Ruminations on music, culture, America and the world stage
Jeff Perren at Pajamas Media on how we’re throwing phantom dollars at an idiotic product no one is going to buy. The Chevy Volt is the ultimate symbol of where we are as a nation.
Auto industry analysts doubt that the Chevrolet Volt is going to rock the car market. Still, Chevrolet is going to spend our tax dollars to make a bunch of them.
Welcome to the insanity of The People’s Republic of Obamica. Windmill farms as far as the eye can see, solar panels on every rooftop (each of which is painted white, of course), “community” gardens where “food deserts” once sprawled, light-rail public transport systems criss-crossing the land – and all of us lined up like cattle staring blankly to get our portion according to our needs.
That’s how much more expensive cars will be now that the FHer regime has once again dictated to private organizations (wait, some of them aren’t so private now) how they will make their products. Oh, you can save$3000 in fuel costs over the life of the vehicle, but a.) What is the “life of the vehicle” and how many people keep their vehicles that long?, and b.) That’s a big assumption about the stability of the price of oil.
The usual sprout-munching ninnies, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, are pleased.
Charles Krauthammer’s column today, “Toyota and the Price of Modernity,” raises an interesting point.
The fact is that progress – technological and industrial advancement – is about moving into uncharted territory, much like pioneers advancing on the frontier (or astonauts stepping onto the surface of the moon). No one can possibly predict all the variables that will come into play when something new is invented or discovered.
It’s as if we’ve crossed some kind of threshold, and now we have some kind of perception that there is a “system,” like rules of a game, by which we can systemetize the forward push of human ingenuity. The fact is that there is no “system.” As Krauthammer says, we should certainly not trivialize skirting of the pontential for peril that a maker of a product has indeed ascertained to be present. On the other hand, it would be refreshing to see our culture once again nod admiringly in the presence of boldness and robust belief that invention basically leads to good.
Tom Blumer at Pajamas Media on how big business is prone to act in ways antithetical to free-market capitalism, such as appeasement of the regulatory leviathan and an attitude of entitlement to public largesse.
In the course of musing on the Audi ad that ran during the Super Bowl, Mark Steyn coins a new term: “Conformo-radicalism.” And, no, it’s not a contradiction.
There’s another ad along the same lines that grates on me to no end. It’s for some butter-substitute product. It starts out showing a throng of fit and beaming Danes sashaying down a Copenhagen street. The voiceover says that Denmark recently banned transfats nationwide. Then the ad sells the product, winding up with a message along the lines of “We’re as smart as those with-it Danes!”
Now it’s hip to piss away your freedom.
Telling indeed is San Fran Nan’s response to a reporter’s solicitation for a response to Ford being the only US car company to turn a profit this year. She sniffed about how commendable it was that Ford lived up to its “responsibility,” whatever that means in her warped totalitarian mind.
Consider the new grant money the broke state of Michigan is going to dole out for more electric-car research.
Then read Payne’s last couple of paragraphs, which have to do with the actual consuming public eschewing the utopian hooey and flocking to the section of the show where the petroleum-powered normal-people cars were.
A post at the Economic Policy Journal that bolsters the National Affairs piece from yesterday.
Hat tip: BN reader Bob.
In the inaugural quarterly issue of National Affairs, which has its roots in The Public Interest, there is an important, timely and well-articulated article by University of Chicago Booth School of Business professor Luigi Zingales entitled “Capitalism After the Crisis.”
Among the noteworthy points he makes are -
- the fact that holding lobbyists up as some kind of whipping-boys for free-market economics is a red herring. Lobbyists are motivated to push for advantage for their particular industries or interest groups, rather than see that an absolutely unobstructed arena of free choice exists for all
- the fact that part of America’s exceptionalism is rooted in the aspect of its character we call inventiveness. We make things and our fellows see how those things better their lives. This is how our great enterprises have grown.
- the fact that those great enterprises fall prey to bureaucratic heavy-handedness, which diminishes the inventiveness which was at the very root of their greatness
- the fact that the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley act, which repealed some of the most restrictive aspects of the 1931 Glass-Steagall Act was in fact not responsible for the financial crash last year
A great read. It ends with a strong note of caution about our current juncture.
This morning I came across the latest NYT column by Paul Krugman on Real Clear Politics. (I’m starting to get annoyed with Real Clear Politics. I understand that the premise of their daily lineup of columns and editorials is designed to be a cross-section of thought on current issues, as in, “We’re just sayin’ this is the spectrum of what’s out there,” so maybe my problem is annoyance at the mediocrity of so much of what passes for substantive thought on matters of public policy. Seems like lately the daily lineup is getting a bit skewed toward the likes of Krugman, E.J. Dionne, the Center for American Progress and the like.) The column’s overall theme was that Wall Street needs a good beat-down, but he hinges the whole thing on this high-frequency trading phenomenon. I smelled a red herring.
So it was with heightened interest that I then came across Marginal Revolution’s take on high-frequency trading. Upshot: It doesn’t seem to be among the top 100 ethical problems to be found in the world of finance.
(If you’re really interested in Krugman’s piece, Marginal Revolution links to it.)
How plain does TCM have to make it before we understand what he is up to?
The Federal Reserve and the SEC – with plenty of input from Treasury Secretary Geithner (and you can be sure TCM) – is going to issue “overarching guidelines” to “Wall Street and beyond” for executive pay. The “overarching” part is to let you know that this is above and beyond such measures being applied specifically to TARP-fund recipients.
The first level on which to roar opposition to this arrogation of totalitarian power is the moral one. This is wrong. Never mind for the moment the theoretical and prgamatic reasons why it won’t work. We’ll get to those momentarily. For now, let us be clear that this is wrong. We’re talking about privately owned organizations. What they pay anybody on their staffs, from CEOs to floor-sweepers, is the business of the owners. No one else. If this gets obscured, or becomes subject to ridicule, we are in trouble beyond anything we’ve ever seen.
Now, let us proceed to why it won’t work. For one thing, you’ll drive away the nation’s best talent. Who wants to work somewhere where you know your pay will be capped? People will quit studying fields such as finance and management, trying to find those ever-fewer areas of human endeavor still beyond the reach of the totalitarian state. You’ll then see other countries get a clue and de-regulate their investment and banking sectors and become leaders while e become back-benchers (and become even more in hoc, as we are now to China).
The main point, though, is that this is about as egregious an affront to human liberty as we’ve seen so far out of this regime, and that’s saying something.
And we’re supposed to get them to take us seriously on North Korea?
For anyone who ever thought BN gratuitiously indulged in hyperbole or went over the top with dire asessments of what the modern-day Democratic Party in the United States was all about, we have come to the juncture about which this blog and many another voice of freedom tried to warn.
UPDATE: This transformation is gaining momentum by the hour. Now Freedom-Hater Senator Cardin of Maryland wants to give the nation’s newspapers non-profit status. Spews the kind of candy-coated poison about how they “serve the public interest” and how their “industry is dying” (cry me a river) sure to appeal to the sprout-munching fluff brains who go in for that common-good hooey.
Where to start with what’s idiotic and dangerous aout this? Shall we start with the government playing favorites with yet another industry? How about what happens to our national discourse and our culture when all our media has the tone and agenda of NPR and PBS? How about what happens to those who currently own the nation’s newspapers? How about the “too-big-to-fail” meme becoming further entrenched? How about how papers such as The Washington Times would fare?
There is a swath of America that still understands what it means to be free and still chrishes that freedom. It’s not going to sit idly by forever.
The Treasury secretary isn’t getting a big rush of takers for his toxic asset sale.
Chris Dodd admits that he inserted the exec-bonus provision into the AIG bailout package.
Is this delicious or what?
