Tag Archives: political economy

More Progressive-Democrat Disingenuousity

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Now, with rising oil prices as demand increases as we start to come out from under the Wuhan Virus situation (which we’re doing despite the press’ and the Biden administration’s panic-mongering over the Delta variant), the Biden administration is pushing OPEC to boost their oil production to hold down prices.

The disingenuousness of this administration is breathtaking.

This is the same Progressive-Democrat administration that cut off our own, domestic, oil and gas independence by fighting our domestic production—to the ultimate benefit of Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

This is the same set of Progressive-Democrats that blocked an amendment to their reconciliation spend- and tax-a-thon that would have allowed new energy development—oil and gas drilling—to occur on Federal lands.

This is the same collection of Progressive-Democrats that unblocked Nord Stream 2 and pressured Ukraine to agree to it so Russia could benefit by selling its own natural gas production into Germany and western Europe.

This is the same collection of Progressive-Democrats who actively depress our own oil and gas production in the name of reducing atmospheric CO2 levels—while pushing for, allowing, increased production by others of atmospheric CO2-producing oil and natural gas.

This is the Progressive-Democrats elevating the welfare of foreign nations, including enemy nations, above our own.

Here is the Progressive-Democrats’ campaign slogan: Make Again Last, America. MAL America.

Economists and Economists

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Casey Mulligan and Tomas Philipson open their op-ed on how free markets provided answers to the Wuhan Virus (my term, not theirs) that government gave us with this remark:

Economists are trained to believe that the purpose of government policy is to correct market failures….

No. Economists are trained to answer the question of what are the likely outcomes given a set of economic/economic-related inputs.

Political economists are trained to answer the question of what, if anything, ought be done about those outcomes. Sadly, political economists increasingly are “trained” to believe that every outcome needs something done about it and that every doer must needs be Government. Political economists are increasingly incapable of understanding that, in a free market, minimally regulated, economy, unfavorable outcomes are, in the very broad main, self-correcting, and favorable outcomes are, in the very broad main, self-perpetuating. They miss the fact that the actual actors in those economies, the individuals, make in their free market aggregation sound decisions.

That’s what comes from the invisible hand that somebody wrote about some years ago. That’s what political economists no longer understand.

Progressive-Democrat Controls over Individuals’ Lives

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Here are some of those controls that are buried deep within the bowels of the so-called infrastructure bill just rammed through the senate.

mandate for vehicle manufactures to install “drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” as a standard feature inside of new vehicles

Because all of us are simply too grindingly stupid to make our own decisions about drinking and driving. This is amply proven by the one or two among us who are so stupid, so we all must pay the price.

create a vehicle miles traveled system for taxing drivers based on their annual vehicle mileage is hidden away in the bill’s section 13002, entitled “National motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot”

This also will create an opening for tracking where we go and who/what we visit in addition to tracking how we travel to get there.

grants select cabinet secretaries the authority to fully fund select infrastructure projects with taxpayer dollars by waiving cost-sharing rules

Just gimme the damned dollars and quit asking pesky questions. We Know Better. Never mind that the need for any of these dollars has yet to be established beyond yelling “Infrastructure,” as though that settles the science.

If these controls really were any good, and if average Americans really did take them seriously, Progressive-Democrats would offer them in separate stand-alone bills for public debate and scrutiny.

More important to the Progressive-Democrats, though, is that these policies vastly increase their surveillance state. Even waiving cost-sharing expands surveillance, since the Secretaries designated The Precious Ones will need to identify whose costs are going to be “saved” and who will be called upon to pick up the cost slack.

Sophistry

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That’s President Joe Biden’s (D) current argument regarding the Wuhan Virus and by extension the Delta variant of the virus.

The virus knows no boundaries. You can’t build a wall high enough to keep it out. There is no wall high enough or ocean wide enough to keep us safe from a vaccination in other—from the COVID-19 in other countries.
In fact, just like the original virus that caused COVID-19, the Delta variant came from abroad. As long as the virus continue to rage outside the United States, potentially more dangerous variants could arrive at our shores again.

There’s a hint there, but Biden—and his border czar-ette, co-President Kamala Harris (D) and his HHS (sort of) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—refuse to see it.

It’s true enough that neither high walls nor broad oceans (nor, perhaps, more localized masks) can protect us from the virus (I’ll elide the already low risk for the healthy among us aspect of protection).

On the other hand, Biden and his two cohorts have deliberately, with careful forethought, thrown open our borders, especially our southern one, to any and all comers, infected or not, criminal or not, smuggler or trafficker or not, vetted or not.

Overall, more than 1 million illegal immigrants have been apprehended at the US-Mexico border between October 2020 and June 2021.

Just from McAllen, TX:

As these temporarily admitted immigrants are released, the federal government does not test them for COVID-19 or provide assistance in contacting relatives or sponsors living in the United States to make arrangements for temporary housing.

And

Since mid-February of 2021 there have been over 7,000 confirmed COVID-19 positive immigrants released into the City of McAllen by CBP, including over 1,500 new cases in the past seven days [28 Jul-3 Aug].

Biden’s, et al., argument is a cynically offered sophistry. We can protect ourselves from the virus by protecting our nation from the carriers of the virus, those thousands of illegal aliens who are carriers. Against those carriers, walls are effective.

It’s time to finish the wall construction. It’s time to reestablish control over our borders. It’s time to reassert control over who comes into our nation.

It’s time to be a nation again.

Infrastructure Sham

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The Senate is grinding its way to passage of what some are pleased to call a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Leave aside the shoddy bookkeeping the Senators are engaging in with their claimed pay-fors, shoddiness that the CBO has seen through. By itself the bill still might not be so bad (though even that much is strongly arguable).

Republicans should walk away from this “infrastructure” bill altogether, regardless of its pretended cost, regardless of any amendment bones Progressive-Democrats might toss their way, regardless, even, if pay-fors could be found that actually balance the books on this sham.

President Joe Biden (D) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) each have irrevocably tied this bill to the Progressive-Democrats’ reconciliation bill, and Senate Progressive-Democrats have said they’d include in that reconciliation monstrosity whatever is left out of this “infrastructure” thing.

The “infrastructure” bill is nothing but a glorified amendment to the Progressive-Democrats’ reconciliation bill, and it will be adjusted accordingly when the Progressive-Democrats start ramming through their larger bill.

Republicans should have no part of this charade.