From the Christian Science Monitor.
"If it requires government subsidies to get built, more subsidies to buy, and doesn't actually reduce pollution, what's the benefit of an electric car?"
Good question. One so-called "benefit" is that it would boost demand for a car that ordinarily people wouldn't (or couldn't) buy, feeding into the buy-me-a-cure crowd (his typical constituency) who have more dollars than sense. If everyone had one of these cars, it would theoretically allow us to get off foreign oil (as well as domestic) while lining the pockets of some well-placed portfolios (namely Al Gore's, Nancy Pelosi's, and most assuredly Obama's).
The car itself takes about 11-17 barrels of oil to produce. The batteries in these cars alone cost $3000 and up. We as yet have no infrastructure to plug these puppies in when we're parked. Some benefits!
"In one way it reminds us of the German predecessor: the Volkswagen. A car not produced according to market demand, but for dubious ideological targets. However, the new ‘Voltswagen’, on sale for $41,000, costs, when all subsidies are accounted for, about $81,000. Not only is it worlds apart from the original Volkswagen, but its creation signifies a distorted economy: taxpayers funding a vehicle which can only lead to loss and a shortage. In addition, comes the government subsidy of $7,500 for purchasers of the car, a nice addition for ‘upscale urban liberals’, some of Obama's strongest supporters."
...
"Government intervention stymies market forces. Furthermore, the creation of the ‘Voltswagen’ blatantly derives an ‘is’ from an ‘ought’: there should be electric cars, whether supply is economically feasible or demand is there."
Friday, August 27, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Obama's Energy Meltdown
From Politico.
"Despite the president’s endless number of appearances at new energy technology facilities, constant references to creating “green jobs,” countless hours being photographed behind the wheels of battery-powered and other “new age” vehicles and a somewhat shameless effort to argue that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill should be used to justify passage of his energy agenda, we are further from passing a comprehensive energy bill in the U.S. Senate today than at any time in the Obama presidency.
It is hard to remember an issue on which a president armed with the kind of congressional majority Obama enjoys, has been handed such a stunning defeat on what was considered a cornerstone issue of his domestic agenda. While various presidential observers opine about the president’s various leadership strengths and weaknesses, there seems to be a lack of appreciation of the significance of what this setback on energy really means."
...
"Ultimately, Senate Democrats proved themselves to be old school politicians, so when it came to a choice of self-preservation or pleasing their president, they picked themselves. That so many had swallowed their electoral concerns to pass Obamacare certainly contributed to these decisions on energy and cap and trade. However, the fact that the president was allowed to carry the ball on energy to the bitter end before his party repudiated him without providing a more graceful exit strategy, makes this one of the ugliest rejections a president has faced at the hands of his own party in recent memory."
Too many of us are non-believers when it comes to the concept of Utopia.
"Despite the president’s endless number of appearances at new energy technology facilities, constant references to creating “green jobs,” countless hours being photographed behind the wheels of battery-powered and other “new age” vehicles and a somewhat shameless effort to argue that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill should be used to justify passage of his energy agenda, we are further from passing a comprehensive energy bill in the U.S. Senate today than at any time in the Obama presidency.
It is hard to remember an issue on which a president armed with the kind of congressional majority Obama enjoys, has been handed such a stunning defeat on what was considered a cornerstone issue of his domestic agenda. While various presidential observers opine about the president’s various leadership strengths and weaknesses, there seems to be a lack of appreciation of the significance of what this setback on energy really means."
...
"Ultimately, Senate Democrats proved themselves to be old school politicians, so when it came to a choice of self-preservation or pleasing their president, they picked themselves. That so many had swallowed their electoral concerns to pass Obamacare certainly contributed to these decisions on energy and cap and trade. However, the fact that the president was allowed to carry the ball on energy to the bitter end before his party repudiated him without providing a more graceful exit strategy, makes this one of the ugliest rejections a president has faced at the hands of his own party in recent memory."
Too many of us are non-believers when it comes to the concept of Utopia.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Stunning Decline of Barack Obama
From the UK Telegraph.
"The RealClearPolitics average of polls now has President Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term. Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup survey has the President on just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproving."
...
"Growing disillusionment with the Obama administration’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with the President’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Barack Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lacklustre handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.
On the national security and foreign policy front, President Obama has not fared any better. His leadership on the war in Afghanistan has been confused and at times lacking in conviction, and seemingly dictated by domestic political priorities rather than military and strategic goals. His overall foreign policy has been an appalling mess, with his flawed strategy of engagement of hostile regimes spectacularly backfiring. And as for the War on Terror, his administration has not even acknowledged it is fighting one.
Can it get any worse for President Obama? Undoubtedly yes. Here are 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in serious trouble, and why its prospects are unlikely to improve between now and the November mid-terms."
1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people
2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership
3. Obama fails to inspire
4. The United States is drowning in debt
5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat
6. Obama’s support for socialized health care is a huge political mistake
7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive
8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration
9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security
10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness
(see original article for details on each)
"There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth."
...
"President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom."
"The RealClearPolitics average of polls now has President Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term. Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup survey has the President on just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproving."
...
"Growing disillusionment with the Obama administration’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with the President’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Barack Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lacklustre handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.
On the national security and foreign policy front, President Obama has not fared any better. His leadership on the war in Afghanistan has been confused and at times lacking in conviction, and seemingly dictated by domestic political priorities rather than military and strategic goals. His overall foreign policy has been an appalling mess, with his flawed strategy of engagement of hostile regimes spectacularly backfiring. And as for the War on Terror, his administration has not even acknowledged it is fighting one.
Can it get any worse for President Obama? Undoubtedly yes. Here are 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in serious trouble, and why its prospects are unlikely to improve between now and the November mid-terms."
1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people
2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership
3. Obama fails to inspire
4. The United States is drowning in debt
5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat
6. Obama’s support for socialized health care is a huge political mistake
7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive
8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration
9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security
10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness
(see original article for details on each)
"There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth."
...
"President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom."
Saturday, August 14, 2010
The Obsolescence of Barack Obama
From the Wall St. Journal. The magic of 2008 can't be recreated, and good riddance to it.
"Mr. Obama could protest that his swift and sudden fall from grace is no fault of his. He had been a blank slate, and the devotees had projected onto him their hopes and dreams. His victory had not been the triumph of policies he had enunciated in great detail. He had never run anything in his entire life. He had a scant public record, but oddly this worked to his advantage. If he was going to begin the world anew, it was better that he knew little about the machinery of government."
...
"It was canonical to this administration and its functionaries that they were handed a broken nation, that it was theirs to repair, that it was theirs to tax and reshape to their preferences. Yet there was, in 1980, after another landmark election, a leader who had stepped forth in a time of "malaise" at home and weakness abroad: Ronald Reagan. His program was different from Mr. Obama's. His faith in the country was boundless. What he sought was to restore the nation's faith in itself, in its political and economic vitality.
Big as Reagan's mandate was, in two elections, the man was never bigger than his country. There was never narcissism or a bloated sense of personal destiny in him. He gloried in the country, and drew sustenance from its heroic deeds and its capacity for recovery. No political class rode with him to power anxious to lay its hands on the nation's treasure, eager to supplant the forces of the market with its own economic preferences."
...
"There is little evidence that the Obama presidency could yet find new vindication, another lease on life. Mr. Obama will mark time, but henceforth he will not define the national agenda. He will not be the repository of its hopes and sentiments. The ambition that his would be a "transformational" presidency—he rightly described Reagan's stewardship in these terms—is for naught.
There remains the fact of his biography, a man's journey. Personality is doubtless an obstacle to his recovery. The detachment of Mr. Obama need not be dwelled upon at great length, so obvious it is now even to the pundits who had a "tingling sensation" when they beheld him during his astonishing run for office. Nor does Mr. Obama have the suppleness of Bill Clinton, who rose out of the debris of his first two years in the presidency, dusted himself off, walked away from his spouse's radical attempt to remake the country's health-delivery system, and moved to the political center.
It is in the nature of charisma that it rises out of thin air, out of need and distress, and then dissipates when the magic fails. The country has had its fill with a scapegoating that knows no end from a president who had vowed to break with recriminations and partisanship. The magic of 2008 can't be recreated, and good riddance to it. Slowly, the nation has recovered its poise. There is a widespread sense of unstated embarrassment that a political majority, if only for a moment, fell for the promise of an untested redeemer—a belief alien to the temperament of this so practical and sober a nation."
He has nobody to blame except himself and the Fed.
"Mr. Obama could protest that his swift and sudden fall from grace is no fault of his. He had been a blank slate, and the devotees had projected onto him their hopes and dreams. His victory had not been the triumph of policies he had enunciated in great detail. He had never run anything in his entire life. He had a scant public record, but oddly this worked to his advantage. If he was going to begin the world anew, it was better that he knew little about the machinery of government."
...
"It was canonical to this administration and its functionaries that they were handed a broken nation, that it was theirs to repair, that it was theirs to tax and reshape to their preferences. Yet there was, in 1980, after another landmark election, a leader who had stepped forth in a time of "malaise" at home and weakness abroad: Ronald Reagan. His program was different from Mr. Obama's. His faith in the country was boundless. What he sought was to restore the nation's faith in itself, in its political and economic vitality.
Big as Reagan's mandate was, in two elections, the man was never bigger than his country. There was never narcissism or a bloated sense of personal destiny in him. He gloried in the country, and drew sustenance from its heroic deeds and its capacity for recovery. No political class rode with him to power anxious to lay its hands on the nation's treasure, eager to supplant the forces of the market with its own economic preferences."
...
"There is little evidence that the Obama presidency could yet find new vindication, another lease on life. Mr. Obama will mark time, but henceforth he will not define the national agenda. He will not be the repository of its hopes and sentiments. The ambition that his would be a "transformational" presidency—he rightly described Reagan's stewardship in these terms—is for naught.
There remains the fact of his biography, a man's journey. Personality is doubtless an obstacle to his recovery. The detachment of Mr. Obama need not be dwelled upon at great length, so obvious it is now even to the pundits who had a "tingling sensation" when they beheld him during his astonishing run for office. Nor does Mr. Obama have the suppleness of Bill Clinton, who rose out of the debris of his first two years in the presidency, dusted himself off, walked away from his spouse's radical attempt to remake the country's health-delivery system, and moved to the political center.
It is in the nature of charisma that it rises out of thin air, out of need and distress, and then dissipates when the magic fails. The country has had its fill with a scapegoating that knows no end from a president who had vowed to break with recriminations and partisanship. The magic of 2008 can't be recreated, and good riddance to it. Slowly, the nation has recovered its poise. There is a widespread sense of unstated embarrassment that a political majority, if only for a moment, fell for the promise of an untested redeemer—a belief alien to the temperament of this so practical and sober a nation."
He has nobody to blame except himself and the Fed.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Another Rat Leaves the Sinking Ship: Obama White House Economic Advisor Romer Resigns
From Bloomberg News. She wants to return to teaching in Berkeley--what makes her think there'll be a JOB for her?
"Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, is returning to a post at the University of California at Berkeley, the White House said yesterday. She is interested in heading the Federal Reserve’s regional bank in San Francisco, according to a person familiar with her plans who requested anonymity.
The resignation follows the July departure of Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget in July. It creates another opening at a time when Obama is seeking to highlight the administration’s record on restarting growth ahead of November congressional elections."
...
“What Obama’s team has been doing so far has not worked and voters are going to be going to the polls very unhappy, even distressed, with the economic situation,” said L. Randall Wray, research director for the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, a nonpartisan institute at the University of Missouri in Kansas City studies macroeconomic and monetary policy."
...
"The news came as a surprise to Gerard Roland, chair of the economics department at Berkeley.
“I thought it was a rumor,” Roland said in an interview. Because Romer has been on leave from the university, “she doesn’t have to clear it with anybody,” he said.
If selected for the San Francisco position, Romer would succeed Janet Yellen, who is awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate as the Fed’s next vice chairman."
...
"Should she become San Francisco Fed president, Romer would participate in the central bank’s policy discussions, and would vote on the interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee once every three years, taking her next turn in 2012."
"Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, is returning to a post at the University of California at Berkeley, the White House said yesterday. She is interested in heading the Federal Reserve’s regional bank in San Francisco, according to a person familiar with her plans who requested anonymity.
The resignation follows the July departure of Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget in July. It creates another opening at a time when Obama is seeking to highlight the administration’s record on restarting growth ahead of November congressional elections."
...
“What Obama’s team has been doing so far has not worked and voters are going to be going to the polls very unhappy, even distressed, with the economic situation,” said L. Randall Wray, research director for the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, a nonpartisan institute at the University of Missouri in Kansas City studies macroeconomic and monetary policy."
...
"The news came as a surprise to Gerard Roland, chair of the economics department at Berkeley.
“I thought it was a rumor,” Roland said in an interview. Because Romer has been on leave from the university, “she doesn’t have to clear it with anybody,” he said.
If selected for the San Francisco position, Romer would succeed Janet Yellen, who is awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate as the Fed’s next vice chairman."
...
"Should she become San Francisco Fed president, Romer would participate in the central bank’s policy discussions, and would vote on the interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee once every three years, taking her next turn in 2012."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
