A Plebe's Site

Quam bene vivas referre, non quam diu.

Biofuel Mandates

Posted on 14 March 2018 by eehines

The Wall Street Journal had a piece titled Biofuel Mandates Are a Bad Idea Whose Time May Be Up that centered on the possibility that these might get watered down, or even eliminated, sometime “soon.”

The Renewable Fuel Standard, which forces oil refiners to mix corn-based fuel into gasoline, is one of history’s great policy boondoggles.

Well, NSS. The only things it’s done of practical consequence have been to serve as a backdoor subsidy for farmers and to drive up the cost of corn, corn substitutes, and food that eats corn. And to drive up the cost of gasoline and to create ethanol fuel-related automobile engine maintenance costs.

But that’s the problem with Government mandates in general when they’re intended to create a market for a particular product.

As a mandate, the time for this one on biofuels never was.

A Telling Remark

Posted on 14 March 2018 by eehines

It also emphasizes the magnitude of the Republican failure with the party’s choice for Senate candidate in last December’s Alabama special election.

In a Wall Street Journal piece centered on the intra-party fighting the Senate Progressive-Democrats are having over a banking bill that would release smaller banks from Dodd-Frank’s onerous requirements, Senator Doug Jones (D, AL), who won that special election, let slip this in response to criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) over his support for that banking bill:

I don’t really worry about things like that. I do what I think is best for me[.]

What’s best for Jones. Not what’s best for his constituents and employers, the citizens of Alabama.

Hmm….

TANSTAAFL

2 + 2 must always = 4
–Polish proverb

Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.
–John Adams

Nothing in the universe has a shorter half-life than a politician’s memory for inconvenient facts.
–Admiral Hamish Alexander, RMN

Dawn is nature’s way of telling you to go to bed.
And to just stay there until the evil yellow disk is gone again.
–Anonymous

In a polity, each citizen is to possess his own arms, which are not supplied or owned by the state.
–Aristotle

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
–Chief Justice John Roberts.

A yawn is a silent scream for coffee.
–Shane Mclean

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.
–Abraham Lincoln

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