The American Spectator

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It's the Stupid Economy

4.1.08 @ 12:01AM

A MAN FOR ALL FROGKISSERS
Re: William Yeatman's A Maverick Climate Policy:

How can anybody seriously think that McCain is a conservative after reading about his climate change proposals? He isn't a conservative and never will be and he looks insane as well. The only reason a conservative would vote for him is because they like kissing frogs -- lots of them and ugly ones too. McCain sure is one big, ugly frog. Good luck in November if this lunatic gets elected.
-- Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

William Yeatman writes that under John McCain's plan, "Energy-intensive industries would have every incentive to move their operations to countries without carbon controls, like China."

But there is no need to wait for McCain's plan to take effect, or Clinton's, or Obama's. The present national energy policy, which without hyperbole is no new drilling in Alaska, no new drilling offshore, no new refineries, no new nuclear, has already resulted in bodies in the street that all three candidates blithely ignore.

Piston general aviation is dying. Aviation gasoline consumption, and along with it flight hours, has dropped off the scale. On a recent CAVU day, flew my Skylane to pickup a safety pilot for some instrument practice. When he hopped in, he said "I knew it was you approaching the field." When asked in reply if he was listening on a hand-held radio, he said "you're the only airplane in the sky." On a ceiling and visibility unlimited day.

Power boating is dying. A cousin with waterfront property on Long Island's south shore reports that a marine refueling station sold $50,000 in fuel on Labor Day weekend 2006, but only $2,000 in fuel on Labor Day weekend 2007. And six months ago fuel was "cheap" compared to today.

As automobile gasoline prices continue their inexorable rise, and aviation gasoline, and marine gasoline, and fuel oil, and electricity, the political dead end that our national energy policy, not to mention John McCain's plan, has led us to will become clear to literally everyone, regardless of political persuasion. That is because the problem of energy prices uniquely cannot be solved by the Democrat solution to all other cost problems, i.e., the Robin Hood solution. Democrats can solve the medical cost problem by engaging in Robin Hood redistribution. Ditto for Medicare or Social Security or any other fundamental need of individuals. But a Robin Hood subsidizing of the cost of fuel for Democrat constituents fails to inflict the level of pain necessary to change behavior. Hence, in this one unique case, no Robin Hood. Democrat constituents simply must suffer. And suffer they will.

Until they reason that the energy policy sadists were mistaken.
-- Frank Natoli
Newton, New Jersey

Congratulations to author Yeatman for a deliciously sarcastic piece on Senator McCain's environmental excesses.

Senator McCain's proposals are in woefully pedestrian conformity with the dogma of the Global Warmists. The sale and trading of Carbon Indulgences completes the religious metaphor. McCain-Lieberman is another hare-brained edifice of central economic planning worthy of his idol Teddy Roosevelt and his mistakenly esteemed relative.

Yeatman ably documents the measures that an actual maverick would be fighting to institute against the conventional wisdom: more exploration for energy unburdened by NIMBYs and enviros, lightening the yoke of regulation that plagues the nuclear power industry, eliminating destructive government intervention in electrical power generation, ending stupid tax policies, etc.

We require no further demonstrations of Senator McCain's grasp of economics. As Mr. Limbaugh has pointedly said, ignorance is the most expensive thing we pay for. Where is Phil Gramm when we really, really NEED him to be running one-on-one remedial instruction in economics?
-- Bud Hammons

I think it is a mistake to characterize global warming mitigation as being too expensive. Such arguments are associated with justifications of immoral policies like slavery or the exploitation of resources to exhaustion just because it is economically convenient. It is not wise to expect that people who have had normal liberal schooling would grasp even the basics of economics like: There is no free lunch.

Even though it is a variation of the Broken Window Fallacy, Global Warming actions represent the forced replacement of a broken window. Both the Left and the Right seem to be mesmerized by the "green jobs" that global warming will create. In the original scenario of the Broken Window Fallacy, a shopkeepers son breaks a window in his father's shop. The glazier's job that is created by this act is thought of as at least being good for the glazier. This, of course, is predicated on the idea that there is no conspiracy among glaziers to hire little boys to break windows.

Our modern day little boy is Al Gore and instead of breaking a window, we are pressured, under color of law, to replace the window before it is demonstrated to be cracked with a high tech substitute and with high tech super glaziers who represent the new army of green glazier jobs. The fallacy of this opinion and world view is that the mobilization of government resources to create these green jobs will abnormally send human and capital resources to activities at the expense of others that could be more beneficial.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Trade, John McCain, Bill Clinton, Economics, Social Security, Religion, Islam, Abortion, Environment, Global Warming, Law, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, NATO, Energy, Alaska, Oil, Medicare