Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptics Position (studio version) from Warren Meyer on Vimeo.

Warren is local to me (he lives about three miles away actually), and runs both the excellent libertarian small business and economics blog CoyoteBlog, and the absolutely essential climate blog Climate Skeptic.

TARP: Notwithstanding the wide-ranging areas this money was targeted to (i.e. auto bailouts) and the fact that when it was determined it would lose less than planned the difference would be spent elsewhere, this was nothing more than a bald-faced attempt to shore up balance sheets to forestall economic reality. I said at the time that much of this activity was designed to slow down the contraction and hope that the economy could grow out of the doldrums in the meantime, but that it risks causing rampant inflation when money velocity actually picks up. Worst, it had the potential for the government to buy the worst garbage paper the banks had on offer, essentially being an economic sinkhole of major proportions. Luckily it has not been as bad as anticipated, largely because government meddling in the internal affairs of banks has caused them to try like hell to pay it back quickly and get themselves out from under its terms.

Stimulus: The stimulus was billed as a way to jumpstart shovel-ready infrastructure projects, but it was quickly apparent that the only thing shoveled was a load of BS. Stimulus was little more than a giveaway to state and local governments to continue spending beyond the ability of their states to support and reward them for overspending the proceeds of economic expansion as if the bubble would never pop. While employment has plummeted in the private sector, government is growing — never a good sign to a libertarian. Here in high-tax California, we need to slash our state public sector, not bail it out.

Cash for clunkers: Billed as a stimulus and environmental program, cash for clunkers was pure destruction of economic value. Cars with an average market value of roughly $1500 — productive, useful assets — were rendered completely inoperable. In a perverse unintended consequence, it dried up the supply of older used cars (and thus increased the price of said cars), hurting some of the poor who might not be able to afford better vehicles. Paying people to dig and then fill up holes would have been economically stupid, but cash for clunkers is the equivalent of asking them to put uranium in those holes so that hole could never be safely dug again. Pure economic insanity.

But Cash for Caulkers is somewhat different. For those unfamiliar with the proposed program, it gives tax subsidies to people who work to make their homes more energy-efficient. The draft would provide a 50% rebate on materials and labor up to $12K per household. As a libertarian, I don’t much believe that the government should have the responsibility to fix economic burst bubbles. But this particular policy has several features that make it much more effective and efficient economic stimulus than much of what the federal government has done.

• This policy primarily targets those in the building/construction trade, arguably the hardest hit of the economic downturn. Since the housing bubble was partially created by bad government policy, it is at least preferable to help these folks find a more orderly transition than the welfare line.
• Home weatherization and energy efficiency is often a large initial expense with a long time horizon to pay back. Due to increased social and geographic mobility, it is often ignored by homeowners who don’t know if they’ll be in their homes long enough to make the efficiency gains worth it. Thus, improvements in home energy efficiency are underproduced by the market.
• Because this will reduce energy consumption in some homes, it may have the positive externality of reducing demand on energy for all users (thus hopefully lowering price). Again, this positive externality suggests that energy efficiency improvements are underproduced by the market.
• Finally, unlike Cash-for-clunkers, which destroyed and replaced useful economic assets, Cash for Caulkers actually improves existing economic assets. There is a lasting economic benefit to reduced energy usage for the present and future owners of these homes.

Of course, I cannot claim that I’m in favor of this program. The positive aspects I list above are ascribed to my ideal cash-for-caulkers policy, which I am certain will not closely resemble what comes out of the sausage-factory on Capitol Hill. Waste, fraud, and abuse are certain to be rampant. In a cost-benefit analysis of the size of the program, one can’t assume Congress will determine either cost or benefit rationally. It is picking economic winners and losers, which is partly responsible for getting us into the Great Recession in the first place. And finally, while it might have been an interesting idea BEFORE the TARP, stimulus, and cash for clunkers, I think we’ve already gone so far into deficit spending that it’s a good idea to stop while we’re only a few trillion behind. It appears that the country has hired Barack Obama to dig a deficit hole and [hopefully] fill it back up, but he simply refuses to stop digging.

So if I’m not in favor of the program, why am I writing this post? Frankly, it’s because I saw the level of derision that the policy got on several fronts (including from Jon Stewart). Done properly (which I don’t expect Congress to be capable of delivering), it would have been a timely program that helps those who are most affected by the housing crash while improving existing assets that might not be otherwise improved. Done properly, it could actually be seen as an investment in our future — and by that I mean an actual investment, not simply “spending”, which is politicospeak for that word.

It might sound silly, but home weatherization actually has potential at being smart policy. After a year of horrible, bad, not-very-good-at-all government spending and giveaway programs, to see one that actually has promise shouldn’t cause scorn and derision as its primary reactions.

Or do they?

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote a very interesting article which makes very much the opposite point.

The goals of the climate change crowd are not reduction in global warming but the enactment of a world-wide system of regulation which puts business under government control and transfers wealth from rich nations to poor ones under the guise of fighting climate change. Should the emissions come down on their own, as they are doing, the excuse for draconian legislation goes, well, up in smoke.

The facts are startling. In 1990, the year chosen as the global benchmark for carbon emissions, the United States emitted 5,007 millions of metric tons of carbon (mmts). Kyoto specified that emissions must be reduced to a level 6% lower than in 1990. For the U.S., that means 4,700 million metric tons.

American carbon emissions rose year after year until they peaked in 2007 at 5,967 mmts. But, in 2008, they dropped to 5,801 and, in 2009, the best estimate is for a reduction to 5,476. So, in two years, U.S. carbon emissions will have gone down by more than 500 mmts – a cut of over 8%.

President Obama has pledged to bring the U.S. carbon emissions down by 17%. He’s halfway there.

All this without government regulation, taxation, or phony “carbon credits”.

In all honesty, I really don’t know what to make of the science behind the man made global warming debate* but I have been a skeptic since the issue has been part of the public debate (and long before the whole ClimateGate scandal broke). I don’t doubt the phenomenon of global warming at all; the earth has warmed and cooled many times over billions of years without the intervention of man. Why wouldn’t the earth warm up again regardless of man’s intervention?

My skepticism aside, the fact that carbon emissions are being reduced on the part of private actors without government force isn’t all that surprising. Over the last several years, global warming “awareness” has been broadcast on an almost daily basis and the market has responded.

As a general rule, I believe that reducing waste and increasing efficiency is not only good for the environment but also cost effective. Being environmentally conscious should not mean sacrificing quality or increasing costs.

A good Capitalist wants to have the car with the best mpg rating without sacrificing safety. It’s not because the Capitalist is necessarily concerned about man made global warming nor that s/he wants to “stick it to the BIG oil companies” but simply s/he wants more bang for his/her buck (greedy Capitalist!).

On a personal level, I use the reusable shopping bags not because I am overly concerned about too many plastic bags filling up the public landfill but simply because the reusable bags are stronger. I am quite willing to pay the $2 it costs to buy the stronger, reusable bag because it means fewer trips between my vehicle and my home without fear of the bag tearing in the process.

Many of these “green” innovations have benefits beyond combating pollution.

But even if everything Morris and McGann writes is true and even if the Kyoto targets are met (or even exceeded), this will not be enough for the global warming extremists**. If carbon emissions are reduced by 17%, they will move the goal posts and demand 20 and 25% reductions. When these goals are not met, the extremists will demand more government regulation despite what the free market has achieved on its own.

*I’m not a climatologist and neither are most people who will read this post.
**As they also point out.

Nongqawuse was a teenager and a member of the Xhosa tribe in South Africa.  One day in April or May of 1856, she went down to the river to fetch water.  When she returned, she said that she had encountered the spirits of three of her ancestors who told her that her people must destroy their crops and kill their cattle.  In return, the sun would rise red on February 18, 1857, and the Xhosa ancestors would sweep the British settlers from the land and bring them fresh, healthier cattle.  (Some of the Xhosa cattle had been suffering from a lung ailment, which may or may not have been brought by the British settlers’ cattle.)

Astonishingly, the Xhosa chieftain, Sarhili, agreed to do exactly as this young girl urged.  Over the next year, a frenzy occurred in which it is estimated that between 300,000 and 400,000 cattle were killed and crops destroyed.  Historians sometimes call it the “Great Cattle Killing.”

But on February 18, 1857, the sun rose as usual.  It was not red.  And the Xhosa ancestors did not show.  But the Xhosa people had destroyed their livelihood.  In the resulting famine, the population of the area dropped from 105,000 to less than 27,000.  Cannibalism was reported.  Following Nongqawuse’s advice was a calamity of staggering proportions for the Xhosa people.

Like Nongqawuse, Gore tells us that the sun will soon rise red over the land.  Well, maybe.  But already the models that he relies on have been proven wrong.  The intense period of warming that these models predicted over the past ten years never came to pass.  Yet we are repeatedly told that it’s still coming and that it’s just a little late.  Apparently, we should pay no attention to the fact that the polar ice is expanding again.  Instead, we must put the brakes on our use of energy–the very thing that makes the modern world possible–to avoid antagonizing the spirits of our ancestors, I mean to avoid climate disaster.

The most infuriating aspect of the fear-mongers’ movement is that their solution to climate change is for humanity to adopt an economic system that has brought misery and death nearly every time it has been tried.  From the tropics to the poles,  free markets have brought prosperity, comfort and longevity to the masses.  No matter how well intentioned they are, the fear-mongers threaten to wreck the engine that allows the Earth to support a human population in the billions.

The Earth’s climate is in a state of flux. The notion that humanity should doom itself to privation and famines in a futile attempt to maintain climactic parameters within a set of narrow bands is the height of folly.  If we kill our cattle, we too will starve.

So you can imagine I’m not a big fan of HOA’s, and there’s a little bit of schadenfreude in watching them get their hands slapped… But I still can’t support this (via Ezra Klein — hence calling this “good” — on Waxman-Markey):

Lots of small tweaks were added in the past day or two. And some of them were good! Rep. Dennis Cardoza, for instance, added a smart amendment to discourage neighborhood associations from prohibiting solar panels of aesthetic grounds.

So, they can tell you not to paint your door green, but they can’t stop you from filling your roof with a solar array the size of a tennis court.

I have a coworker facing this issue right now. He lives in Newport Beach, CA, and his HOA has some waterfront homes. One of his neighbors with oceanfront (cliff, not sand) is planning to put solar panels down the face of the cliff to electrically heat his pool. This, of course, is California. There are environmental laws, and the HOA doesn’t want to see this happen either. But being California, they ALREADY have laws that stop the HOA or anyone else (including the Greens) from interfering, because solar energy takes precedence. Now it sounds like this will extend nationwide.

This is one of those issues that gets thorny for libertarians. It comes down to property rights, but the question of what legitimate hindrances can be placed on the owners by HOA’s. After all, an HOA is a contract that a buyer of a house willingly enters into. But it doesn’t seem to me like an issue in which Congress has any right to intervene.

As a renter who is waiting for the complete collapse of the market before I buy a home, I know that I may be faced with a tough decision regarding my purchase based upon whether or not I’ll choose a neighborhood with an HOA, and whether the existence of an HOA is enough to dissuade me from the house we otherwise find desirable. But I know what I don’t want, and that is for Congress to be the one telling my HOA what it can or cannot do.

Congressman Mitchell and I disagree about a lot of things. Abortion, social security and government health care, school choice and education policy, many economic issues, government intervention and regulations in general, and the overall wisdom of his party leadership and the DNC…

However, I have to give the man some credit. He has generally been good on energy policy, and on guns since he came to congress (as a local politician his record on guns was mixed). He was also against the auto industry bailout, against TARP, and especially against the unconstitutional TARP bonus tax. He’s even reasonable on national security issues, and veterans affairs.

I believe he has ably represented the interests of his district within the congress; and bucked the leadership when he thought it was best for the district (if perhaps not bucking them enough outside of issues of direct interest to the district).

Today, he voted against his leadership; choosing to vote for the greater good of Arizona, and of the nation; against the Waxman cap and trade bill.

Unfortunately, we all lost in that vote; but senate leaders are already saying it’s dead on their floor… so we’ll see.

Last week, and again this morning, I urged congressman Mitchell by telephone to both his offices, and by email, to vote against the bill; as it was against the interest of both the district, and the nation. This evening, having found out how he voted, and reading his statement on the issue, I called to thank him.

We may disagree with our elected representatives, we may have voted for the other guy, we may think they are the wrong person to be in that chair; but once they are there, they are OUR representatives. The peoples representatives.

Letting them know how you feel about something, how important it is to you, what benefit or harm it will do you personally; it works. It may not seem so much of the time, but most congressmen really do care about what the people of their districts think; if for no other reason that it improves their chances for reelection.

So participate. Let them know. After all, it can’t hurt; and it just might make a difference.

Many people have commented that Obama has effectively given Pelosi and Reid free rein to insert as much prok as they wish into their spending bills while pontificating in mock outrage about the need to reduce pork.  The question on many people’s minds is ‘why?’

In the meantime, Obama has been stacking his administration with idelogues who are convinced that the only way to save the human race from extinction in the coming years is to radically reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses that are emitted by human activity by radically reducing standards of living.  In effect, much like George Bush secretly preparing for an invasion of Iraq from the outset of his administration, Obama appears to be preparing for a Great Leap Forward to radically alter the production and consumption of energy.

The early stages of these efforts can be seen in the effective take-over of the U.S. car industry with mandates to produce green cars that consume far less gasoline.  It also can be seen in the early promises to employ people in “green” jobs paid for by the government.  Banks that now have the Federal governemnt as a major shareholder are being encouraged to make loans to ’sustainable’ projects.

And, in order to get these questionable and expensive bills passed, the government is breathlessly making announcements about the dire economic emergency we find ourselves in, despite the numerous statistics that imply otherwise.  More troublingly, the government has moved to cut off debate, painting people who are either skeptical of their aims, or who question the effectiveness of their measures to meet their stated goals as being reactionary ideologues who are obstructing needed reforms mindlessly or out of greed.

The manifold failures of the George Bush administration did not come as a surprise to many.  Every major policy initiative, every major hiring and firing decision, every piece of legislation was, to a greater or lesser degree, scrutinized by intelligent people who then accurately predicted the outcome, and publicized it nationally.  It was the ability of the Bush administration to marginalize opponents while buying supporters off with pork projects that allowed the Bush administration to veer so far onto dangerous ground before they were forced to rethink their position and alter course.  Had these voices carried greater weight earlier in the administration, the Bush administration would not have been able to engage in inflationary spending, and wreck the U.S. military to the degree that they did.

6000 years or so of written history stand in mute testimony to the danger posed by the hubris of kings. We know that the massive increases in government spending will wreck the economy – not improve it.  We know that the increased taxes and regulatory uncertainty will hinder investments in capital goods – not enhance them.  We know that when workers are diverted from productive tasks to make-work projects, we are all left poorer as a result.  We know that increased regulation and surveillance by the government will not result in greater happiness of the population.

We cannot afford Obama to get the same pass that LBJ did.  The destructive policies, once put in place, will do great long-term harm to the bulk of the citizenry.  We must all do our part to turn the public against the Obama administration’s adoption of Bush’s political strategies.

I call upon all of you reading this, work on the Obama supporters you know.  Point out calmly, non-judgmentally, all the dangerous warning signs surrounding his presidency.  Turn his base against him, and he cannot do anything but fall.

Key line: “So, why don’t we ever talk about the suns contribution to global warming? …Well, because we can’t regulate it, tax it, or make it feel guilty for what it’s doing“.

Got it in one there friend.

There’s no profit, political gain, or power to be grabbed from acknowledging the real causes, and real effects of whatever global warming there actually is. So, the interested parties simply ignore all that, shout down anyone who disagrees with them, and go about seizing as much power as they can, in a disorderly fashion.

From “What You Oughta Know“, a website with videos explaining an assortment of general, and sometimes esoteric knowledge.

Oh and here are the links he mentioned in the video:

Pacific Research Institute:
the documentary, more information

Reid A. Bryson – scroll down for ice cap article

Solar Activity: A dominant factor in climate dynamics – scroll down read sections in blue

BBC’s The Great Global Warming Swindle

Other possible causes for global warming

Oh and just for fun, here’s the same sites take on “Liberals vs. Conservatives“… which is really a pretty solid explanation of the foundations of minarchist positions:

And a great take on the bailout:

“Because there is no disaster that immediate, decisive, wrong action cannot make worse”

Today we find a bit of evidence that may only support this point:

The $25 low-end estimate [Francisco] Blanch recites is based upon a furthering destruction of Chinese and other emerging-market growth in 2009, and it is astounding if it turns out to be true.

We have witnessed the perfect storm of declining commodity pricing in the last six months — a tsunami of credit tightening, capital withdrawal on a massive scale, dollar strength, weakening emerging-market growth and finally a deflationary spiral that seems to never be ending.

The oil markets, if they represent perfect efficiency as the equity markets normally do, would indicate either that Francisco is very, very wrong with his oil predictions or that we are in for far deeper problems with the rest of our economy. Far-forward contracts of oil are trading at a premium to front months rarely seen before in my history of trading the stuff and in a way that looks unbelievable to other longtime participants.

As I write this piece, January crude is trading for delivery later this month at $43.40 a barrel. Amazingly, January crude for delivery in December of 2009 is trading at $57.50 a barrel, a premium of more than 32%. This premium (contango) nature of the markets has rarely been so great and would allow for a riskless trade. One could buy crude oil for delivery this month, store it and sell next January’s contract for delivery 12 months later. With margin, storage and financing costs, you’d still clear a healthy 11% profit.

Now, I’m a big fan of futures markets. However, futures markets don’t represent truth, they represent an aggregate of belief — and are often trustworthy because it’s belief backed up with money. As such, futures markets tend to be extremely accurate when correct. When wrong, though, they’re often spectacularly wrong, because when groupthink takes over, belief becomes decoupled with reason. This could be easily seen in the housing market, houses representing a similar case to a futures market (i.e. you buy and hold, betting the price in the long-term future will continue to rise, and then even more so recently with house “flippers” speculating on near-term future prices), where the belief that it will simply keep going up only enhances the height it reaches before the inevitable crash.

But I don’t think that is the case here. The pundits are all asking “how low will oil go.” The futures market says it’s headed up. If the futures traders were trading these contracts at $25/bbl, I’d call it groupthink, the belief that things are just going to spiral down worse out of control. But they’re not, they’re exercising a contrarian point with the $57/bbl price. When pundits and futures traders disagree, I know who I’m more likely to trust.

I think what we’re seeing here is a confluence of unintended consequences that many people only purport to understand. Extremely complex are markets making moves that appear contrary to “normal” behavior, and thus everything is becoming very unpredictable. Bailouts here, money-printing there, and debt deflation out of left field have all thrown markets out of whack. It’s going to take time to sort this out, but the oil futures traders are assuming that when it finally happens, we’re more likely to be at $57+/bbl than $25/bbl.

They [and I] may be wrong… When dealing with such complex systems, it’s hard to gauge all the inputs and outputs and every relationship between them. But when you take the prospective theories about what’s going on, I think the plausibility of demand destruction creating a 70% downward move in prices is in question. I think the belief that this is a strong dollar / credit crunch issue is a lot more plausible, and with all the money-printing going on worldwide, I don’t see how anyone can reasonably predict $25/bbl oil.

Venezuela will back repeated cuts in OPEC oil production until prices stabilize, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez says, and Russia is proposing closer cooperation with the oil cartel.

Ramirez said Wednesday that his country will back a proposed 1 million barrel per day cut when OPEC meets Saturday in Cairo. If that doesn’t halt the price slide, “We will keep cutting until the market stabilizes,” he said during a visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Oil prices fell below $54 a barrel Thursday as dismal U.S. economic data and rising crude inventories outweighed the possibility of production cuts by OPEC and non-member Russia.

…

Russia, the largest oil producer outside OPEC, produces around 11 percent of the world’s oil and it could be eager to seek new customers to shore up its suffering economy. OPEC output is estimated at about 31.5 million barrels a day — about 40 percent of daily world demand.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has said OPEC should work to keep global oil prices in a “band between $80 and $100.”

I normally explain price moves using conventional terms of supply and demand. In this case, though, the rules are somewhat different*. There is certainly some demand destruction that has reduced the price of crude oil, but I hardly think it’s a large enough change to move from $147/barrel to $50/barrel oil. At this point, the price of oil seems artificially low, considering the fact that fundamental supply and demand forces haven’t changed.

Yet the response from OPEC, Venezuela, and the big oil companies is the same as if the price decline was natural — they reduce production. This is not only true of the state-owned oil companies, but areas such as Canadian tar sands and some of the more difficult offshore fields have stopped production or shelved new exploration projects. This only makes sense, of course, as the marginal cost of production of many of these projects is well over $50/barrel, and they don’t want to lose money.

This causes a major problem for two reasons, assuming that the fundamentals haven’t changed:

• It takes supply offline in the short-term, and due to the nature of drilling, shutting down existing fields may reduce the ability to pump oil from those fields in the future. I.e. if a field is pumping 500,000 bbl/day before being shut down, it may only reopen with the capacity to produce 460,000 bbl/day. Thus, taking oil offline in the short term reduces potential oil recovery in the long term.
• Reduction of exploration projects reduces oil supply in the future. While this may only push out exploration projects 2-3 years, current IEA projections of decline suggest that we should be searching for oil right now — and fast.

What does this mean for future oil prices? They’re going to go up, and they may be going up faster than before. This isn’t a return to the norm, this is the swinging of a seesaw. We’re at a low point right now, but an 800-lb gorilla just got on the other side.

Of course, to hear that oil prices are too cheap is not a common theme these days, as here in California gas has dropped under the $2/gallon mark. From a personal level, of course, I’m enjoying the reprieve. But now may simply be the best time to jump out and buy yourself a gas-saving auto, because these prices will not last.

* The new paradigm can still be related in terms of supply and demand, but it’s the supply of money that has shrunk. The deleveraging process has sucked money out of a number of markets, and while the monetary base hasn’t shrunk (in fact it is growing quickly), the velocity of money is far lower. In a fractional reserve world, that has a deflationary effect. Demand is still strong for gasoline, but there is a far smaller supply of dollars on a commodities trading floor to pay for it — all this at a time when the costs of production are still paid in old dollars. Supply and demand still applies, but it requires a different vantage point to understand the change.

Why can’t the European Union just adopt a strategy of energy independence and wean itself from Russia and the “stans”?

Of course, there is no way for Europe to be “independent” with respect to natural gas. There aren’t sufficient reserves in Europe to meet the current demand. A reduced supply of natural gas will necessarily result in higher prices for energy. Higher prices for energy translate to reduced economic development and everybody being poorer. Why should the Europeans impoverish themselves?

Of course, the writer of the editorial, William Sweet, is not really opposed to Europeans purchasing gas from non Europeans; he praises a pipeline being developed to ship it from Nigeria.  Rather, he seems upset with people buying gas from Russian suppliers. Why?

Russia has repeatedly shown its willingness in recent years to cut off gas supplies for political reasons, basically to bring countries it considers its satellites to heel, notably Ukraine. Of course it wouldn’t dare cut supplies to a country like Germany, which gets about half its gas from Russia. But where German and Russian interests and values collide, Russia could manipulate markets to get its way and use the threat of its market power to ward off diplomatic or military action.

In other words, if Europeans are trading with Russians, they might refuse to back some third party who is contemplating some intervention targeting Russia. Hmm, I wonder who this unnamed party might be?

A recent survey by London’s Financial Times found that European mistrust of Russia has increased sharply in the past six months: the proportion of respondents who consider Russia the greatest threat to world stability rose from just a few percent in July to nearly 20 percent in September, putting it well ahead of Iran and almost as high as China. It may come as a shock to many American readers, however, that the United States still ranks in European minds as the greatest threat to world stability, scoring over 25 percent in September.

And here we see the problem. If Europeans are trading with Russians, they might not side with the U.S. in a dispute with Russia.

This article highlights why I have mixed feelings about my IEEE membership. The work it does in developing and maintaining standards is wonderful. But their consistent support for the American military-industrial complex gives me pause. Like IBM supplying Hollerith tabulators to the Nazis with no concern for what they were being used for – there is no U.S. military or security program, no matter how abusive of civil liberties or vulnerable to tyrannical misuse that IEEE won’t support. Normally the IEEE leadership concerns itself solely with the technical problems that are needed to enhance U.S. government power.  In this case, the Spectrum editorial board is going further and demanding that European politicians adopt policies solely for the benefit of the U.S. government (and to the detriment of people living in Europe).

Yes, the Russian government has imperial ambitions. Yes, Putin’s government is a fascistic one. However, if Russians are trading with Europeans, if the Russian economy integrates with the European one, the likelihood of of a Russian millitary attack of Europe is much lower.  Increased economic integration between Europeans and the people living in former Russian satellites will also reduce the likelihood of conflicts between Russia and the satellites as well (especially since it would lead to greater Russian/former satellite integration as well).

Bastiat’s dictum applies:

If goods don’t cross borders then armies will.

The U.S. government’s global hegemony is ending. If IEEE wishes to retain its technical leadership in a multipolar world, it should stop viewing itself as a unofficial arm of the U.S. government and stick to its valuable work in developing standards.

Unlike the debates we have already seen in this cycle, the candidates in this debate actually debated the issues!

*The candidates who could theoretically receive the requisite electoral vote to win the presidency

Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer’s statement on Oct. 17 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture could provide ethanol companies that got into trouble by speculating on corn with up to $25 million per company in refinancing has caused a firestorm of criticism among ethanol critics who say he is favoring one segment of agriculture and might waste taxpayer money.

…

According to a report on Agweb.com, Schafer said at the World Food Prize symposium in Des Moines, Iowa, “There’s going to have to be some credit applied to companies to buy some lower-priced corn to blend with their higher-priced corn. This is important public policy for the country because corn-based ethanol is a stepping stone to energy independence through cellulosic ethanol. We’re going to continue to support it as much as we can. We have the responsibility to make sure we cement in the infrastructure of rural America and ethanol production has increased the economic opportunities, the jobs and the building of rural America.”

One can’t claim that these companies are “too big to fail” or that their failure will endanger our entire economy. One can’t claim, with any sense of honesty, that the ethanol experiment has really done much positive for America. In reality, one can’t say a good word about this mess.

Which just proves, once again, that government is more than willing to engage in theft of tax dollars and redistribution to industry in order to satisfy the politically-correct goal of the day. And nobody will stand up to them… Scratch that– nearly nobody:

Ethanol plants may be the next beneficiary of a federal bailout and Mesa congressman Jeff Flake is among those opposed to that idea.

…

Flake, a fiscal conservative, panned the plan Wednesday saying federal promotion of ethanol production is the problem. “The federal government’s ethanol policies have driven up the price of corn,” said Flake. “But rather than reforming the policies that have caused a spike in corn prices, the federal government wants to bail out ethanol producers who speculated on the price of corn. Only the U.S. Department of Agriculture could dream up a policy like this.”

Flake said tax breaks and credits for ethanol producers should be repealed. “The high price of corn has had a ripple effect over our entire economy. Instead of trying to bail out every industry hurt by it, the federal government needs to take a serious look at reforming our ethanol policies,” said the East Valley Republican.

I’m never one to look to Congress to solve my problems; nor do I think that elections are likely to improve our collective lot. But it’s good to see someone who wishes to stand athwart the tide, and I can’t say I’d mind seeing a few more like him.

What motivates these very nice people to be such tyrants? Some will vote in ignorance of the issue* and others out of a sense of ‘social justice.’ Very few will intentionally vote to take liberty or property from a fellow citizen; most will vote to do so out of a well intentioned but misguided sense of right and wrong.

The Colorado ballot contains 18 ballot measures, most of which are proposed amendments to the state’s constitution. About half of these measures would restrict liberty, increase taxes, or otherwise punish individuals for activities which ought not to be a crime in a free state or country.

Threats to Liberty from the Left

Union backed amendments 53, 55, 56, and 57 are all very hostile to business. Amendment 53 targets business executives for criminal liability (as if business executives are not already criminally liable for committing crimes), 55 would change Colorado from a “right to work state” to a “just cause state,” 56 requires employers with 20 employees or more to provide health coverage for employees and their dependants, and 57 would put employers at greater liability than the existing workman’s comp laws.

All of these amendments would make Colorado a less attractive place to do business and would likely mean fewer decent paying jobs. Like most populist proposals, the people who the advocates of these measures are trying to help would be hurt the most.

Amendments 51, 58, and 59 concern taxation. Amendment 51 would increase the sales tax to fund programs for the developmentally disabled, 58 directly taxes the oil and gas industry (Coloradans who wish to pay more for gas should support this measure), and 59 redirects funds which under current law are rebated to taxpayers under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) to an education savings fund.

Given governments’ track record of mismanaging taxpayer money (especially given what’s going on in Washington), I am in no mood to pay additional taxes or allow the government at any level to keep more no matter what the reason.

Threats to Liberty from the Right

While many of the ballot measures are economically on the Left, at least one is socially conservative. Amendment 48, the so-called “personhood” amendment would amend the Colorado Constitution to define all fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses as people complete with all legal rights associated with being a person. Clearly, this amendment is an attempt to ban abortion in the state of Colorado. Inevitably, if 48 is passed, there will be legal challenges which 48’s proponents hope would ultimately lead to overturning Roe v. Wade.

Amendment 48 makes no exceptions for rape** or incest. While there is an exception for abortion in the event that the life of the mother is threatened, opponents of 48 believe that doctors would put women at unnecessary mortal risk out of fear of being prosecuted for murdering the unborn. Because a fertilized egg would have the same legal rights as a person, a woman and her doctor could face life imprisonment and even the death penalty (someone explain to me how this is “pro-life”!).

Opponents of 48 also fear that doctors would be compelled to violate doctor/patient confidentiality as they may be required to report miscarriages to the authorities if s/he has the slightest suspicion that the miscarriage was caused intentionally***.

Giving fertilized eggs a definition of personhood would also:

- Ban commonly used birth control such as the birth control pill and the morning after pill
- Ban embryonic stem cell research (both public and private)
- Raise additional legal reproductive rights questions on issues with regard to artificial insemination

Despite what both pro-lifers and pro-choicers say, the abortion issue is very complex and there is plenty of room for debate on the merits of this issue among libertarians. What I would hope abortion foes would realize is that this measure has implications far beyond a legal prohibition of abortion.

NEXT: Why Libertarians Should Vote: Restoring Liberty via the Ballot Box (Part 3 of 3)

*To be fair, some of the language found in some ballot measures is very difficult to understand for those who do not have a legal background. The campaigns which support and oppose these measures understand this and create misleading ads to appeal to the ignorance of the voters to vote with emotion rather than reason.

**Women who become pregnant as a result of rape should never, ever, be forced to give birth to the spawn of her attacker. Never.

***The tragedy of a miscarriage is horrible enough without being interrogated by the police.

The video below comes from factcheck.org. I generally trust this site because, in my judgment at least, they seem to be very even handed in their analysis,* they cite their sources, and go into detail as to how they arrive at their conclusions. This video provides an overview of the misleading statements made in Denver and in St. Paul; the website goes into more detail about these statements complete with sources.

(If the video fails to play, click here to watch)

A few observations:

This b.s. about “giving tax breaks to Big Oil companies” is maddening. Businesses, whether large or small, should neither pay taxes nor be subsidized. Businesses only pay taxes on paper; taxes are passed down to employees in the form of lower wages and higher prices for consumers. Why do we assume that the money that companies or individuals make belong to the government in the first place? If McBama was truly interested in creating jobs, reducing the price of groceries and gas, and improving the overall economy,** he would eliminate taxes and subsidies for all businesses. This would encourage businesses to bring jobs back to America rather than leaving America to escape the tax code. If the practice of subsidizing failing businesses ended, companies would have to survive by producing goods and services people actually want. Now that’s the “change” that I believe in!

Mike Huckabee. What can I say? As bad of a choice as John McCain is for the Republican ticket, the Republicans would have done much worse with Huckabee. Either Gov. Huckabee is insanely bad at math or he deliberately lied to the G.O.P. delegates and the country about Sarah Palin receiving more votes as Mayor than Joe Biden did in the Democrat primaries. Did he really think that no one would check? Did he really think that he was helping the McCain campaign?

*For example take a look at their most recent article Sliming Palin and their January 10, 2008 article Sliming Obama

** Of course McBama isn’t interested in doing any of this. McBama wants the current tax code to remain the way it is to use as a tool of social engineering. Without the power to tax or redistribute wealth (steal from Peter to pay Paul) among businesses and individuals, the government loses a great deal of power.