It has to engage in an all-out, unapologetic war.
Yes, call them out for the unscientific ideologues that they are.
Category Archives: Economics
The EPA On Trial
An amicus brief has been filed against the agency. Bottom line: the purpose of the Clean Air Act was to deal with local air-quality issues, not mythical global ones. The SCOTUS’s previous ruling was a terrible one, based on what can now be seen to be junk science.
The “Benefits” Of ObamaCare
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Congress exceeded its authority by “mandating” the purchase of health insurance, but it saved the law by construing the mandate as a tax on being uninsured. Being surprised that the uninsured would object to such a tax is like being surprised that yacht owners would object to George H.W. Bush’s luxury tax on yachts.
In short, what ObamaCare means to the uninsured who were not uninsurable is higher prices for a product they already were disinclined to buy, along with a punitive tax on not buying it. That seems more like a mugging than a benefit.
How many of the uninsured lack insurance because of pre-existing conditions? It’s hard to know, but it would appear the proportion is not high. A September Kaiser Family Foundation study reported that “the high cost of insurance is the main reason why people go without coverage.” It includes a pie chart with the following breakdown of reasons for lacking insurance: Insurance not affordable, 31.6%; lost job, 29.4%; other, 17.4%; no offer, 11.2%; aged out/left school, 8.8%; no need, 1.5%.
Arguably the problem of the uninsurable was a market failure that justified government intervention of some sort. If ObamaCare’s architects had approached the matter intelligently, they would have conducted research to identify the extent of that precise problem and carefully targeted their response. Government is quite capable of implementing even modest programs disastrously, but the hubris of demanding “comprehensive reform” gave us a law that had to be marketed via massive consumer fraud, and that harms almost everyone it affects.
The next time this clown circus approaches any policy issue intelligently will be the first.
3D Printing An Entire House
…in twenty-four hours.
Income Inequality
Why is the Pope defending sin?
China On The Moon
Will it make a claim?
I sort of hope it does. It would bring things to a head with the problematic Outer Space Treaty.
[Update a few minutes later]
I haven’t looked at the pictures myself, but a reader has emailed me wondering if they’re potentially faked, based on inconsistent shadows, and similarity to past images (while not wanting to sound like the “Apollo moon hoax” people). I don’t have an opinion, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
More Self-Identifying Rubes
Some thoughts on the latest eager victims of con-man Barack Obama.
How Corrupt Is The Environmental Movement?
Of course cronyism is “unusually safe.” If you have to actually compete by producing energy at the lowest price, all kinds of things can go wrong. But if you can get in with the government, so that legislation requires everyone to pay extra for your product whether they want to or not, your investment is “unusually safe.” This is what cronyism–a polite word for corruption–is all about. It is the principal purpose of the modern environmental movement.
So dhey’re doing very well by doing “good.”
Which is both ironic and hypocritical, as Mark Morano pointed out on CNN the other night, given that they’re always accusing skeptics of taking money from the fossil industry.
Smartphone Subsidies
The downside.
I’m currently month-to-month on my three-year-old two-year Verizon contract with a Droid Global 2. I think that if I upgrade, I’ll just buy it outright, but right now, I don’t see anything on the new phones that I can’t live without. Of course, I only use my phone when I’m traveling, or out of the house, so since I usually work at home, it’s no biggie.
ObamaCare
…has lost the uninsured.
As he notes, the fact that 55% would prefer to go back to the old system means that the Republicans could run on a simple repeal platform, even without offering a replacement. Though they should offer one that allows severability of employment from health insurance and purchasing across state lines.