As the promise of Universal Healthcare continues to be sold to the American public by Democrats, the anecdotes fly. Look here; a case failure of our healthcare system! Look there; another person falls through the cracks!

The problem is, it’s the big picture that continues to put the lie to the selling of socialized medicine. As I’ve noted before, the system in Oregon will deny cancer patients life-saving or -extending medicine, but will gladly pay for life-ending “treatment”. You can decry all you want the profit motive of the private enterprise system, but with socialized medicine the profit motive is just as motivating, with a bigger bureaucracy larger than any insurance company you can name calling the shots.

And as Christians, is this the kind of system that we want to be encouraging? We’d have rationed healthcare (all socialized systems wind up here, sooner or later), equally poor quality, and a respect for life on par with Oregon’s.

But hey, it would be “equal”. Wonderful.

This bit of “hope” and “change”, however, has already been done on this scale. And how has it worked? Let’s talk to one of the founding fathers.

Back in the 1960s, [Claude] Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: “the father of Quebec medicare.” Even this title seems modest; Castonguay’s work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in “crisis.”

“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”

Read the rest of this entry

Learned by Josh Marshall, lefty blogger at Talking Points Memo.  First, he starts out the post being inspired.

I happened yesterday on this article in The Atlantic by Jonathan Rauch about the Chevy Volt. GM is throwing tons of resources into a breakneck schedule to produce an electric powered car that is dramatically more advanced than the hybrids currently on the market. The question is whether they can have the technology developed in time for release date.

It’s sort of inspiring to see an American company try something so ambitious.

American companies try ambitious things all the time.  Energy companies might try this more often, if there wasn’t the ever-present concern that their return-on-investment might get sucked away by the government as "windfall profit".  The freedom to innovate while keeping the fruits of your labor, and responding to needs by the consumer, is a feature of what we call "the market".  Familiarizing oneself with the concept would be very helpful in the current economic climate. 

Josh then finds in himself a newfound concern about alternative energy sources.  Despite his upbringing, he says, he was never really focused on it much.

But that’s changed over the last several months: most of the key issues that face us today, from environmental issues proper, to our geostrategic position vs. other great powers and the future of our economy, all turn on our reliance on fossil fuels. Not just ‘foreign’ ones, all of them.

And what has likely contributed heavily to this rediscovered concern?  How about the gas prices that have been rising quickly over "the last several month"?  But that’s nothing to be ashamed of.  The price of an item is an amazing bit of information that gives suppliers knowledge of short-term future demand, gives consumers an incentive to buy more or less of a product, and, depending on the price itself, gives innovators an incentive to come up with new and better way to supply the need.  This is a feature of what we call "the market".  (Detect a pattern here?)

This is instead of nationalizing the particular industry or forcing the price to an artificially lower value which could easily bring about shortages (just ask Venezuelans) and stifle innovation.  I  mean, a new source of a product just may cost a bit more as it’s getting ramped up, and forcing existing prices lower make consumers less likely to make the transition, unless you force them to do so.  The keyword here, which must be used over and over again, is "force".  And when your government is forcing all of your economic decisions on you, this is a feature of what we call "socialism". 

Would Marshall know the free market it if jumped out and bit him?  I think it just did, but according to the title of his post, he’s "shocked, shocked".  Likely that’s an intentional pun on the Chevy Volt subject, but his surprise at seeing American innovation, and his lack of understanding of his changing attitudes tells me that he apparently doesn’t recognize the source of those teeth marks.

Technorati Tags: Josh Marshall, free market, economics, supply and demand, oil industry, socialism, communism

No, not the 80’s song by Nick Lowe. The “kindness” brought to you by a government that just doesn’t seem to understand basic economics. Employment of minimum wage earners keeps going down (the cruel part) because of the hikes in the minimum wage the government keeps mandating (the “kind” part).

The percentage of teens classified as “unemployed” — those who are actively seeking a job but can’t get one — is more than three times higher than the national unemployment rate, according to the most recent Department of Labor statistics.

One of the prime reasons for this drastic employment drought is the mandated wage hikes that policymakers have forced down the throats of local businesses. Economic research has shown time and again that increasing the minimum wage destroys jobs for low-skilled workers while doing little to address poverty.

According to economist David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine, for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, employment for high school dropouts and young black adults and teenagers falls by 8.5 percent. In the past 11 months alone, the United States’ minimum wage has increased by more than twice that amount.

So it should be no surprise to see teen jobs disappearing or to hear bleak testimony from employers across the country that make these hiring decisions.

And it’s not just teens looking for a summer job that this hurts.

There’s no end to the economic data that confirm these common-sense observations. Research from the University of Georgia, the University of Connecticut and Cornell University indicates that increasing the minimum wage causes four times more job loss for employees without a high school diploma than it does for the general population.

Furthermore, minimum wage hikes don’t effectively target the people who are typically portrayed as the key beneficiaries — low-income adults raising kids. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, just 14 percent of those who benefited from the most recent federal minimum wage hike are sole earners in families with children.

The whole “living wage” canard used to buttress the case for increased minimum wage, then, is an incredibly small amount of those who benefit, and arguable more folks are hurt because of it. The question always asked is, “Is it better to have a lower-paying job, or no job at all?” Democrats will consistently ignore or hand-wave away this question, in the interest of “caring”.

Well ask those unemployed folks how much that “caring” helped them.

Technorati Tags: minimum wage, economy

I looked at the “charitability” of conservatives and liberals when Arthur Brooks came out with his study in 2006. He noted that conservatives were more charitable with their time and money than liberals.

Today we have a piece about multiple polling groups finding a correlation between the political spectrum and the honesty spectrum. But before I get to the data, I want to address the issue I have when I say “I hate polls”, which I’ve said quite a lot.

I’ve covered this a bit before, but it bears repeating. When we poll people on topics that they have little to no experience in, the poll is meaningless; no more than, as SCO contributor Mark Olson calls them, a cricket race. “Consumer confidence” numbers are as much (or more) a measure of economic news reporting as they are about how a person feels (itself, an ephemeral measurement). “Who would you vote for”, on the other hand, is certainly something each person can know about themselves for sure. Now, that may change over time, but no one else knows you better than you at this moment. It’s not a good measure of who you’ll vote for 6 months from now, but it’s accurate enough for the here and now, much more so than deciding how the economy is going based on feelings.

With that out of the way, on to the results.

Is it OK to cheat on your taxes? A total of 57 percent of those who described themselves as “very liberal” said yes in response to the World Values Survey, compared with only 20 percent of those who are “very conservative.” When Pew Research asked whether it was “morally wrong” to cheat Uncle Sam, 86 percent of conservatives agreed, compared with only 68 percent of liberals.

(Maybe that’s why liberals are all for tax increases. They figure the conservatives will do most of the paying.)

Ponder this scenario, offered by the National Cultural Values Survey: “You lose your job. Your friend’s company is looking for someone to do temporary work. They are willing to pay the person in cash to avoid taxes and allow the person to still collect unemployment. What would you do?”

Almost half, or 49 percent, of self-described progressives would go along with the scheme, but only 21 percent of conservatives said they would.

When the World Values Survey asked a similar question, the results were largely the same: Those who were very liberal were much more likely to say it was all right to get welfare benefits you didn’t deserve.

The World Values Survey found that those on the left were also much more likely to say it is OK to buy goods that you know are stolen. Studies have also found that those on the left were more likely to say it was OK to drink a can of soda in a store without paying for it and to avoid the truth while negotiating the price of a car.

And on the article goes, with more and more examples in the same vein. Buy why is this? Well, this is an opinion piece (because the MSM would never touch this with a 10-kilometer pole), so the writer, Peter Schweizer, a Hoover Institution fellow and author of a new book on this subject, actually does some analysis and gives us his take, but based on data, not just out of thin air.

Now, I’m not suggesting that all conservatives are honest and all liberals are untrustworthy. But clearly a gap exists in the data. Why? The quick answer might be that liberals are simply being more honest about their dishonesty.

However attractive this explanation might be for some, there is simply no basis for accepting this explanation. Validation studies, which attempt to figure out who misreports on academic surveys and why, has found no evidence that conservatives are less honest. Indeed, validation research indicates that Democrats tend to be less forthcoming than other groups.

The honesty gap is also not a result of “bad people” becoming liberals and “good people” becoming conservatives. In my mind, a more likely explanation is bad ideas. Modern liberalism is infused with idea that truth is relative. Surveys consistently show this. And if truth is relative, it also must follow that honesty is subjective.

Ideas, indeed. Post-modern deconstruction of traditional values did not originate from conservatives. And this is even more important, considering what year it is.

Sixties organizer Saul Alinsky, who both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say inspired and influenced them, once said the effective political advocate “doesn’t have a fixed truth; truth to him is relative and changing, everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”

Technorati Tags: honest, conservatives, liberals, polls

Jim Lindgren at The Volokh Conspiracy notes a few studies showing that the carbon offset program set up by the United Nations is what amounts to a scam.

Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN’s main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

[…]

A working paper from two senior Stanford University academics examined more than 3,000 projects applying for or already granted up to $10bn of credits from the UN’s CDM[clean development mechanism] funds over the next four years, and concluded that the majority should not be considered for assistance. "They would be built anyway," says David Victor, law professor at the Californian university. "It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts." . . .

Should we really be shocked that a left-wing scheme to "do something" turns into a Make Money Fa$t scam?  (Hint: No.)  It’s just become another tax, which, one wonders, if that wasn’t the plan all along.

Technorati Tags: environment, United Nations, global warming, climate change, carbon offsets, Stanford University, David Victor, clean development mechanism

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) slaps his party on the back of the head and tells them to wake up.

As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial.

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn’t good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising.

Becoming Republicans again will require us to come to grips with what has ailed our party – namely, the triumph of big-government Republicanism and failed experiments like the K Street Project and "compassionate conservatism." If the goal of the K Street Project was to earmark and fund raise our way to a filibuster-proof "governing" majority, the goal of "compassionate conservatism" was to spend our way to a governing majority.

Indeed, Republicans, with control of the purse strings to incredible riches that is the constant lure in a centralized government as huge as ours, turned into the very things they criticized; spendthrifts.  In doing so, they further exemplified one of the major problems with government trying to "do something".  Each party essentially winds up promising money for votes.  A smaller central government, not nearly as flush with cash, would be required to stick more closely to its constitutional boundaries.  Instead, regardless of the party, government has, in recent administrations, decided that it knows better how to be "compassionate".

But, as Senator Coburn notes, it’s not "compassion".

Compassionate conservatism’s starting point had merit. The essential argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the "other" is indisputable – particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government.

Compassionate conservatism’s next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor’s possessions. Spending other people’s money is not compassionate.

Precisely.  Read the whole thing, especially if you’re a Republican.

Technorati Tags: Senator Tom Coburn, Republicans, compassionate conservatism, K Street Project, small government

That is, the ones who are grilling oil executives.  Bruce McQuain at QandO notes questions suggested by the Institute for Energy Research.  The first 3:

1. Do you understand the fundamental economic principal of supply and demand for commodities pricing in the oil market?

2. Oil is a global commodity, bought and sold on the world market. Given that the nine largest private oil companies hold less than 5% of the entire world’s proven oil reserves, isn’t it more likely that the law of supply and demand is “manipulating” current prices than the five corporations represented at your witness table?

3. As a U.S. Senator, you have control over oil production on U.S. federal government lands. Taxpayers own these lands and the energy that lies beneath them, but 97% of the federal OCS and 94% of onshore government lands are not being used. Are you willing to help increase the world’s supply of oil – and thus reduce the price of oil and gasoline – by allowing more U.S. energy to be produced from these lands?

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: energy, oil, Senate, economics, commodities

Erik Erickson, a contributor to Redstate.com, also has a personal blog in which he talks about local politics (he lives in Macon, GA). Yesterday, he talked about a good local government program the finds summer jobs for high school students. It does its job well, he says, but it’s having a new problem.

Erik is on the Macon City Council’s Community Resources and Development Committee, and the lady who represents the program briefed the committee on it.

During the course of the lady’s presentation she lamented the increase in the minimum wage — this from a government bureaucrat who’d already blamed Bush for cutting other social program funding.

Because of the minimum wage increase, it is now more expensive to employ each student. Because it is more expensive per student, less students can be employed. The less students that can be employed through the program, the more students there will be on the street during the summer without jobs.

And that could very probably increase the rates of petty crime during the summer.

Way to go Democrats!

He titles the post “The minimum wage and unintended consequences“, but those consequences are certainly not unforeseen, as any honest economist would have to admit to it. Democrats, when arguing for an increase, however, never seem to mention that a minimum wage increase does not, cannot, happen in a vacuum. There are consequences to tampering with the free market, but the loss of jobs is minimized or ignored by a party that claims common cause with the poor.

Technorati Tags: minimum wage, free market, Democrats, living wage, unintended consequences

It still works.

News flash: Skyrocketing gas prices are driving historic shifts in the habits of car buyers, pushing them away from thirsty pickups and full-size SUVs and into four-cylinder compacts.

What a surprise.

Might all the smart people behind tougher federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules be watching? If they are, do they understand what we are witnessing? Namely, this: It’s not arbitrary mileage goals, mostly unhinged from engineering reality and focused on a handful of companies, that are dramatically changing the behavior of the driving public. It’s the price of fuel, stupid.

Cars outsold trucks in April for the first time in a generation, according to industry figures compiled by Autodata Corp., and four-cylinder powered cars outsold those with six cylinders under the hood. The shift, clearly a blow to truck-dependent Detroit automakers scrambling to dig out of their deep hole, is confirmation that market forces are a swifter disciplinarian than the collective wisdom of Congress, career bureaucrats and the environmental lobby.

Daniel Howes continues to discuss how the market, better than any government program, quick fix or temper tantrum, has made fuel economy a big issue with consumers. 

Technorati Tags: Daniel Howes, free market, CAFE standard, economics

While I don’t like paying $50 to fill my gas tank, every time I do I remind myself that this surge in oil prices is helping along the search for an alternative energy source.  When oil prices are low, there is little incentive to do R&D, especially if the cost of the new source comes in much higher.  But as the price of oil climbs, the incentive to innovate becomes stronger, and leads us closer to a solution.

But there are some that, while they proclaim they want the latter, also complain about the former.  Unfortunately, all 3 of the major candidates for President are among that crowd.

This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don’t want more production to increase supply. They want oil "independence" but they’ve declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Higher prices are doing what they’re supposed to do; encouraging conservation.  This is a good thing.  I know it’s hard to understand when you’re watching the numbers fly up on the pump, but in the bigger scheme of things, it can be an aid to discovering the next big, clean energy source.  I have in the past covered those who are antagonistic to clean, renewable energy (oh please, read those links; just dripping with irony), but these politicians — these allegedly smart people who supposedly see the big picture — should be the ones educating the public on this issue, not pandering and just rounding up the usual suspects.

Prices convey information.  They affect demand.  Artificially manipulating them doesn’t do any long-term good.

Technorati Tags: energy, oil, gas prices