Utopia, you are standing in it!

Bush fire
Hardly a surprising conclusion in this research. A classic example of replacing what worked with what sounded good.
– – –
Southeast Australia’s bushfire crisis culminated in the devastating bushfire season of 2019 and 2020 that burnt nearly 25 million hectares of bush, says Phys.org.

Our new research demonstrates how the scale of this disaster blew out due to legislation introduced in the 1970s, which was based on idea that nature should be left to grow freely without human intervention.

We investigated the bushfire history of one of the worst hit areas: Buchan on Gunaikurnai Country in Victoria.

We found no bushfires burned there for almost a century until the mid 1970s, following the establishment of the Land Conservation Act of 1970—legislation that sought to protect the Australian bush from humans.

This legislation banned farmers from mimicking Aboriginal burning practices by using frequent fires to promote grass…

Ah, yes, we are doing this again: Another Israeli general election. I am not going to pretend to know what will happen. As I type this, ILTV is making it seem as if the right-wing bloc has a majority with 61 or 62 seats. That would be a government of Likud, the two Haredi parties (Shas and UTJ), and the Religious Zionist list, returning Benjamin Netanyahu to the prime ministership.

HOWEVER, this is based on exit polls. These have been off before. It is downright misleading of media to treat these as if they are indicative of real results. On the other hand, it would be in no way a surprise if the final results were to confirm these exit polls. We just don’t know yet.

I won’t get into other possible coalition scenarios till we have actual results, other than to note that there are interesting possibilities…

I’ve expressed opposition numerous times to so-called industrial policy because I don’t want politicians and bureaucrats to provide special favors to certain businesses or industries at the expense of everyone else.

That’s a practice known as cronyism, and it is absurd to think that selfish, election-focused politicians somehow correctly identify and subsidize the technologies of tomorrow.

But there are still people who think government should try to steer the economy – including some supposed conservatives.

Let’s remind ourselves why this is a bad idea. Samuel Gregg of the American Institute for Economic Research has a new article about the topic for National Review.

…several polling outfits have indicated an uptick in the number of Americans who say they are disillusioned with capitalism and willing to consider socialism as an alternative. This, however, isn’t the most immediate threat to American capitalism. …It is best labeled “corporatism.” …Examples of…

Try to cover up the chronic energy policy mistakes made in the name of climate theories by doling out vast sums of borrowed money to the struggling customers. That’s the current UK approach. Why should anyone be content with putting the exchequer ever further in the mire to keep futile net zero dogma alive?
– – –
Often I have referred to the situation that the UK, Germany, California, and others have set themselves up for as “hitting the green energy wall,” says Francis Menton (via Climate Change Dispatch).

But now that the UK has actually gotten there and has begun to deal with the consequences, I’m not sure that “hitting the wall” is the best analogy.

A better analogy might be “driving into the green energy cul-de-sac.” After all, when you hit a wall you can probably just pick yourself up and turn around and be on your…

Still so profoundly sad that Dolores died so young, This is one of their best songs, although there is no such thing as a bad Cranberries song.

The song was written in response to the death of Johnathan Ball, 3, and Tim Parry, 12, who had been killed in the IRA bombing in Warrington, northwest England, when two devices hidden in litter bins were detonated. Ball died at the scene of the bombing as a result of his shrapnel-inflicted injuries and, five days later, Parry lost his life as a result of head injuries.56 others were injured, some seriously. Parry died in his father’s arms in Liverpool’s Walton hospital. The two boys had gone shopping to buy Mother’s Day cards on one of the town’s busiest shopping streets.

“There were a lot of bombs going off in London and I remember this one time a child was killed when a…

The forecast lithium demand to meet the Net Zero targets look to be completely unachievable. That is an enormous amount of new mining that would no doubt be opposed by self described environmentalists. The story of global growth and prosperity from the industrial revolution is tightly entwined with use of energy starting with coal, other fossil fuels and nuclear. It seems to me the underlying socialist green agenda is happily to take us all back to an agrarian lifestyle. They decry growth and seem happy to leave the undeveloped nations where they are and take the world down to their level, rather than encourage the use of fossil fuels to bring everyone forward.

There’s never been a financial scam that comes anywhere near rivalling subsidised wind power for longevity and audacity.

Stories of the gullible signing up to buy the London Bridge or the Eiffel Tower spring to mind, when it is borne in mind that wind power (which simply cannot be delivered on demand) has no commercial value, apart from the massive and endless subsidies its generators pocket.

One aspect of the so-called ‘business’ is earning outrageous amounts of revenue for doing nothing, that is, being paid to not produce what it is that your business is meant to produce. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any other examples that match the profligacy of paying “constraint payments” to wind power outfits, so that they won’t deliver power to the grid when the wind is blowing.

This is not nickels and dimes, either. Up to December 2019, British wind power outfits had collected over…

Since teacher unions care more about lining their pockets and protecting their privileges rather than improving education, I’ll never feel any empathy for bosses like Randi Weingarten.

That being said, the past couple of years have been bad news for Ms Weingarten and her cronies.

Not only is school choice spreading – especially in states such as Arizona and West Virginia, but we also are getting more and more evidence that competition produces better results for schoolkids.

In a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Professors David N. Figlio, Cassandra M.D. Hart & Krzysztof Karbownik found that school choice led to benefits even for kids who remained stuck in government schools.

They enjoyed better academic outcomes, which is somewhat surprising, but even I was pleasantly shocked to see improved behavioral outcomes as well.

School choice programs have been growing in the United States and worldwide over the…

With power consumers suffering the disastrous consequences of the wind and solar transition in Germany and Britain, the MSM are still doing their best to deflect attention from the obvious cause.

How we found ourselves in a world where power prices are simply unaffordable, and power can only be delivered according the vagaries of the weather, isn’t all down to rent-seeking crony capitalists and politicians on the take. No, the mainstream media have been in it, up to their necks. They still are.

Notwithstanding the renewable energy driven disaster unfolding in Europe, the MSM keep dishing up propaganda memes about wind power being cheaper than coal (it isn’t) or that the ‘transition’ to an all-wind and sun powered future is simply ‘inevitable’. Notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Another classic line is about such and such wind farm ‘powering’ 100,000 homes. Which is clearly meant to give the impression that…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post here, prompted by a paper by the former Bank of England Deputy Governor Sir Paul Tucker. Tucker’s paper was written in the context of the huge losses central banks in many countries, including his own UK, have run up through their large scale asset purchase programmes, especially those undertaken in 2020 and 2021 when bond yields (actual and implied forwards) were already incredibly low. While central banks continue to hold the bonds, the losses are seen every year now as the funding costs on those bond positions (the interest paid on the resulting settlement cash balances) swamp the low earnings yields on the bonds themselves. Bond positions purchased at yields perhaps around 1 per cent are financed with floating rate debt now paying (in New Zealand) 3.5 per cent (a rate generally expected to rise quite a bit further).

Tucker explored…

Every country chasing the wind and solar ‘transition’ is suffering from a mix of power rationing and rocketing prices. There is no exception.

Which brings us to our sunny land, Australia.

Blessed with abundant reserves of coal, gas and uranium, it ought to enjoy the world’s cheapest power prices (20 years ago, it did).

Now, however, since the Federal government’s Renewable Energy Target ramped up in 2009, power prices have been increasing at double-digit rates, with much worse to come. Michael Crawford’s graph was drawn in 2018; retail power prices have close to doubled, since then.

Current predictions are that Australian retail power prices will jump a further 35%, next year, following the closure of more reliable coal-fired plants.

Just like California, Germany, Denmark and the UK Australia’s obsession with chaotically intermittent wind and solar has a price. And it’s hard-pressed households and battling businesses who end up paying it.