarten  I, Pencil http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/i-pencil/  class and believes only government coercion makes free societies possible. It also seems as if he wasn’t paying attention in class during his first or second grade Economics in One Lesson  http://jim.com/econ/chap01p1.html   class and does not even understand the Broken Window parable http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html .  In saying he would create 5 million green jobs but not mentioning the fact that 11 million jobs in the broader economy would have to be “sacrificed” (his words when discussing "wealth redistribution") assumes that because of his charisma he believes he CAN fool all of the people all of the time. Student should be sent back to kindergarten.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Bob

         The man should learn a thing or two about statistics.  Europe has gone nuts for green-tech for many years now.  The Spanish not only participated eagerly, but after 10-12 years they did a study on the results of their green-tech efforts.  Results of that study were that for every job created by green technology 2.2 jobs were lost.

         At only $775,000 to create each Spanish green job . . . it's a pity that only one job in ten so created was permanent, don't you think?

                Every once in awhile Public Relations and Marketing can work wonders. But it’s rare. People get used to “hype” and mentally subtract it from their projections. Two of the most telling stories (one positive and one negative) along this vein are these:

A.       Advertising was NOT a powerful force at the turn of the 20^th Century, here’s one reason it became so: A New York marketing firm was visited by a representative of the fishing industry. For a long time commercial American fisherman had been plagued by a “pest- fish” that was always fouling their nets.  The fish wouldn’t sell. In Britain, he was told, the poor would wait on the piers to be thrown the unpopular fish which didn’t sell there either. At first the marketing man wasn’t sure he could help. He thought he understood part of the problem with this pest-fish, horse mackerel, however and did his research. No, he wasn’t able to discover any applications for the animal’s oil and it wasn’t looking good for the idea of converting it to fertilizer. A couple weeks later, just on a hunch, he said, “Say, what’s this stuff taste like?” After a few tentative bites, he decided he could tolerate it. 

Further research showed him that the fish was extremely popular in Japan and the Far East and much beloved in the Hispanic world where it went by the name “atun.” In a few weeks he had a marketing campaign underway, and in 1903 they began canning under four different item labels:  “tuna,” “tuna fish,” “tunny,” and “tunny fish” and it’s right now the most popular food fish in America. So words, particularly names, can be powerful influences to behavior and marketing is often crucial to success.

B.      On the other hand, a smart-aleck agricultural extension agent was sent into an impoverished New Mexican community in the north central part of the state about 1965, with golden notions of winning over the locals, transforming their economy, and making an immediate name for himself.  He brought with him a wonderful new technology in the form of a rugged, disease-resistant hybrid corn that he foresaw as the answer to the locals’ foundering agricultural commerce. As he explained in tolerably-good Spanish at the first meeting, their old corn was OK for at best 80 or 90 bushels an acre in the hard-scrabble soil they had to work with; but this hybrid he called “Maiz-Maravilloso” (Wonder-Corn) was tough and did well despite the semi-arid conditions the farmers faced. 

He confidently guaranteed them 180 bushels an acre (smiling smugly when he said that, because he fully expected 240 bushels per acre the very first year). He was taken aback when only about 15% of the farmers took the free seed, but confident in three or four years he’d have 100% participation. The new corn was everything he said it was and the next year participation rose to almost 25%. In five years, however, no one was using wonder-corn, things went back to the way they were and he left with his tail between his legs. 

The extension agent who replaced him asked a few questions about Wonder-Corn and found out “the flour’s much too hard to cook with, and it makes terrible-tasting tortillas.” Clearly, it’s always best to truly understand a problem, rather than just wading in and swinging your sword. 

So it is with “green-tech.” There’s been enormous hype and a few great results, but generally speaking not much has been accomplished. The promise has seriously outrun results and in some cases the hype is still being sold long after the sad truths are known. The truth is sad, of course, because a more pristine earth, water and air benefit us all immeasurably in health, joy and lifestyle;  and like it or not global climate change promises to cause us some huge problems even as early as 2025. But, BUT, there are some big “buts” with the notion of ‘green tech’ as used by the wily Mr. Oh’ Bummer. Off his tongue, the words “green-tech” become ‘snake oil.’

The trouble with Mr. Obama is that while he knows a tremendous amount about getting people excited about something, he knows almost nothing about science and less than nothing about economics. The trouble with science and with economics is they both own the nasty habit of forcing you to abandon starry-eyed notions and wishful thinking in order to deal squarely with reality.   In economics we call those realities “inflation,” “supply and demand,” “management and labor,” and various “free-market forces;” in science those realities are known as chemistry, physics, biology, thermodynamics, metallurgy, industrial arts, etc., etc.   The man should also learn a thing or two about statistics.  Europe has gone nuts for green-tech for many years now.  The Spanish not only participated eagerly, but after 10-12 years they did a study on the results of their green-tech efforts.  Results of that study were that for every job created by green technology 2.2 jobs were lost.  Creating five million green tech jobs, as he promises, threatens to cut 11 million jobs elsewhere in the American economy.  The cost of creating one Spanish green-tech job was $775,000.  At only $775,000 to create each Spanish green job . . . it's a pity that only one job in tens so created was permanent, don't you think?

The “Infamous Dreamer” (who likes to go around to environmental meetings saying, “Hi, My name is Al Gore and I used to the ‘next-president of the United States’) and Mr. Oh’ Bummer  love to make you think it’s all so much easier than it is. In their version of Perfect-Tomorrow, you just wish it’s so, and PRESTO-CHANGE-O, it is so! Well, how do you like that!  

After forty-fives years of promises, however, exactly three green-technologies have truly panned out: windmills, the “curvy light bulb” known as the CFL or compact florescent lamp, and solar paneling.   And there is often a downside to green-tech that makes it unpopular: those beautiful new curvy light bulbs cost 8,000 GE employees their jobs.  On the other hand, new carbon-fiber technology is promising to make dramatically more efficient windmills and also when used in car bodies: a lighter, stronger, more gas-efficient automobile.

The bigger present reality is unfortunately this, unless you’re a back-to-nature advocate and willing to live somewhat like the pioneers; or you’re a modern Howard Hughes willing and able to cover several acres in solar paneling and build a $1.5 million 200-foot modern windmill on your property . . . . then green-tech is probably not for you. Green-tech works wonders for the lunatic fringe of survivalists and the very rich but it’s just not practical for the 99% of American families who’re earning  between $1,500 and $2 million a year. It just doesn’t get the job done. If a single word were chosen to describe the problems with green-tech, that word would be “impractical.” If a defining phrase were needed, that sorry phrase would be, “sometimes environmentally even worse.” 

This is not to say, that a whole lot of progress hasn’t been made. 1) The acid-rain problems so serious in the northeastern United States and nearby Canadian provinces in the 60’s and ‘70’s is pretty much taken care of 2) Even though our automobile fleets deliver less efficiency than China and many other nations are requiring, nevertheless, automobile mileage today in America is dramatically better now than it was even twenty-five years ago 3) a whole lot of toxicity problems and emissions problems associated with manufacturing processes have either been eliminated or dramatically reduced 4) many of the toxic dump sites with the greatest pollution have actually been cleaned up and restored. 5) also, on the jobs level, a whole lot of jobs are now a whole lot safer both in the short-term and the long run because of green tech and common-sense adaptations.

As a general rule, however, the technologies resulting from governmental encouragement and subsidization of (or tax-breaks for) ‘green tech’ have proved to be expensive, dangerous and most importantly, in many cases WORSE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT then the technologies already in place. Almost everything has proven to be will o’ the wisp at best.   All these detractions to green tech are sadly true, but a whole lot of the problem lies squarely with us, WE THE PEOPLE, and with worldwide expectations. While energy demands, per capita, have sky-rocketed since the middle of the 20^th Century and expectations with them, green-tech is still at a level where it can on a practical and reasonable expenditure basis supply the energy required to live at, say, a 1912 lifestyle.  The challenge is to make green-tech capability practical for supplying the energy needs of 2015 and beyond.

The history of man has been one long UN-interrupted journey up the energy-use ladder. A million years ago, the energy required for a man to flake a few flint tools and weapon points, then walk, jog or run ten miles throughout the day, and carry a deer over his shoulder for the last two and a half miles of it, plus the heat from a cooking, warming, and danger-shielding fire was all the energy anyone could ever imagine. Today, counting the many unseen manufacturing processes that go on in the background to give us all the myriad of products we use, the enormous energy required to lift a communication satellite into space, and little niceties like air conditioning, central heating, powerful automobiles and computers, none of which even existed in 1912 or even in 1972, the average American in a day, expends perhaps 11,000 times as much energy as our Neanderthal ancestors did.

So, where did today’s misty-eyed but misplaced optimism about green tech come from? It came from our glorious past. Hunkerin’ down and quickly toolin’ up the United States twice transformed itself from sleepy apathy into the mightiest industrial and military power of the age to help win both world wars. When given a time-table (“before the end of the decade, we will put a man on the moon”) by President Kennedy, we stole back the prestige lost to Sputnik and became the dominant power in space exploration. Unfortunately, those feats while difficult were certainly in the realm of straight-forward possibility. 

Today, the hype about green-tech vastly outshines the reality.   Often it’s a simple case of trading one problem for a much worse one. This shows up in ethanol which Mr. Oh’ Bummer is still pushing fiercely. Ethanol takes needed acreage from food farming and drives up food prices while dramatically depleting the soil. Ethanol takes huge fleets of trucks to move the corn to manufacturing plants and huge amounts of pollution is generated. And most importantly, ethanol destroys automobile engines, increasing our need for greater manufacturing and even more pollution. Pull your head out, Mr. Oh’ Bummer!

The technology to bring us highly efficient florescent bulbs to light our business with is another boondoggle. Unfortunately, the new bulbs are terribly expensive and while they do last a long, long time and use a tiny bit of energy, they carry poisonous mercury in them that is such a severe toxic hazard that if one is broken you’d need to clear out a whole floorful of office workers for a couple days to allow the cleanup progresses.

This particularly shows up in hybrid cars that Mr. Oh’ Bummer is absolutely crazed about. Hybrids are awfully expensive. You might buy one because the government gives you a tax break, which means you and other tax-payers subsidize their use on top of the purchase cost to you. It typically takes seven years for a hybrid to return in savings from fuel what the excess cost of the vehicle costs. But most of all, the original hybrid automobiles are an environmental disaster. If one is wrecked, a whole lot of bad environmental toxins can be released. The making of the original huge nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries creates a toxic sludge that leaves whole acres polluted for an estimated forty years. 

Heck, even old lead batteries are terribly dangerous: long-term exposure to their lead damages heart, brain, kidneys, the nervous system, etc., etc., ad nauseum and creates severe learning problems in children. The latest hybrids use something called “nickel-metal” batteries; the very latest something called “lithium-ion batteries.” Understanding toxic impact: lead is worst, the original lead is worst, but just a bit worse than nickel-cadmium; nickel-metal is next worst and lithium-ion batteries are the worst. All reports are that both nickel-metal and lithium-ion batteries are on a volume basis, much less environmentally nasty then either conventional car and boat batteries or then the old hybrid nickel-cadmium batteries. However, what’s not said is this: the volume of today’s batteries is much greater than the volume of yesterday’s batteries; and the only way the new batteries are expected to stay environmentally friendly is IF 100% of them are recycled back to the auto-making plants at great expense to the car-makers. There just are no easier answers so far.

All this doesn’t mean answers aren’t coming. It doesn’t mean absolutely no good will come of Mr. Oh’ Bummer’s green-tech initiatives. It just means, that on a practical level there is nothing yet  in sight to get us anywhere close to where he’s promising to take us. The technologies do NOT presently exist. If they did and it were a matter of hunkerin’ down and toolin’ up, that would be one thing. But that’s presently NOT the case.

Take the idea of having virtually green fleets by 2020, balderdash! I am presently aware of only one technology that might, MIGHT, carry us there and because I’m a health educator not an industrialist, I could be dead wrong. It’s called Aquygen ®** and purportedly works by taking small amounts of water and converting it to HHO gas for fuel use. In theory, with tiny amounts of ordinary fuel and a tiny gas engine serving as the “primary-system” to provide the power needed for the Aquygen ®-powered “secondary-system” we’d have ourselves a full-sizes automobile capable of (the kind of gasoline mileage now reserved for motor scooters) 80-120 miles per gallon and SUV’s capable of 70-90 MPG. Unlike, Mr. Obama, I’m a-gonna tell you flat out, I may NOT know what I’m talking about, industrial arts is NOT my area of expertise. I will only say, the technology has been bantered about for about six years now so there are undoubtedly problems in turning promise into reality; but to my limited (car-nal, ha ha) knowledge: this is one thing that has a good chance of working. And with that revelation, we see both the promise and the frustration with green-tech. I only wish Mr. Oh’ Bummer would disappear and his replacement, Mr.  President Obama, would shoot straight from the hip instead of selling us a bill of untrue goods. We don’t need cheerleading, we need facts.

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Bob

**http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&p=aquygen&SpellState=n-1219415753_q-OdJInmG0g67D8iUsT.iMhwAAAA%40%40&fr2=sp-qrw-corr-top        will give you about 32,000 hits on HHO technology but virtually all will be dead ends.

Econ. 101 for Liberals and

             In the prior lesson: Lesson #1 The “Invisibles”

http://rajjpuutsfolly.blogtownhall.com/2009/06/13/the_unending_free-lunch_strategy.thtml

using Henry Hazlitt’s exquisite example of the ‘broken window,’ Rajjpuut exposed the “free-lunch” bunch as the con men and charlatans they are.  Explaining further, Rajjpuut revealed the mechanisms of their trickery for all to see. 1. A series of glorious-sounding promises are made. 2. Anyone with half a mind can see that there is something of value being offered, even if you don’t approve of all of it, because so very much is being offered  3.  for apparently little or nothing, so 4.  it’s a no-brainer . . . vote for the man with the sweet-sounding plan.             However, under even the most casual and lightest of intelligent examinations the mechanics of the plan quickly fall apart. Indeed the sweet-sounding plan is always a swindle, a theft, from the “invisibles.” At best, then the Liberal plan is merely a transfer of resources. Telling it like it is, however, it’s really stealing from Peter and his family that we don’t like so much (say a landlord representing only two votes) and giving to Paul, Pauline and Paulette and a few relatives and friends of Paul and Pauline and Paulette (representing, say, seven votes) -- omitting the fact that Peter has earned his money and is creating wealth for the economy and the ‘Seven Dwarves’ are leeches on the fabric of society (not talking here about real needs for, say, children; but rather about those whose only talent in life is the skill of writing great-sounding proposals for say, “green-tech” research who really contribute nothing to society) -- it all just sounds so sensible and good and even “necessary.” However, we also forget that all this resource redirection requires hired bureaucrats who do almost no work but just inefficiently hand-off the stolen money to other bureaucrats before the final work or even a grant for research, etc. is made. 

So if we had $2,625 of total theft, then $625 worth of government inefficiency means that only $2,000 worth of potential benefit can move through the economy. However, a key concern to ponder: the final product NEVER is what Peter would have spent the $2,625 for, NEVER. In fact if Peter is, for example, Ford Motor Company, the final result of, say, a series of bailouts costing roughly $100 Billion to Chrysler and GM might quite likely threaten Peter’s very survival.  

The $2,625 worth of economic benefit that Peter’s freely chosen actions would spread throughout the economy are, of course, never mentioned when the Grand Plan is spoken of. This is conveniently shunted aside, and shame on you should you ever bring up the disgustingly irrelevant thought, but rather emphasis swings to all the glorious infinite string of good created by the $2,000 (after inefficiencies) stolen from Peter and earmarked for Paul and Paulette, etc., The truth is slanted 100% toward the lie that “society as a whole gains” and away from the truth that government cannot create wealth and that every time government is involved other than with absolutely necessary national defense and infrastructure (bridges, schools, roads, sewers, etc.) society as a whole loses!            

The fundamental principle that brings the “free-lunch” lie to its knees is the simple fact that everything (even exploiting the free bounties of nature), requires effort, everything has a price. Mature thought is the ability and willingness to always search for the true cost of a thing or a plan. Think of buying ten lottery tickets every week, yes, you’ve bought yourself some extremely long-shot chances for a fortune but the price is the $520 less you could spend at the end of the year, and the $1040 less at the end of the next year, and the $1560 less the year after that, etc., etc., totaling, perhaps $26,000 over an adult lifetime . . . for something far less likely to happen to you than getting hit by lightning that adds up to one heckuva subscription charge for something a lot less fun than solitaire.   The lottery has the virtue of being a transaction many people willingly enter into where the actual cost is easily discernible. It is a tax, true, but it is a tax that people may choose to pay or not to pay, rather than one forced upon us.

 Just as in the free-lunch via taxation examples, all emphasis goes to the spectacular benefits A. the good done for the state by lottery ticket money and B. all the wonderful examples of lucky people who won the lottery, especially those who won the fattest prizes. Meanwhile we are never encouraged to consider how much harm is done to the economy by removing $26,000 from the pockets of so many people during their lifetimes. Free-lunch, once again conquers reason. But since free will is not denied by the “lottery tax,” Rajjpuut holds no resentment toward raising money via lotteries.

Friend, if it sounds to good to be true (not costing you a cent) it is NOT true. Find the Invisibles and trace what it costs society to carry out this sweet-smelling plan; then add about 32% for inefficiency (how much higher government jobs tend to pay, how much less work gets done, how no actual worthwhile product is created) and the fact that what is produced is never what the taxed individual would willingly spend his money on and you understand just how badly society treats the Invisibles. Most importantly, come to realize how often, you are one of the Invisibles yourself.

 Live long, strong and ornery,

Bob    

 economics   free-lunch   "the Invisibles"    paying the price   broken window   Economics in one Lesson   fallacy  taxation

 Econ. 101 for Liberals and

Other Dummies

Lesson #1 “The Invisibles”

            After his election win in 1965, Lyndon Baines Johnson espoused the idea of an American “Great Society” with an “enlightened” federal government overseeing the total elimination of poverty and need from the national scene forever.  Later imitating that bad example, peanut vendor Jimmy Carter became the first in a long line of Democrats to practice a campaign strategy of unceasing new promises at every whistle-stop. Let’s call it the “Liberal Unending Free-Lunch Strategy;” and it certainly seems to be their prime tactical response for any difficult questions arising during nationally televised presidential debates. 

Rajjpuut (pronounced Rahhh-poooot) is shocked whenever naive people eagerly swallow any Liberal bait . . . hook, line and sinker . . . but when the gullible get gulled by this one, this liberal Free-Lunch idea, you have to wonder about the quality of public education in this country. You see there is NO such thing as a free lunch anywhere*, anytime#. 

            Something-for-nothing has been the eternal come-on for telephone solicitors, confidence men, and politicians since time immemorial. The second chapter, of Henry Hazlitt’s groundbreaking book “Economics in One Lesson,” tells the simple story of a broken window (http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html) to illustrate this simplest of economic fallacies (http://jim.com/econ/contents.html).

            Hazlitt shows us a bakery shop in a usually quiet urban area. Suddenly a passing delinquent pulls a large rock out of his knapsack and throws it through the shop’s huge display window. The bakery supervisor’s efforts to collar the miscreant prove fruitless and when he returns a crowd has already gathered. The onlookers are mesmerized by the destruction before them. Not only the huge window but a good $500 worth of merchandise, totally destroyed, lies ruined before them.       

            Somebody, an undertaker or one of the baker’s competitors, mentions “it’s an ill-wind that blows nobody good.” He reminds the crowd that the nearby glass shop will probably get a $2000 repair job out of this mess. The crowd is entranced by this thought. He continues, “I mean really, without broken windows, glaziers would be out of luck.” And someone seizes upon the idea, “yeah, I wonder what the glazier will do with that money? Perhaps get his kitchen remodeled?” And in a short while the crowd sees the glazier’s $2000 moving on to the kitchen remodeler; then to a down payment for a used car dealer; a brand new first-class basement entertainment system; through a boulder-sized engagement ring;  a three-day Caribbean vacation; etc, etc. on and on through society like an infinite set of beneficent ripples on an endless pond of economic benevolence. The lesson, if looked at in this way is clear: the little hoodlum with his vandalism, far from being a menace to society is, in fact a great benefactor.

            This is the conclusion that roughly 90% of the pea-wit politicians who advance the notion of "heroic government spending" will come to 1,000 times in every thousand chances to learn something. I say, “pea-wits” because it’s literally impossible for anyone employing the lowest level of common sense to imagine that “destruction,” “theft,” fires, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, war, or other cataclysms bring benefits in their wake. This is the highest quality economic^ thought that 90% of them are capable of. Make no bones about it, 100% of these “free-lunch dreams" are based upon taxation, and taxation is a forcible interaction, a theft . . . Rajjpuut repeats: a “theft!” Virtually all Liberal politicians either believe or (despite knowing better) espouse government spending, hence “theft,” as an economic solution that brings undeniable universal benefits.  The tragedy is that so many voters support their nonsense (see below for Liberalism's strong points^).

            The great problem with Liberal thoughtlessness, of course, lies first off with the “Invisibles.” The Invisibles are, naturally enough, only “invisible” to Liberals. Invisible #1 is the owner of the bakery, more on her later.. Invisible #2, the travel agent who was planning the Baker’s trip with her family to Disneyland. The travel agent was planning on purchasing a new computer system, the computer store owner (Invisible #3) was going to pay his daughter’s tuition at a private school(Invisible #4), etc., etc., etc. 

            Taking our thinking just this simple step further, we see that the Liberal gains seen by the crowd come at severe cost to the Bakery owner. Besides everything else, we see she is out one family visit to Disneyland.   What about the other Invisibles?  Every one of them is out $2,000 also. So what is the NET impact after the delinquent’s vandalism? Society is out exactly, “little drum roll, Maestro”: one broken window. And one broken window is precisely the cost that common sense would indicate: one broken window . . . but this simple, clear and obvious line of thought is terribly inconvenient for Liberals since it exposes their perpetually fallacious reasoning. 

            There is something else that is NEVER mentioned. The bakery also lost $500 worth of inventory and the employee time and the cost of replacing it, say $625 in total. In our little metaphor, we are going to do something even the great Henry Hazlitt didn’t do. We are going to consider that $625 to be government inefficiency.   Unlike the bakery owner who quite efficiently sets her money freely into the free market, that total of $2625 ($625 + $2,000 = $2,625) will probably pass through the hands of several bureaucrats (who must be paid and who operate inefficiently, per se) and only be worth say $2,000 when push comes to shove. One more reason to hate unnecessary government theft, oops, I meant “spending.”

            Yes, it all makes sense, doesn’t it? There is NO free lunch.  But why, why does it make sense? Because even taking advantage of the “free” bounties of nature comes at a price.  There is a price for everything and one sign of mature thought is to realize that a price needs to be paid and even to look conscientiously for the price that is being paid.  For example, if you buy ten lottery tickets every week, yes, you’ve bought yourself some extremely long-shot chances for a fortune but the price is $520 less you can spend at the end of the year, and $1040 at the end of the next year, and then $1560 the year after that, etc., etc., totalling, perhaps $26,000 over an adult lifetime . . . for something far less likely to happen to you than getting hit by lightning.

Live long, strong and ornery,

Bob                

^Liberals as weak as they've proven continually in economic thought, on the other hand, have done some good things with social thought: helping demolish integration and bringing civil rights breakthroughs, for example. If there is one vital thing conservatives could learn from Liberals it is simply “live and let live” and "for God's sake:  be fair!"

In our last missive, we explained how Barrack Obama was not only flunking his American Constitution class, but had obviously not even cracked an economics book nor even started his econ homework. Hopefully you’ve been more diligent than the president and taken a close look at the assignments you were given:  You read "I ,Pencil"and appreciate the incredible natural balance of the free markets.  If you missed the last blog:

http://rajjpuutsfolly.blogtownhall.com/2009/06/04/the_greentech_fallacy_or_how_barak_flunked_economics.thtml

Today is the 4^th of June, 2009. 67 years ago today began the three-day naval engagement in World War II, the “Battle of Midway.” Occurring only six months after Pearl Harbor and a bare month after the naval encounter known as the “Battle of the Coral Sea” ended in a standoff between the United States and Japan, “Midway” was the most decisive battle of the war in the Pacific. There is something about warfare that excites the imagination of most people. There is also something about warfare that addles the brain of politicians and confuses many economists. Whereas it’s not too hard for most people and most economists to understand Hazlitt’s straightforward “Broken Window” fallacy which “in a hundred disguises is the most common and persistent in economic history.”

http://jim.com/econ/chap02p1.html

perhaps the most damaging myth in modern day economics is the idea that “WAR  IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS.” Hazlitt describes this idea as “merely our old friend, the broken window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown ‘fat’ beyond recognition” with the support of a whole bundle of related fallacies.

Let us not even belabor the point that IF you lose a war (how many nations enter a war expecting to lose?) the cost of the devastation to the economy can be overwhelming, not to mention the morale of the people, the cost in lives lost, bodies crippled, minds traumatized, careers set aside and life plans jettisoned. Instead, as students of economics, let’s just concentrate on a typical U.S. war, where our country enters it to set right a perceived wrong (rather than to conquer territory, or gain resources) . . . so there’s not even the normally enjoyable raping, pillaging and plundering plus the gain of more land to brag about. It’s obvious to any thinking person looking with any depth that war is a loss for both sides, yet the myths persist that war is good for the economy. Hazlitt (as he did with the single fairly obvious broken window fallacy) easily dismantles all the twisted and convoluted and compound fallacies tied in with the single statement that “All we need is a good war, and the economy would boom,” in his next chapter, “The Blessings of Destruction,”

http://jim.com/econ/chap03p1.html

In doing this, Hazlitt attacks the very root of muddled Obama thinking that pervades the airwaves right now. 

You see while Mr. Obama was very eager to say that the “War on Terror” was an unacceptably and politically incorrect term which he and his administration would no longer use  . . . he was not so eager to announce the “War on Fossil Fuels” that he’s gone and gotten us into. Unannounced wars can be very dangerous. For example in roughly 1991, Obama declared a war on the United States, ‘Jihad’ he called it. Our government chose to ignore this and not announce to American citizens that somebody wanted to destroy us. You know how that one went, don’t you? We got “Pearl Harbored” again on September 11, 2001. The very last unannounced war** we were in began in 1998, let’s call it the “Unannounced War on the Landlords” or the “War to Get all the Poor People into Their Own Homes.” You know how that one turned out right?   For a brief shining moment, the politicians in Washington (more Democrats than GOP, but both parties were involved) were crowing from the church steeples that home ownership, which had stayed at a healthy 64% for about 56 years, now stood at 69% (while the owners of rental properties were devastated); and in the next instant we were up to our ears in the mortgage-guarantee crisis and our hither-to healthy economy was in shambles as banks, stock brokerages, insurance companies and related financial institutions began to fall like a row of dominoes.

Mr. Obama’s plan is that rather than dropping expensive bombs in this new unannounced war, we’ll just drop money (on the green-tech industries). Since a recent Spanish study of the impact of green-tech in that country showed that A) each green-tech job came at the cost of losing 2.2 jobs from elsewhere in their economy B) only one in every ten green-tech jobs created was permanent C) the cost in Euros for creating each green-tech job was 775,000 U.S. dollars . . . which means the five million green-tech jobs, Obama wants to create, can be expected to come at a cost of losing eleven million jobs from elsewhere in the U.S. economy. Mr. Obama is very big on sacrifices by the citizenry. Much too big, if you ask me.

About now some of you may be thinking, this is a pretty lame analogy: green-tech is a war on fossil fuels, how can you say that?  Your misunderstanding comes from the fact that I neglected to introduce:

Rajjpuut's "First Law of Economic Intervention:"  

ALL GOVERNMENT ACTIONS IN THE MARKET PLACE INVOLVE FORCE.

"That's nonsense!" you say.  Let's look at the simplest possible example.  You own a house free and clear.  Oooops, perhaps not so "free and clear."  You own the right to call a certain piece of  property "yours" so long as you pay your taxes. It's almost like you rent your home, by paying taxes. Should you decide not to pay your taxes, I suggest the real owner will eventually show up, kick you out into the street and run an auction to raise money to cover the taxes you didn't pay and then will "rent" (so long as taxes are paid) "your" home to someone else.  Another example:  if the government declares any kind of war, including the shooting ones, you may be forced to help.  In the shooting war, you might be drafted and if you don't "help" you may be imprisoned.  In the unannounced wars, they just "steal" your income tax dollars and do with them what they want.  Of course, should you omit paying your income taxes, well, you get the idea . . . .

Your homework for next time: Now that you see that an unannounced war is going on, look over the mortgage-guarantee ideas and the green-tech proposals and compare them to the fallacies that Hazlitt reveals in Chapter Three . . .

Do your homework now, don’t be an Obama!

Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,

Bob