Two More Shots Across the Bow

[Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber admits multiple times that "stupid Americans" had to be lied to in order to get President Obama's 'landmark achievement' into a law that now daily exposes how cynical and autocratic our government has become, and how the lickspittle lamestream is supporting the Big Lie (more here).  But then RR reported that way back when it was happening.]

George Rebane

Income inequality in America was badly misrepresented in the recent book by Piketty and Goldhammer.  Their Capital in the 21st Century (2014) continues to receive progressive paeans and lamestream’s lip service on a daily basis.  Therein the authors cite the now notorious study by Piketty and Saez that is so full of holes in both reasoning and facts that it has motivated other economists to reexamine the data and point out the obvious fallacies with which Capital is littered.

Economists Phil Gramm and Michael Solon summarize the major errors in their ‘How to Distort Income Inequality’.  There they write -

What the hockey-stick portrayal of global temperatures did in bringing a sense of crisis to the issue of global warming is now being replicated in the controversy over income inequality, thanks to a now-famous study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, professors of economics at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. Whether the issue is climate change or income inequality, however, problems with the underlying data significantly distort the debate.

Collectivists of every stripe have latched on to their erroneous conclusions to justify a new bevy of socialist economic policy initiatives that they would like to have made into law and imposed on the ever shrinking cohort of Americans who create the country’s wealth.  Gramm and Solon remind us again that –

Simple statistical errors in the data account for roughly one third of what is now claimed to be a “frightening” increase in income inequality. But the weakness of the case for redistribution does not end there. America is the freest and most dynamic society in history, and freedom and equality of outcome have never coexisted anywhere at any time. Here the innovator, the first mover, the talented and the persistent win out—producing large income inequality. The prizes are unequal because in our system consumers reward people for the value they add. Some can and do add extraordinary value, others can’t or don’t.

How exactly are we poorer because Bill Gates , Warren Buffett and the Walton family are so rich? Mr. Gates became rich by mainstreaming computer power into our lives and in the process made us better off. Mr. Buffett’s genius improves the efficiency of capital allocation and the whole economy benefits. Wal-Mart stretches our buying power and raises the living standards of millions of Americans, especially low-income earners. Rich people don’t “take” a large share of national income, they “bring” it. The beauty of our system is that everybody benefits from the value they bring.

And speaking of the infamous AGW hockey stick, did you hear what our President and China’s Xi Jinping are supposed to have agreed to during this week’s embarrassment in Beijing.  The short of it is that the US will commit to immediately ramp up even more drastic cuts in carbon emissions while China will see what it can do over the next decades to reduce its emissions.  Hopefully the new Congress will have none of it, but the big liberal guns are already unlimbered and touting this as ‘A Game-Changing Climate Agreement’ celebrated in an article of the same name by Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.

In there Krupp revisits the joys of centrally planned economies that mandate arbitrary industries and market sectors which are supposed to produce marvelous new wealth from politically correct products, systems, and operations.  Such nostrums have never worked before, and there is no promise that they will work now, no matter how many guns the government points at Americans to change their behavior.  But that makes no never mind to people like Krupp who admits that the US will take an economic hit in its forced abandonment of fossil fueled energy production.  He devoutly believes that we will overcome that self-imposed hardship by magically creating new wealth-producing industries –

I am an optimist about America’s ability to innovate and adapt. The price of solar panels has been cut 75% since 2008, and the U.S. added more solar capacity in the past two years than in the previous 30 years combined. Texas and Kansas are showing what is possible with wind power. (One day last year, wind generated nearly 40% of Texas’ electricity.) In Nevada, Tesla is building the world’s largest advanced automotive-battery factory. In New York, Solar City is building a massive solar-photovoltaic factory. Market leaders like Google and Wal-Mart are making huge investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The U.S.-China agreement will only increase the pace of this trend—which will, in turn, make the goals set this week easier to achieve.

So he and his have an ultimate and unfounded faith that our overregulated, overtaxed, and vilified (see above) entrepreneurs will ignore all market realities to commit their time and treasure chasing will o’ the wisp business enterprises whose success will depend solely on an eternal stream of ample subsidies from a cynical government that is already submerged in debt beyond counting, and that must continue to borrow heavily at artificially low interest rates just to service existing debt, having long ago abandoned any hope of stabilizing, let alone reducing, its principal amount.

Scary words indeed.  It almost goes without saying that nowhere in Krupp’s piece does he evince a hint that AGW can at best be viewed as debatable science, and at worst as part of an obvious political movement to promote the fundamental transformation of America.  The beat goes on and grows louder.

Comments

[Russ Steele]

How the Chinese view their own climate agreement (Also Posted in the Sandbox)

Both sides put out their joint statement, the U.S. issuing it via the White House and China releasing it through the official Xinhua News Agency. But whereas one side gave it a high gloss, the other seemed to be trying to bury it under the rug. The top story on the website affiliated with the Communist Party flagship paper The People’s Daily was about Xi and Obama meeting the press – but the article made no reference to the climate agreement. Other stories on the homepage touched on the climate statement but tended to relegate it to the latter half of the article, and omitted the American-style superlatives. The popular Beijing News, a state-run paper known for gently testing the editorial boundaries, also didn’t mention the climate deal in its Nov. 12 cover story on the APEC meeting that brought Obama to China. It focused instead on the meeting’s anti-corruption accord and progress on plans for a pan-Asian free trade zone spearheaded by China.

Here is one reason why:

Beijing is under fire domestically for its unsuccessful efforts to curb local air pollution, noting that people were furious that authorities managed to clear the air for the visiting APEC dignitaries but can’t do it on a daily basis for their own citizens. ” There may be worries that focusing on climate change rather than air pollution doesn’t meet the public’s main concerns,” Seligsohn said via email.

That is all from a good piece by Alexa Olesen at Foreign Policy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/12/china_us_climate_deal_enthusiasm_gap?

H/T to Tyler Cowen at the Marginal Revolution

[RL Crabb]

There's always hope... https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10150334099660089&fref=nf

[George Boardman]

My daughter teaches school in Beijing, and they had the first three days off this week--along with every smoke-belching business in town--to clear the air for the visiting dignitaries. Just half the vehicles were allowed on the streets each day, both to cut down on pollution and give the impression that traffic moves efficiently throughout the city.

She begins each day by checking her pollution meter. This tells her if it's safe to ride her bike to work, or if she has to put on her air filtration mask before going outside. She said you can always identify the locals because they all have the Beijing hack.

[Russ Steele]

Eric Worrall writes at Watts Up With That:

The Guardian, a green British newspaper, has published yet another green sneer at democracy, with reference to the recent climate agreement between China and America, contrasting the efficient obedience of the Chinese government, with the “difficulties” Obama will encounter, when he faces the democratically elected representatives of the American people.

According to the Guardian,

“While Chinese apparatchiks will, presumably unquestioningly, jump to realize President Xi Jinping’s order to reduce carbon emissions in an ambitious deal with the United States, Barack Obama will come home to a newly elected Congress that will probably tell him to neuter his climate change agenda or be prepared for the kind of knock-down, drag-out fight that could potentially end with a government shutdown.”

Democracy is wonderful when we are allowed to apply it for the good of the nation. Unfortunately, Omama will once again attempt to use his executive power and the toads at the EPA to force greenhouse gas reduction. In the mean time the climate will continue to cool and sanity may eventually return to the democratic process, at least for the climate change issue. It is hard to argue for global warming when shoveling snow off the walk and a cold wind is blowing up your skirt. Global warming is currently at the bottom of the list of issues that most American families are concerned about, and eventually it will fall off the list all together. Except in California where we have too much AB-32 money on the table, and the politicians have to keep the slush funds brimming with cash to buy critical votes in support of sustainability, the code word for UN Agenda 21.

[George Rebane]

Speaking of Jonathan Gruber's recent videos, if there ever was a clear indication of the hard Left orientation of the lamestream media, the self-censoring of Obamacare architect's candid admissions should establish that truth. But this is just one example of such shenanigans. The years of RR comment streams in which our leftwing readers give no evidence that they have heard of or read about national and international happenings is easily explained. Their only view through the thick curtains of NPR, PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, NYT, LAT, ... news coverage leaves them at a tremendous disadvantage when they start making their patently silly representations of either what is happening or has happened. It appears that it is within these pages that they are introduced to a large hunk of the real world. And since they have heard of it nowhere else, they are outraged that RR and its readers are the only people they know who hold such views. Sometimes we all feel that talking to some our progressive brethren is like debating with Ma and Pa Kettle in one of those oldtime movies. And, of course, it explains away why so many of the arguments by RR readers are answered by crickets.

Case in point, the coverage of the Gruber videos was just today quickly glimpsed by CBS and ABC viewers; the audiences of others on the above list remain completely in the dark about the (to us) obvious crap through which Obamacare was brought into the world and promoted. Bottom line - there is no way that such a large group of "stupid Americans" (Gruber's words) voting for lying sacks of $%!* who then play them like a violin can constructively co-exist with the rest within the confines of one nation.

[Walt]

That's why their ratings are in the crapper, George. Cnn and PMSNBC have less than a million in viewers at any given time. Even their on line hits are dismal.
The news about this is all over the net now,
The only ones that defend the swift kick in the nuts to the taxpayer, are the freeloaders who benefited from the "deem and pass".

[Bill Tozer]

The Sino-American Global Warning Pact will benefit the China economy and harm ours. Our Dear Benevolent Leader does not want to wait for Congress ever again and is threatening to block 5 million illegals from ever being deported. Ever.

Once again these 2 little bleeps on the radar prove to me (again) that our Leader pushes the interests of foreigners and foreign nations above the rights and interests of the American people/America. How can anyone argue today that American Exceptionalism exists when we the people are treated like 2nd class citizens by the man behind the curtain. Nobody sees the Wizard, not nobody not no how.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TufvnJfmHuU

[Walt]

I do believe he is out to destroy this nation by any means necessary. His known history
shows his hatred of it, and what better place to do it from is from the top, and within.
Right out of the book "rules for radicals". Destroy the economy, ruin the health care system as we knew it, flood the populace with illegals, make the dollar worthless, And make the U.S. look cowardly to the rest of the world. and then and play king in the process.
This last election just made the agenda a little more transparent.

[Walt]

Well, the health care bombshell is turning out to be a cluster bomb. Video after video is turning up, and now the people he worked with are coming out of the woodwork like roaches.
This is where the villagers start showing up with pitchforks and torches.
Somewhere a tar kettle id getting dragged out of retirement, and some chickens are missing their feathers. ( maybe Foster Farms is more than willing to donate gladly.)
I'm sure Union Pacific has a spare rail to use for the occasion.
This is going to come back to haunt the LIBS that are still there that "deem and passed"
this piece of work.
This is where the Tea Party says WE TOLD YOU SO!!. ( Stupid LIBS) There is no free lunch, let alone health care.

[Jack Cominsky]

This guy Gruber reminds me of the effete asshats that I had to deal with when I was a college student back east in the late '60s. Wayyy too smart for his own good, but totally out of touch with the reality of the world around him.

May he stew, stew, stew, in his own vile juices.

Jack

[Bill Tozer]

Dr. Rebane, make that 3 shots across the bow, without one shot ever fired.

http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-disarms-border-patrol-agents

The transformation has begun.

[Walt]

DAMN! Another vid.of Goober shows up. He now has his own mini series.

[fish]

It would appear that the Truckee lad is doing his best to mint a fresh new nickname for the jeffy!

This is one of the “circles of stupid” in our community.....

As mentioned previously boys.....jeffy you are more properly described as the "Oblate Spheroid of Stupidity"....a circle is a two dimensional construct where you quite obviously occupy all three.

[George Rebane]

Defending Obama - it would be humorous to hear of all the strained economic parameters cited by the messiah's protagonists if the audience were a bit more numerate. One of the highlights of such a defense is that Obama has recently cut deficits to lower than some under Bush2. Well, 1) that doesn't mean much because the national debt on which we spend hundreds of billions in annual debt service is still going up and out of control, and 2) as people with some understanding of data streams know, if the amount/level (zeroth derivative) isn't satisfactory, then try quoting the rate of change (first derivative, here the deficit), and if that will not serve then argue that the rate of change is not increasing as fast (second derivative) as it was or could.

In short, if you want to put lipstick on the pig of an unsatisfactory data stream like our out of control national debt, then keep taking ever higher rates of change (derivatives) and you're bound to find one that will serve the message that you're trying to deliver to a naive audience. Thus endeth the epistle for the day.