Global Warming Quiz

Or should I use the newer lingo and call it a "Climate Change Quiz"? A friend send me this link. Give it a shot. (I got a 100%, not that I'm bragging.)

Global Warming Quiz

Oil for the People from the People? Part 2

Thanks to Robert Bidinotto who provides this link to a news story about gas stations who are converting to Marathon Oil because customers are boycotting Citgo in protect to the antics of Hugo Chavez.

2008 International Conference on Climate Change

The Heartland Institute hosted the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change as a alternative to the recent conference that was held in Bali to decry man-made climate change (the new buzz words to replace global warming, probably because for the last 8 years or so the global temperatures have been stable and in 2007 the earth's average temperature dropped by at least half a degree). The Heartland conference hosted many scientists who disagree with Gore and his minions and claim that global warming, if it is occurring, is driven more by the sun and other natural factors than it is by humans.

On the web site covering this conference is a document produced by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), "an international coalition of scientists convened to provide an independent examination of the evidence available on the causes and consequences of climate change in the published, peer-reviewed literature – examined without bias and selectivity. It includes many research papers ignored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), plus additional scientific results that became available after the IPCC deadline of May 2006."

It's a nice summary of an alternative view, which the mass media assidously avoids representing.

Links on the subprime mess

During my recent weekly doubles tennis match one of the fellows in our group launched into a rant about the pending collapse of the real estate market with the potential for a domino effect on other financial markets due to the subprime lending fiasco. I haven't paid much attention to this subject other than to notice the frequent buzz about this in the news. My teammate's panic-stricken comments spurred me to look into the subprime situation. Rather than regurgitate what I found I decided to provide some links. As usual the news media and our demagogue elected officials who want to make political hay off of this artificially created predicament got it wrong yet again.

Enjoy!

Don't Waste Your Time If You Can't Pay the Prime

Sub-Prime Politicians and Mortgage Loans By People Buying Homes by Thomas Sowell

Subprime Economics by Alan Reynolds

The Subprime Crash by Arnold Kling

The Morality of Moneylending: A Short History by Yaron Brook

The Failure -- and Success -- of Liberal “Solutions”

Maybe this isn’t an original observation but I don’t recall seeing it in my readings. Over the years the Left offers solutions for poverty, unemployment and health care. Generally these solutions fall into three categories: increase government spending (and taxes), add new regulations to “fix” problems with the market or a combination of the two. And yet these problems don’t go away nor do they seem to get significantly better despite pouring billions and billions of dollars into them. So why doesn’t the Left admit that their answers don’t work and try something else? Or to put it another way, what problem has the Left said: “We fixed it! We’re done! Let’s move on to the next challenge.” Nope. We are constantly asked to do more of the same, even if it doesn’t ultimately work.

What is the alternative? Lower taxes? Fewer regulations? Less government involvement? But that would make them Republicans!

Yet the irony is that in each election we see Republicans competing to see who can come up with watered down versions of what the Left proposes while also paying lip service to the free market and limited government. As an example, witness Mitt Romney’s push to provide universal health insurance in Massachusetts that involves penalties if people don’t sign up, an approach similar to Hilary Clinton’s plan which includes garnishing wages of those who don’t comply with her wisdom. (!) A recent study by Cato Institute shows that many people still haven’t signed up for RomneyCare, the estimated cost is going to be much higher than predicted and the bureaucracy involved in health care has increased.

So why does the Right inexorably drift Leftward? Rand would have said that it because the Right shares the same altruist beliefs as the Left so that they don’t have a principled difference to resist the constant demand for the government to do more. While I don’t dispute this it doesn’t explain why voters reward the politicians with their votes. Unfortunately, many people believe it’s OK to receive government largess. I’m sure there are a number of reasons. Perhaps it’s the feeling that the funds are coming from taxing the rich or big business and therefore it’s the common man’s way for getting back at “the man.” Some probably don’t think through the fact that the money they’re receiving had to come from somewhere, like from their own taxes and their neighbors. Or it could be the desire to get “something for nothing.” Some think they’re “entitled” or it's their “right” to receive assistance.

In any case, I believe it’s the shortsighted interest of the electorate to benefit at the expense of others that fuels the engines of politicians to compete with each other to come up with more inventive ways to redistribute income. This shows the need for a better understanding of what rational self-interest and objectivity truly entail. The electorate’s desire for the unearned at the expense of others feeds the politicians desire to appease … and to be elected.

Politicians love to campaign under the banner of “change.” However, we’ll see true change only when both altruism and the desire for the unearned are successfully challenged.

Canada: A Model for Health Care? Or a symptom of something deeper?

Health care is one of the central issues of the current Presidential election in the U.S. When I discuss this with my (mostly liberal) friends here in Massachusetts they inevitably point to Canada as a model of how "it should be done." I've written on this before but will continue to hammer on this issue because it is indeed as important as the Democrats claim, but for different reasons. Below is a quote from the January 2008 issue of Imprimis. The article, titled "Is Canada's Economy a Model for America?" has this interesting story.

Canadian dependence on the United States is particularly true in health care, the most eminent Canadian idea looming in the American context. That is, public health care in Canada depends on private health care in the U.S. A small news story from last month illustrates this:

A Canadian woman has given birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets. The four girls were born at a U.S. hospital because there was no space available at Canadian neonatal intensive care units. Autumn, Brook, Calissa, and Dahlia are in good condition at Benefice Hospital in Great Falls, Montana. Health officials said they checked every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada, but none had space. The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician were flown 500 kilometers to the Montana hospital, the closest in the U.S., where the quadruplets were born on Sunday.

There you have Canadian health care in a nutshell. After all, you can’t expect a G-7 economy of only 30 million people to be able to offer the same level of neonatal intensive care coverage as a town of 50,000 in remote, rural Montana. And let’s face it, there’s nothing an expectant mom likes more on the day of delivery than 300 miles in a bumpy twin prop over the Rockies. Everyone knows that socialized health care means you wait and wait and wait—six months for an MRI, a year for a hip replacement, and so on. But here is the absolute logical reductio of a government monopoly in health care: the ten month waiting list for the maternity ward.

This lead me to observe that I can't recall a "problem" that the Left adopts as a rallying cause, whether it is health care, poverty, unemployment, etc., where they have said, "We've fixed it! We're done! Let's move on." You would think that after pouring trillions of dollars into "fixing" these problems and seeing marginal - if any improvement - that you would either reconsider your approach or reevaulate your analysis of the causes. Makes me wonder. How about you?

Oil for the people from the people?

As a resident of Massachusetts during the winter months I endure commercials by Joe Kennedy extolling Citizens Energy, an organization he founded that sells oil to needy folks at a 40% discount. Citizens Energy buys oil from Citgo, the Venezuelan oil company. I usually ignore these ads figuring that at least Kennedy is doing something himself as opposed to others who campaign for tax increases to fund their favorite causes. (I’m sure Kennedy agrees with this approach but is also trying to do something himself.) One of these commercials takes a shot at the Bush administration for cutting support to supply oil to the needy and at the oil companies for having “money to burn” while the screen shows a flare stack, something all petrochemical plants use to burn off vapors. The ad also praises the only oil company to help Citizens Energy: Citgo, “owned by the people of Venezuela.”

There are a number of issues packaged into this ad but I want to focus on how describing Citgo as being owned by the people creates a warm and fuzzy image of the noble Venezuelan people altruistically selling their oil to our needy. Experience shows that when you say everyone owns something in reality no one does. Or to put it more accurately, the government owns Citgo. In addition something like 80% of the world’s oil is owned and run by government-run companies who drive the market price of oil. If Kennedy doesn’t like the high price of oil don’t blame the free market. Thank the government owned oil companies.

Of course when we talk about Venezuela the first person most people would think of is it’s controversial, highly visible president, Hugo Chavez who during a speech at the U.N. labeled Bush “the devil,” which drew raucous applause. Just so you know, I’m not a big fan of George Bush and believe Chavez has the right to his opinion. I also don’t object to Citizens Energy buying oil from Citgo; the U.S. buys 70% of their total production. It also doesn’t matter to me if Joe Kennedy collects $400,000 a year for his role in Citizens Energy. I do object to the claim that Citgo is “owned” by the people of Venezuela and the dishonest image this creates.

Here are some other relevant tidbits that reveal the true nature of the Chavez regime and how people friendly it is.

• Although Chavez was freely elected in 1998 he quelled an attempted coup in 2002. Since then he has stepped up efforts to muzzle the media and packed the Supreme Court with cronies.
• Human Rights Watch reports that there are “onerous restrictions on the media.”
• According to Amnesty International, “Human rights violations, including torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances perpetuated by members of the security forces remain unpunished.”
• The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, ranks countries in terms of “regulations that directly impact economic growth, downloading underlying laws, making cross-country comparisons, and identifying good practice reforms.” How does Venezuela rank? Almost dead last: 172 out of 178. In short, Venezuela is one of the most inhospitable places in the world for creating and running a business.

So why does Kennedy turn a blind eye to the abuses of his buddy Chavez? Why does he criticize our government but says nothing about Venezuela’s abuse of rights? I’m sure Joe Kennedy could argue that he doesn’t want to alienate and thereby threaten his sole supply of oil. (I have not seen any quote saying this in my research.) I believe the real reason is because Kennedy and Chavez share the same philosophical premises. Both accept altruism and collectivism and its consequential hatred of the free Market.

Why do I say “consequential”? Because altruism claims we don’t have the right to exist for our own sake: we live only for the sake of others. This is the foundation of collectivism. On the other hand, capitalism is based on the premise that we have the right to pursue our own interests, including starting businesses and striving to make a profit. Since we are not usually willing to curb our natural pursuit of our interests it’s up to our “enlightened” leaders to make us sacrifice our interests. They will tightly control our attempts to start and run businesses (hence Venezuela’s low IFC rating) and limit our ability to express dissent to their draconian measures (hence the control of the media).

As a result of this alliance between two people who dislike our capitalist economy (that allegedly ignores the plight of the poor) and who endorse forced redistribution of wealth, we have an odd variation on Robin Hood. Instead of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, we have Chavez using the poor of Venezuela to subsidize the poor of Massachusetts. Apparently this is OK for Kennedy and Chavez because they both get a chance to tweak the nose of Bush and the U.S.