The dark reality of "green" jobs

Via O Insurgente, "La negra realidad de los empleos verdes" in Expansión:

A quienes proponen generar empleos mediante energías verdes se les suele olvidar un pequeño detalle. Resulta que a día de hoy las principales formas de producción renovable necesitan enormes subvenciones para existir. De hecho, en lo que va de década, el dinero público entregado o comprometido por el Gobierno español en dar un empujoncito a las renovables se acerca a los 30.000 millones de euros. Con esa lluvia de millones que cae permanentemente sobre la industria renovable nadie se extrañará si generan empleo. La cuestión es a qué coste.

Lo importante, como diría el gran economista francés Frederic Bastiat, no es sólo el empleo que se ve sino, también, el que no se ve o, más bien, el que ya no se podrá ver. Cuando el Gobierno decide gastar el dinero del contribuyente en molinos eólicos o placas solares, en lugar de dejar que cada uno lo gaste en lo que quiera, veremos aparecer muchos empleos verdes, pero el coste será el resultado de otras actividades productivas que no llegarán a tener lugar y los empleos que no se crearán debido a la acción gubernamental.

Bailouts and Bullsh*t

Via Vote for Ron Paul, Bailouts and Bull with John Stossel:


ABC 20/20 Bailouts and Bull with John Stossel: The Economy
parte 1 | parte 2 | parte 3 | parte 5 | parte 5 | parte 6

an uncomfortable word

The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: "Fascism" by Sheldon Richman:

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it.

la libertad y el mercado o se asisten mutuamente o se hunden juntos

"Libertad y mercado" de Federico Jiménez Losantos:

Krugman, uno de tantos progres que se niegan a aprender de sus derrotas –el negocio de la progresía es ese: la negación del principio de realidad económica o política y la afirmación del principio del placer de sentirse superiores moralmente a los demás- ha llegado a España, cuya economía dice que le aterra, de la mano del terrorífico Zapatero. A tal señor, tal honor. Y critica a su adorado Obama por la misma razón de fondo por la que critica los diez años de Depresión tras 1929: porque el New Deal rooseveltiano no se atrevió "a ir hasta el final" en su intervencionismo. Lo hicieron soviéticos, fascistas, nazis y demás depredadores de la libertad social y defensores de la idolatría del Estado. De eso no hablan los progres, pero en última instancia lo que se critica en Roosevelt es lo que define a keynesianos a lo Krugman: nunca se atreven a llevar hasta el final su ataque al libre mercado: son totalitarios pero sin valor para reconocerlo, una cobardía subvencionada respetuosamente por los liberales de boquilla, que suelen ser tan intervencionistas como todos los políticos de cualquier condición. Y si hay algo clarísimo es que el proteccionismo da más poder al Poder y quita poder al ciudadano. Por eso la libertad y el mercado o se asisten mutuamente o se hunden juntos.

Peter Schiff is right

Highly recommended:
- "104. Peter Schiff: Why Was Anyone Surprised By the Crash?", Peter Schiff on the LewRockwell.com podcast.

Health Care Is Not A Right

Health Care Is Not A Right by Leonard Peikoff:

Most people who oppose socialized medicine do so on the grounds that it is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical; i.e., it is a noble idea—which just somehow does not work. I do not agree that socialized medicine is moral and well-intentioned, but impractical. Of course, it is impractical—it does not work—but I hold that it is impractical because it is immoral. This is not a case of noble in theory but a failure in practice; it is a case of vicious in theory and therefore a disaster in practice. I want to focus on the moral issue at stake. So long as people believe that socialized medicine is a noble plan, there is no way to fight it. You cannot stop a noble plan—not if it really is noble. The only way you can defeat it is to unmask it—to show that it is the very opposite of noble. Then at least you have a fighting chance.

Schiff, Bastiat-style

Obama Puts the Economic Cart Before the Horse by Peter Schiff:

The mere introduction of paper money into this economy only increases the ability of the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker to bid up prices (measured in money, not trade goods) once goods are actually produced again. The only way to restore actual prosperity is to repair the destroyed equipment and start producing again.

The sad truth is that the productive capacity of the American economy is now largely in tatters. Our industrial economy has been replaced by a reliance on health care, financial services and government spending. Introducing freer-flowing credit and more printed money into such a system will do nothing except spark inflation. We need to get back to the basics of production. It won’t be easy, but it will work.

Fed at the root

"The FED’s Unsound Theories" by Michael S. Rozeff:

The FED’s focus on the quantity of credit ignores the quality of credit. We have seen that a vast increase in the quantity leads to a lowering of credit standards. With credit widely available and a boom expected to continue, the quality of credit declines. We then observe the system accumulating loans that fail when the boom slows down or reverses. Again, the FED promotes instability.

Economics students are routinely taught that central banks are a good thing or that they are the highest stage to which banking has now evolved. This is a presumption offered without proof. There is no proof that I know of that central banks are a good thing. The FED offers none. This article presents a few of my reasons why the FED is a bad thing.

Capital theory, not bogus stimulinomics

Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government 'Stimulus Packages' by George Reisman:

The blind rush into massive “stimulus packages” is the culmination of generations of economic ignorance transmitted from professor to student in the guise of advanced, revolutionary thinking – the “Keynesian revolution.” The accelerating destruction of our economic system that we are now experiencing is the product of a prior destruction of economic thought. Our entire intellectual establishment has been the victim – the willing victim – of a massive intellectual con job that goes under the name “Keynesianism.” And we are now paying the price.

faking it

The "Economic Stimulus" Myth by Harry Binswanger:

For instance, I am now trying to spend less because I can't afford as much as I could (or thought I could) before the crisis. So what is the Keynesian solution? Fool me into thinking I can afford more than I can. Print up new, unbacked money and get it to me so that I will (mistakenly) think I can afford to buy more again. To the extent the "stimulus" package is getting inflated currency to consumers, it is attempting to fake them into making purchases that they can't actually afford.

Now take the business side of things. A car manufacturer has machinery laying idle. Why? Because they judge that they can't make a profit by using it to make more cars. The "stimulus" solution is to fool them into thinking there is a demand for those cars, so that they will produce them. It is supposed to work because the consumers will be fooled into thinking they can afford to buy them.

But the double-fake theory doesn't work. There's been no change in external reality. There's only an illusion created by expanded fiat money. The consumers can't actually afford to buy the cars, and the actual profits of the car producers isn't higher than it was. Yes the car-maker's nominal revenues, in dollars, goes up, but not their actual receipts in real terms. And their costs go up as the newly printed money circulates through the system.

For those who are fooled by the inflation, the net result, in real (not dollar) terms is that they make purchases they can't afford and the producers are fooled into producing at a loss.

Proteccionism will hit MBA workforce

"The Open-Door Bailout by Thomas Friedman:

While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

End the Fed’s Secretiveness

End the Fed's Secretiveness by Ron Paul:

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed's susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.

Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

"Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More" by Larry Kudlow (CNBC)

He is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds.

That is the meaning of his anti-growth tax-hike proposals, which make absolutely no sense at all — either for this recession or from the standpoint of expanding our economy’s long-run potential to grow.

Is government encouraging fraud and excessive risk?

Stop the Bailouts

Rant of the Year (2)

Following the Rant of the Year,

Robert Gibbs vs. Rick Santelli



Rick Santelli Responds to Whitehouse Mouthpiece Robert Gibbs on CNBC's Kudlow:

"this is an unprecedented White House assault on a member of the media" — says Kudlow — "the worst press relations we've seen in a lifetime"



White House Press Secretary Defiles The Office of The President

Rant of the Year

Rick Santelli and the "Rant of the Year"