Now that the budget negotiations are safely out of the way it's time to get back to business. And for Democrats that means selling more free stuff. On CNN this morning there was a New Years piece on the struggle of living on the minimum wage. Yeah, let's raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour, and... well, science says that the minimum wage increases unemployment.
Here's another fabulous idea from the Democrats. Extend the extended unemployment benefits. Even though science says that unemployment benefits encourage the unemployed to delay getting back into the job market and that every idle day without work reduces your job skills.
Over in the UK the Labour Party is proposing an energy price freeze. You gotta love the pure effrontery of this. Energy prices in Britain are going up because of the Labour-backed green energy programs that spread subsidies out to uneconomic wind and solar farms and sock the electric customers with the bills. There's no question about the science on this. Subsidies distort the market and result in a net decrease in income and prosperity.
But what about global warming and climate change? Surely we have to do something before the temperature goes up and the oceans inundate the Statue of Liberty! Well no. Temperatures have been about flat for the last 17 years, diverging significantly from computer model predictions. And there is the ominous fact that the sun appears to be entering a quiet phase, perhaps even a grand minimum like the Dalton Minumum in the early 19th century. There seems to be a correlation between a quiet sun with few sunspots and cold global temperatures. Science doesn't know why.
Our liberal friends make a big deal about the settled science on climate -- which isn't that settled -- and completely ignore the settled science on energy subsidies and on basic economics. There's no mystery about this, of course. Minimum wages and unemployment benefits are free stuff that liberals use to entice and rile up their voters, and to hell with the settled science. Green politics is based on crony science, cooked up by bribed apologists in the academy, but liberals love the power of building wind farms and bullet trains and HOV lanes and rail transit. Because they love politics and political power.
But I wonder how in the world conservatives can win over the American people that don't know a blind thing about economics and climate change except what they heard on the news.
The answer is, I suppose, that we win over the American people when they get pissed off with their health insurance premiums going into the stratosphere. When gas prices and electric rates ratchet up. When something goes wrong and they want someone to blame.
But the other side is that voters will always respond to the temptation of the free stuff. And politicians will tempt the voters with free stuff, settled science or not.
Here's another fabulous idea from the Democrats. Extend the extended unemployment benefits. Even though science says that unemployment benefits encourage the unemployed to delay getting back into the job market and that every idle day without work reduces your job skills.
Over in the UK the Labour Party is proposing an energy price freeze. You gotta love the pure effrontery of this. Energy prices in Britain are going up because of the Labour-backed green energy programs that spread subsidies out to uneconomic wind and solar farms and sock the electric customers with the bills. There's no question about the science on this. Subsidies distort the market and result in a net decrease in income and prosperity.
But what about global warming and climate change? Surely we have to do something before the temperature goes up and the oceans inundate the Statue of Liberty! Well no. Temperatures have been about flat for the last 17 years, diverging significantly from computer model predictions. And there is the ominous fact that the sun appears to be entering a quiet phase, perhaps even a grand minimum like the Dalton Minumum in the early 19th century. There seems to be a correlation between a quiet sun with few sunspots and cold global temperatures. Science doesn't know why.
Our liberal friends make a big deal about the settled science on climate -- which isn't that settled -- and completely ignore the settled science on energy subsidies and on basic economics. There's no mystery about this, of course. Minimum wages and unemployment benefits are free stuff that liberals use to entice and rile up their voters, and to hell with the settled science. Green politics is based on crony science, cooked up by bribed apologists in the academy, but liberals love the power of building wind farms and bullet trains and HOV lanes and rail transit. Because they love politics and political power.
But I wonder how in the world conservatives can win over the American people that don't know a blind thing about economics and climate change except what they heard on the news.
The answer is, I suppose, that we win over the American people when they get pissed off with their health insurance premiums going into the stratosphere. When gas prices and electric rates ratchet up. When something goes wrong and they want someone to blame.
But the other side is that voters will always respond to the temptation of the free stuff. And politicians will tempt the voters with free stuff, settled science or not.
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