Utopia, you are standing in it!

Banking on the wind for your daily power needs is prone to disappoint. From the moment human beings harnessed thermal energy the path of industrial and modern civilisation was set. No more begging for beneficial breezes to spin that mill. Power could be had as and when we needed it, not when mother nature felt inclined to provide it.

Then came self-serving, rent-seeking crony capitalists – backed by an ideologically driven cult – who hijacked energy policy, returning us to an age of superstition and wishful thinking.

What stands out in the first piece by Bill Peacock is not the perfectly predictable collapses in wind and solar output, it’s the argument put forward by a Reuter’s columnist that Texas’ troubles will soon be overcome by “greater wind speeds” which, he reckons, will provide a “major boost” to Texan power supplies and avert any further power scares during hot weather.

Now…

The federal government screws up some big things (Social Security, health care, higher education, etc).

This video shows it also screws up on targeted issues.

The clear message is that the federal government has very bad policies that are hurting Native Americans.

It’s almost as if the system is designed to benefit bureaucrats rather than recipients (a very common problem with federal programs, unfortunately).

But not every problem is caused by Washington.

Here’s a chart from some new research by Thomas Stratmann of George Mason University. He created an index measuring the extent to which various reservations promote or hinder economic liberty.

As you can see, more economic liberty is correlated with higher levels of household income.

And here are some brief excerpts from his study.

This paper proposes a Reservation Economic Freedom Index for over 80 Indian reservations. …I document a positive association between reservations…

Patrick J. Michaels reports at Real Clear Policy Nobel Prize Awarded for the Worst Climate Model.Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Given the persistent headlines about climate change over the years, it’s surprising how long it took the Nobel Committee to award the Physics prize to a climate modeler, which finally occurred earlier this month.

Indeed, Syukuro Manabe has been a pioneer in the development of so-called general circulation climate models (GCMs) and more comprehensive Earth System Models (ESMs). According to the Committee, Manabe was awarded the prize “For the physical modelling of the earth’s climate, quantifying variability, and reliably predicting global warming.”

What Manabe did was to modify early global weather forecasting models, adapting them to long-term increases in human emissions of carbon dioxide that alter the atmosphere’s internal energy balance, resulting in a general warming of surface temperatures, along with a much

Why Did IMF Disinvite Nobel Laureate?

CO2 Coalition explains.  Nobel Laureate (Physics 2022) Dr. John Clauser was to present a seminar on climate models to the IMF on Thursday and now his talk has been summarily cancelled. According to an email he received last evening, the Director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund, Pablo Moreno, had read the flyer for John’s July 25 zoom talk and summarily and immediately canceled the talk. Technically, it was “postponed.”

Dr. Clauser had previously criticized the awarding of the 2021 Nobel Prize for work in the development of computer models predicting global warming and told President Biden that he disagreed with his climate policies. Dr. Clauser has developed a climate model that adds a new significant dominant process to existing models. The process involves the visible light reflected by cumulus clouds that cover, on average, half of the Earth. Existing…

I fully agree with my leftist friends who say that corporations want to extract every penny they can from consumers. I also (mostly) agree with them when they say corporations are soulless entities that don’t care about people.

But after they’re done venting, I then try to educate them by pointing out that the only way corporations can separate consumers their money is by vigorously competing to provide desirable goods and services at attractive prices.

Moreover, their “soulless” pursuit of those profits (as explained by Walter Williams) will lead them to be efficient and innovative, which boosts overall economic output.

Moreover, in a competitive market, it’s not consumers vs. corporations, it’s corporations vs. corporations with consumers automatically winning.

Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute makes a very valuable point about what happens in a free economy.

Comparing the 1955 Fortune 500 companies to the 2017 Fortune 500, there…

In addition to discussing politicians and insider trading, I also was asked about antitrust laws during my recent CNBC appearance.

As you might imagine, I expressed skepticism about Biden’s plan for a more interventionist approach.

My view is that mergers should be governed by the market, not by politicians.

Especially when politicians have created a Catch-22 situation with antitrust laws.

Companies can be accused of improper behavior regardless of what they do.

• If they charge more than their competitors, that’s supposedly evidence of monopoly power.
• If they charge the same as their competitors, that’s supposedly evidence of collusion.
• If they charge less than their competitors, that’s supposedly evidence of predatory pricing.

Just like the poem from The Incredible Bread Machine.

For today, let’s focus on the specific issue of “consumer welfare,” which has limited the folly of antitrust policy by creating a presumption that mergers are…