Tom Pyle (IER) on the Election Results and Energy Policy (beware of ‘all of the above’ Republicans)
By Roger Donway -- November 3, 2010Yesterday’s election clearly demonstrates that the American people reject President Obama’s handling of the economy. Just as the 2008 elections were interpreted as a repudiation of President Bush’s agenda (particularly with respect to foreign policy), the 2010 mid-term election shows that America does not support President Obama’s domestic priorities.
Specific to energy and the environment, one clear message from the election is that cap-and-trade, top-down, command-and-control regulations are a losing argument with the voters. Candidates who voted for cap-and-trade, with few exceptions, ran away from that vote. Voters understand that cap-and-trade is a national energy tax.
With respect to energy policy, the election results will likely yield a modest and marginal improvement. While it will certainly not be the “environmental doomsday” that the national environmental lobby claims, unless the Republicans have truly changed their stripes, it will also not be the dramatic improvement that some predict or hope.…
Continue Reading“The Future of Economic Freedom” (A corporate call to principled action)
By Roger Donway -- November 2, 2010[Editor note: In a sea of political capitalism and rent-seeking by corporations, it is refreshing to see a principled defense of capitalism from the business sector. This piece from the current issue of Discovery, the quarterly publication of Koch Industries, Inc., is reprinted here in honor of today’s important elections.]
On Nov. 2, the United States will hold an important mid-term election.
At stake will be control of the U.S. Congress, 39 state governorships and thousands of other state and local offices.
High unemployment, record deficits, a sluggish economy and a swelling federal government have become flash point issues for millions of concerned Americans of every political persuasion.
For the nearly 50,000 Koch company employees in the United States, this election is an opportunity to help decide the future of economic freedom.…
Continue ReadingHalloween Hangover: Ehrlich, Holdren, Hansen Unretracted
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- November 1, 2010“If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”
– Paul Ehrlich, quoted in Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 35.
“As University of California physicist John Holdren has said, it is possible that carbon-dioxide climate-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020.”
– Paul Ehrlich, The Machinery of Nature, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1986, p. 274.
In the name of science, Paul Ehrlich, John Holdren, and James Hansen (et al.) have made doom-and-gloom predictions about business-as-usual in an attempt to shock humanity into immediate legislative action and lifestyle changes.
It did not work. The elapsed predictions have failed to come to pass. Little wonder that new installments of climate alarmism, such as Juliet Eilperin’s “25% of Wild Mammal Species Face Extinction: Global Assessment Paints ‘Bleak Picture,’ Scientists Say, and Figure of Those at Risk Could Be Higher” in the Washington Post (October 7), don’t register with voters.…
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