Reinke Faces Life

FROM A TOUT EZINE

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Profit Opportunity: The Government Has Solar’s Back By Christian Hill

Yesterday, I talked about the tremendous year the solar industry had in 2010. While the S&P was up nearly 20%, some companies saw gains as high as 80% and 120%.

And for the first time ever, the industry installed over 1 gigawatt of capacity.

Solar has a lot of momentum going into 2011.

And that tailwind is being reinforced by the government.

For the past few years, they have been giving the industry all the help they can in the form of tax credits, grants, and incentives. These totaled $2.5 billion last year. That was four times the 2009 amount.

One example is the Treasury Grant Program (TGP). It lets the owner of a commercial solar project take a 30% cash grant instead of a tax credit.

The TGP was set to expire at the end of last year.

But the government wasn’t about to let all the momentum the solar industry has built up slip away.

So they extended the TGP for another year.

The government is aware that this is about jobs too. Job growth for solar companies is forecast to be 26% over the next 12 months. That compares to 2% for the overall economy.

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SO let me understand this: the Gooferment robs Peter to subsidize Paul and that makes it a great investment?

I don’t think the author understands the value proposition.

To give some people, wearing “solar” on their t-shirts, a subsidy of X, the Gooferment has to steal 2 times X from other people.

And I like “solar” if by that you mean I can get electricity cheaper.

Maybe with the subsidy, maybe solar is “cheaper”. But it’s not a “fair calculation”. The Gooferment’s bug thumb is on the “butcher’s scale” influencing the calculation.

The Gooferment should have NO role in an “energy policy”. (Other than to prevent force or fraud. Ensuring a free and fiar marketplace.)

Argh!

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Received an email from a fellow Jasper. Space in the Jasper Jottings blog is limited and I wanted to expound more.

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RE: Skating rink in VC

>Do you ever take your ideological blinders off and think of the positive possibilities of government projects
> like the Van Cortlandt Park skating rink right near Manhattan College?

The problem with Socialists is they can always find the beneficiaries of their policies, but they can’t, won’t, or don’t see those that are being penalized. I can only say “Broken Glass Fallacy”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

“In short, the broken window (and the boy who broke it) did not provide any net benefit to the town, but rather made the town poorer by at least the value of one window, if not more.”

In this case, the politician Bloomberg has “decided” that a skating rink should be built. Ignoring that a private skating rink, a few blocks away, went out of business. That private one’s failure was the invisible hand of the market declaring that it was not needed. If it had been, it would have found willing buyers of its services willing to pay for it, (and, by implication), valued it higher than the alternative uses for that amount of money.

The beauty of the price mechanism is it PEACEFULLY forces people to make choices. No external force required of a “government”. No extraction of wealth by theft. Just people peacefully deciding that they want this but not that. In a world of scarce resource, no one can have it all! So, someone can go ice skating or to the movies. The movies win and the rink looses. And entrepreneurs supply more movies and less ice rinks. Doesn’t say that movies are “good” and rinks are “bad”. It’s just that people are making “choices” or “decisions”, and the free market is peacefully allocating the resources to create the maximum satisfaction.

One of the problems that the Socialists have is “the calculation problem”. That is how do you decide this and not that. Or that and not this. The free market does it with pricing. And, humans making economic decisions. It’s like a continuous voting process. And, it is done quickly efficiently and peacefully. It’s a thing of beauty.

And, remember, you just can ask people. Everyone will want a “free” skating rink. And, everyone can imagine benefits from it.

Austrian economists have said it much better than I can. I like the formulation of a basic principle from the TV show “House”: “People lie”. Ask and people can and will tell you anything. But ask them to spend their weath, there’s an absolute measurable true indication of how much they value something.

So, in the free market, we have a giant computing engine, better than the Jeopardy champion Watson, continuously calculating “maximum satisfaction”.

Because the cost of this skating rink is divided up by millions of people, we don’t see those penalized by it. 250k$/25M NY taxpayers = a few cents each. But maybe they’d rather spend their money the way they see fit. Rather than have it extracted by force by Bloomberg for a rink that has not made economic sense in the past.

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Surely there will be talented ice skaters among future students at Manhattan who would not have had the chance to develop their inherent skills if not for the nearby rink. Think of an Olympic champion from Manhattan College and not the loss of a place for another high rise or high priced restaurant or strip joint that free enterprise might have put in its place.

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But maybe that potential champion has deprived a thousand families of an affordable place to live?

See the problem with political decisions is that there is no “yardstick” for measuring. That’s the problem with “rent control”, zoning, diktats, and regulations. They distort the free market. And, by building the rink, we will never know what the true cost of it was. Maybe God can tell us at the Final Judgement.

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Where I live private enterprise has built an ultra-modern gambling casino while downtown needs more development to put it mildly.

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Well, it’s really NOT “private enterprise” in a truly free market sense. It’s political as well. Gambling is highly regulated. So some politician has “decided” that the casino can be built. It’s wasn’t an entrepreneur risking his capital to satisfy his Customers.

“Downtown development” — could it be that high taxes make development “uneconomical”? If, for example, Detroit zeroed out it’s taxes and relied on fees for services, I’d bet you’d see a “gold rush” there. But, Gooferment thinks it knows best. “Development” means a political feeding frenzy where politicians, bureaucrats, and their toadies make out like the bandits they really are.

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Gambling addiction has become a major problem which the government needs to address … …

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Gambling, like drug addiction, can’t be “addressed” by government. Unless you let them just kill the addicts. Didn’t China try that a few times? The death penalty for vices and those that trade off them.

As you know us little L libertarians want to legalize all drugs. Like it once was in America, before women got the vote and thought they could legislate sobriety and birthed organized crime. And, in a funny unintended consequence, expand the amount of drinking that Americans did.

I remember reading that the natural rate of addiction is 10%. No matter what you do, 10% of the population will be addicted. Look at the Gooferment’s own prisons. They can’t keep drugs out of there. It’s a MEDICAL PROBLEM. So why don’t we treat it as such. Put WalMart in charge of drug distribution. (Or, Walgreens, CVS, or such.) Estimates say that currently illegal drugs will be as cheap as aspirin. (Think about the soon to be poor Drug Kingpins and Gangs trading on human misery. What will they do when the huge flow of ill gotten gains dries up.) Look at Budwiser and Miller, no need to have turf war, with shots fired. Maybe a drug addict can even hold a job and support their habit. And, the huge expenditures on police, courts, and prisons can be put to better uses. Like research and treatment. And, since it will now be “legal”, it will be “un kool”. So the youth won’t be lure into trying it.

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while the public sector is already scraping for funds to keep the roads paved.

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And, “paved roads” are a struggle because providing services to people is NOT what Gooferment wants to do; reward friends, punish enemies, and feather nests. Why doesn’t Disney World have trouble paving its roads?

The Blob (i.e., politicians, bureaucrats, and their toadies) always cut the public facing service and then wail they have no money. The FIRST thing that entrenched politicians and bureaucrats do is cut services to the people. It is a sham. A pretense. A fraud. Did they cut the internal costs? How many honchos and hangers-on did they nuke?

And, why do we let the Gooferment run the roads any way?

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Please think about the long term ramifications of your libertarian policies. I do not think you would really like the outcome.

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I’d like to try some little L libertarian policies. I think it would be great. Unfortunately, there are criminal gangs in fancy costumes with high fluting words and fancy flags occupying the ground. But, as more and more humans understand, they can identify a critical meme.

Government is the meme that enslaves and kills us.

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http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/20/chinese-people-power-a-primer

Chinese People Power: A Primer

Jesse Walker | February 20, 2011

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While our eyes are glued on the collapsing Qaddafi regime, the authorities in China are getting jittery about a Jasmine Revolution of their own:

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How about an American Jasmine Revolution?

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Hillary Clinton: Israeli Settlements ‘Illegitimate’ – ABC News.

Wonder how this will impact the liberal Jewish vote and it’s “love affair” with the Democratic Party?

I’d feel like I got <synonym for the act of procreation, past tense>

Argh!

Think Hillary is bolstering her foreign policy credentials for a POTUS2012 run? Not with this blunder. And, not by associating with this blundering naive administration.

Hope we survive to 2012.

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Commenting on:

http://libertyslifeline.com/2011/02/17/let%E2%80%99s-get-serious-about-k-12-education/

Let’s Get Serious About K-12 Education
by Bill O’Connell on February 17, 20112012

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Does anyone see any mention about students or learning in that quote? It focuses on teachers. How to pay them and how to evaluate them; it is about the unions, not the students. The delicate negations about pay (unions favor) and evaluation (unions oppose) has nothing to do with our children learning. The unions can run all the TV and radio ads they want about “the children” but when you hear the tag line about who paid for the ad, it is not about the children.

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Despite having no children of my own, I fought about this during the NJ Tax Revolt of the 80’s. This is a multi-part problem. And, it’s not ALL the fault of the Teachers’ Union. The politicians and bureaucrats have created a mess and “We, The People” have allowed it to happen.

First problem is the Parents. Yup, they are part of the problem; probably the most important part. They tolerate this “barbara streisand”. No one has children and wants to see them ruined. Yet, that very decision they make to procreate, I am expected to pay for. Education is the parent’s responsibility. First and foremost. No one else’s. To assume that the Gooferment has a role, any role, in “education” is to cede the very ground that the battle must be fought on.

So now let’s deal with the situation at hand. We can’t wave a magic wand and make it “magically delicious”. People have been trained, like dogs doing tricks, into thinking that this is the best or only way. We have to reverse that over time and allow people to adapt.

Right now, “we” have Gooferment Skrules. The Gooferment “pays” and “operates”. So I would suggest we have to adapt out of it in two steps. Two twenty year plans! (Yeah, I know it sounds like the USSR and its always failing Five Year Plans.) Focus first on operation. Create vouchers equal to 20k and give them to 5% more students each year. At the end of 20 years, parents will have been trained to “buy” their children’s education. Then, for the next 20 years, reduce the voucher by 5%. This will push the bill more and more to the parents. (They decided to have them and they will have to pay to educate them.) Churches, businesses, and a civil society will create new forms of schooling for new subjects and the poor. (Remember Catholic schools were created for the poor.)

I think this would solve the problem. Not quickly but eventually it would. Permanently!

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http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=9213

Nuns denied opportunity to vote in Ontario election
February 10, 2011

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Four nuns were denied their right to vote in the Cambridge (Ontario) municipal election for Catholic school board candidates last fall.

Sister Michael Daniel Dumais, 39, said that a poll worker told her that “because I had taken a vow of poverty, I don’t pay taxes, so I’m not contributing to any school board, and therefore I don’t have a choice in voting for the separate school.” Instead, she and the other nuns were handed an incomplete ballot.

City Clerk Alex Mitchell downplayed the nuns’ complaints, saying that “there’s an onus on the voter to make sure you’re casting the right ballot.”

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I pay school taxes on three houses in two jurisdictions!

Never have had any children.

So why am I pay to educate children I never had? I had no vote in the decision to have them.

Why do I have to pay for other people’s choices?

Argh!

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http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/07/hillary-clinton-we-cant-legali

Hillary Clinton: We Can’t Legalize Drugs Because ‘There Is Just Too Much Money in It’
Jacob Sullum | February 7, 2011

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Last week, while visiting Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Denise Maerker of Televisa, who asked her opinion of proposals to address black-market violence by repealing drug prohibition. Clinton’s response illustrates not only the intellectual bankruptcy of the prohibitionist position but the economic ignorance of a woman who would be president (emphasis added):

Maerker: In Mexico, there are those who propose not keeping going with this battle and legalize drug trafficking and consumption. What is your opinion?

Clinton: I don’t think that will work. I mean, I hear the same debate. I hear it in my country. It is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it, and I don’t think that—you can legalize small amounts for possession, but those who are making so much money selling, they have to be stopped.

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Many a true word comes through in an unguarded moment.

Think of all the politicians and bureaucrats that would be out of job. At the very least, ¼ of the federal prisons could be closed.

Money being spent on the “(pseudo) War on (some) Drugs” could be returned to the taxpayers.

Drugs were once available in a true free market. We had addicts. We will ALWAYS have addicts. Time after time, we see that there’s about a 10% addiction rate. No matter what the law is.

So, if we “legalize drugs”, then we will put the Columbian Drug Kingpins on welfare. And, think of all the children and young adults that we will save from bad drugs and from addiction. (Addiction, because when drugs are no longer illegal, they won’t be “kool”.)

We will also remove the corrupting effect of drug dealers bribing cops and repeal the whole civil forfeiture laws.

Or we can continue doing it “Hillary’s way”!

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http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=172669

Thursday, February 3, 2011
Govt asked to explain failure to stop fatwa

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The reports said Hena was raped by her 40-year-old relative Mahbub on Sunday. Next day, a fatwa was announced at a village arbitration that she must be given 100 lashes. She fell unconscious after nearly 80 lashes. Fatally injured Hena was rushed to Naria health complex where she succumbed to her injuries.

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Let’s keep this story in mind when we think of what we are dealing with.

Pray for that unfortunate girl who was born into a disaster.

Beck, on a recent TV show, posed the question that “democracy” asks: “Can men rule themselves?”

In this case, in this country, in this religion, I’d say the answer is “no”.

Tonight, I’ll be thinking about that child.

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