Utopia, you are standing in it!

Way back in 2010, I explained that Paul Krugman was wrong to think that wars were good for the economy.

Indeed, he was more wrong than usual. The additional spending for the military isn’t “stimulus,” so his usual Keynesian argument was misguided.

Moreover, he didn’t seem to understand that wars also destroy existing wealth.

Today we are going to look at how war can teach us another economic lesson.

The United States and other major nations have responded to Russia’s assault on Ukraine by imposing trade restrictions with Russia.

If protectionists are correct, these steps (effectively imposing an extreme Russian version of Biden’s “buy America” policy) should strengthen Putin.

Yet that’s obviously not the purpose of the sanctions.

Instead, officials from western nations understand that these trade barriers will weaken Russia’s economy.

By the way, this isn’t the only example of nations using trade restrictions to hurt their enemies.

A month or so back, Germany’s green-infested government was talking up the end of coal and nuclear power plants; the last phase in its ‘inevitable’ transition to an all wind and sun-powered future, as the wind and sun cult would have it.

Well. That was then, this is now.

With the squeeze on Russian gas and oil supplies, Germany (among others) has been forced to meet reality, head-on.

All of a sudden, even its rabid the anti-fossil fuel Greens have backflipped on plans to kill off Germany’s nuclear and coal-fired plants. Necessity being, in this case, the mother of ideological reinvention.

Tsvetana Paraskova tells the tale of how reality is driving Germany’s grand renewables reversal.

Germany Goes For Full Energy Policy Overhaul Amid Ukraine Crisis
Oil Price
Tsvetana Paraskova
28 February 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine upended the energy policy of Germany. In just a few days since Putin…

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean.  But as an overview consider how recent rapid cooling has now completely overcome the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November, 2021 and now in January and February 2022. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~55 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and…

Overall, I’ve been disappointed with the reporting on the US embargo against Russian oil. The AP reported that the US imports 8% of Russia’s crude oil exports. But then they and other outlets list a litany of other figures without any context for relative magnitudes. Let’s shine some more light on the crude oil data.*

First, the 8% figure is correct – or, at least it was correct as of December of 2021. The below figure charts the last 7 years of total Russian crude oil exports, US imports of Russian crude oil, and the proportion that US imports compose. That 8% figure is by no means representative of recent history. The average US proportion in 2015-2018 was 7.8%. But the US share as since risen in level and volatility. Since 2019, the US imports compose an average of 11.9% of all Russian crude oil exports.

As an exogenous shock…

Crash (2004) Director: Paul Haggis

Crash is a bleak, depressing, sappy socio-political “message” movie. At the time of its release it was widely praised, even winning Best Picture at the Oscars in 2005. While I can appreciate a film with an anti-bigotry message, Crash just gets more ridiculous and overtly sentimental with time. It does not rank among the greatest of the Best Picture winners in my view.

Crash is a panorama-film. It tells the story a variety of parallel lives, people living empty, broken lives in Los Angeles, people filled with prejudice and hatred and, above all, distance from one another. So they come violently crashing into one another in a string of car accidents, robberies, and gun violence. The plot concerns a struggling Iranian family who runs a shop with a broken door, so they call a Latino locksmith who has already been accused of being…

When Charles II died in 1685, Anne’s father became King James II of England and Ireland and also King James VII of Scotland. To the consternation of the English people, James began to give Catholics military and administrative offices, in contravention of the Test Acts that were designed to prevent such appointments.

Anne shared the general concern, and continued to attend Anglican services. As her sister Mary lived in the Netherlands, Anne and her family were the only members of the royal family attending Protestant religious services in England. When her father tried to get Anne to baptise her youngest daughter into the Catholic faith, Anne burst into tears. “The Church of Rome is wicked and dangerous”, she wrote to her sister, “their ceremonies—most of them—plain downright idolatry.” Anne became estranged from her father and stepmother, as James moved to weaken the Church of England’s power.

In early 1687, within…

Reliance on intermittent wind and solar guarantees rocketing power prices and chaotic supply. Price spikes and/or power rationing when the sun sets or calm weather sets in are the death knell for a range of energy-hungry businesses and industries. Manufacturing and mineral processing are usually the first to disappear, when the true costs of running with the unreliables start to bite.

The State of Virginia provides the perfect example, with a push for an all wind and sun powered future in the not-too-distant future.

David Stevenson adds up the whopping costs and the non-existent benefits of Virginia’s plans to run on sunshine and breezes below.

Cost and Reliability Implications of the Virginia Clean Economy Act
Caesar Rodney Institute
David T Stevenson
10 January 2022

Virginia legislation requires electric power to come 100% from renewable sources by 2045. Specific targets are set for the amount of solar and onshore wind, offshore…