Utopia, you are standing in it!

Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (January 8, 1864 – January 14, 1892) was the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) and grandson of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria. From the time of his birth, he was second in the line of succession to the British throne, but never became king because he died before his father and grandmother.

Albert Victor was born two months prematurely on January 8, 1864 at Frogmore House, Windsor, Berkshire. He was the first child of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and his wife Alexandra of Denmark, daughter of was Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (King Christian IX of Denmark) and her mother was Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

Following his grandmother Queen Victoria’s wishes, he was named Albert Victor, after herself and her late husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. As a grandchild of the…

From the outside it looks like treason, to the insider it’s merely the extension of the most massive subsidy scam in history. For nearly 40 years, the wind and solar industries have been telling us that they’ll soon be standing on their own two feet. But their greatest fear is being given the chance to actually do so.

The renewable energy rent seekers traipsing the halls of power in Washington are desperate to ensure that the subsidies upon which the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time critically depend are extended in perpetuity.

With the Squad firmly in charge, and Joe Biden wandering the Oval Office in a befuddled daze, crony capitalists have already given a list of demands to Democrats ready to deliver: decade-long extensions of the Federal tax credits that will allow wind and solar generators to continue to profit obscenely at taxpayers’ expense.

Alex Epstein describes…

Sweden’s Imaginary Socialism as a Non-Model

Part One of this essay was posted a couple of days ago. In it, I reviewed some of the avatars and zombies of the vague words “socialist” and “socialism.” I arrived at the inescapable conclusion that Sen. Sanders “democratic socialism” means only Scandinavian and, specifically, Swedish “socialism.” I look at that social and fiscal arrangement below.

First, let me say that Sweden is a good place to live; it’s a very civilized country. I just don’t know in what sense it’s “socialist.” Center-left parties took part in governing the country for most of the 20th century, true. Yet, little of Swedish commerce or industry is nationalized, or in any way public property. The Swedish government tends not to be invasive with regulations or direct intervention. Sweden even ranks a little higher than the US in “business freedom” on the 2016 (international) Index of…

As part of a recent discussion with Gene Tunny in Australia, I explained why I support “Starve the Beast,” which means keeping taxes as low as possible to help achieve the goal of spending restraint.

The premise of Starve the Beast is very simple.

Politicians like to spend money and they don’t particularly care whether that spending is financed by taxes or financed by borrowing (both bad options).

As Milton Friedman sagely observed, that means they will spend every penny they collect in taxes plus as much additional spending financed by borrowing that the political system will allow.

The IMF published a study on this issue about 10 years ago. The authors (Michael Kumhof, Douglas Laxton, and Daniel Leigh) assert that there’s no way of knowing whether Starve the Beast will lead to good or bad results.

…there is no consensus regarding the macroeconomic…