Energy efficiency and energy savings are considered to be intrinsically good. Politicians of all stripes sing the praises of less-is-more. Only one problem: this view is simplistic and wrong from the economic point of view.
Energy efficiency is so central to the current energy conversation that to criticize it is to take on the unenviable role of the contrarian or, as some have called me, the curmudgeon. In a recent paper, Roy Cordato of the John Locke Foundation happily takes on the role of critic as he dissects energy efficiency as a policy goal.
Dr. Cordato states in part:
… Continue ReadingIt seems that no matter what governments at any level do, from building buildings to formulating and implementing legislation, “energy efficiency” has to be a consideration…. The problem is that the term, as defined by those who embrace it as a policy guide, is focused strictly on saving energy even if it means sacrificing overall economic efficiency.
“For many American families, struggling to make ends meet in the jobless recovery, energy development is an answer to a prayer. The fact that the oil and gas boom has been done without taxpayer subsidies—and despite reactionary public policies at the federal level and in some states (such as New York)—means that more economic opportunity is on tap.”
In this so-called “jobless” recovery, aka the Great Recession, an estimated 20 million American workers are unemployed or underemployed. One out of every two college students cannot find work in their chosen fields. Competition for well-paying jobs is likely to become even tougher when thousands of men and women in uniform return home from Afghanistan and look for ways to support their families.
Although many U.S. industries have been reluctant to hire new workers due to political and economic uncertainty, the oil and natural gas industry is booming worldwide.…
Continue Reading“In inspiring words, the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence insisted that each man should be considered as owning himself, and not be viewed as the property of the state to be manipulated by either king or Parliament.”
The Declaration of Independence, signed by members of the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, is the founding document of the American experiment in free government. This is well taught and known.
But what is too often forgotten is that the Founding Fathers’s Declaration argued against the heavy and intrusive hand of big government. And it true today when dissident groups invoke the memory of the revolutionary period to call for political change anew.
For … and Against
Most Americans easily recall those eloquent words with which the Founding Fathers expressed the basis of their claim for independence from Great Britain in 1776:
… Continue ReadingWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.