Radical Murphy Back in the Hizzouse
After the previous post detailing my wimpy DC panel presentation, I am proud to showcase what will probably be used in the future to prove what a “nutjob” I am (once I get famous enough to be worth discrediting). A sample:
The “Texas summit of March 2005” refers to the “Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America,” which came out of a meeting in Waco, Texas between President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and Mexican President Vicente Fox. For the record, the federal government’s website has a special section devoted to refuting the (alleged) myths of the SPP, including the claim that the SPP is a prelude to a North American Union, comparable to the European Union. Yet despite the official protestations to the contrary, the global trend toward ever larger political and monetary institutions is undeniable. And there is a definite logic behind the process: with governments in control of standing armies, the only real check on their power is the ability of their subjects to change jurisdictions. By “harmonizing” tax and regulatory regimes, various countries can extract more from their most productive businesses. And by foisting a fiat currency into the pockets of more and more people, a government obtains steadily greater control over national—or international—wealth.
But if indeed key players had wanted to create a North American Union with a common currency, up till now they would have faced an insurmountable barrier: the American public would never have agreed to turn in their dollars in exchange for a new currency issued by a supranational organization. The situation will be different when the U.S. public endures double-digit price inflation, even as the economy still suffers from the worst unemployment since the Great Depression. Especially if Obama officials frame the problem as an attack on the dollar by foreign speculators, and point to the strength of the euro, many Americans will be led to believe that only a change in currency can save the economy.
For those who consider such a possibility farfetched, remember that one of FDR’s first acts as president was to confiscate monetary gold held by U.S. citizens, under threat of imprisonment and a huge fine. Yet nowadays, that massive crime is described as “taking us off the gold standard” which “untied the Fed’s hands and allowed it to fight the Depression.” The same will be said in future history books, when they explain matter-of-factly the economic crisis that gave birth to the amero.
Thanks for your attention. The tinfoil hats are on your left as you exit.
The Most Moderate Murphy Mumbling in Memory
Wow I am not kidding, when I delivered my opening remarks on a recent Hill panel,* I thought I was incredibly animated and a fire-breathing laissez-faire radical. But as the video below shows…sorry, try again.
Really what happened is that:
(a) You are not seeing my two opening jokes that cracked the room up, and
(b) You are not seeing the literal hour of preceding remarks–some of which were incredibly monotone–from the first five speakers, who were all gung-ho about government investments in renewables and the wonderful Spanish experience. The room was packed with people who were speaking Spanish on their cell phones, kissing each other on the cheeks, etc. And here I can’t count to 10 in Spanish, and plus I like capitalism. Oh man what a party pooper. If you make it to the end of the second video, you’ll see I came just shy of advocating a carbon tax! (I actually don’t, but one could be forgiven for thinking I did.)
This is why I told my wife a few years ago: “Don’t ever let me tell you we should move to DC.”
* Yeah we refer to it as “the Hill.” If you don’t know what hill we’re talking about, you must not be a policy wonk who has a seat at the table. (Although I’m pretty sure they put me at the kids’ table with the other crazy relatives.)
BTW if you don’t mind, at least start playing the two videos so I can get more views than my boss for his video on Copenhagen. It’s all about job security. Thanks.
Oops I guess I shouldn’t have linked to his video… Doh!
"Global Warming Is the Left’s ‘War on Terror’"
So said Jeff Tucker when I told him about my decision to take a job where I would focus on the economics of climate change. What Jeff meant, of course, was that global warming (aka climate change) provided a justification not just for specific tax and spending measures, but could be applied for virtually any new government intervention one wanted. Just as the threat of terrorists allowed the government to take over airport security, impose tighter regulations on cash deposits at banks, and gain greater discretion in spying on Americans (and oh yeah, invade two countries), so too does the threat of climate change allow the government to impose tariffs in violation of standard treaties, tell you what light bulbs you’re allowed to use, and (as some academics have suggested) restrict how many children you can have.
Tom Friedman has written an op ed making the rounds titled, “Going Cheney on Climate.” Friedman proves just how prescient Jeff’s comment was:
In 2006, Ron Suskind published “The One Percent Doctrine,” a book about the U.S. war on terrorists after 9/11. The title was drawn from an assessment by then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who, in the face of concerns that a Pakistani scientist was offering nuclear-weapons expertise to Al Qaeda, reportedly declared: “If there’s a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping Al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.” Cheney contended that the U.S. had to confront a very new type of threat: a “low-probability, high-impact event.”
Soon after Suskind’s book came out, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein, who then was at the University of Chicago, pointed out that Mr. Cheney seemed to be endorsing the same “precautionary principle” that also animated environmentalists. Sunstein wrote in his blog: “According to the Precautionary Principle, it is appropriate to respond aggressively to low-probability, high-impact events — such as climate change. Indeed, another vice president — Al Gore — can be understood to be arguing for a precautionary principle for climate change (though he believes that the chance of disaster is well over 1 percent).”
Friedman is at least consistent–he was almost a caricature of a hawk on terrorism (serving as Glenn Greenwald’s whipping boy), and he is also one of the leading media voices for action to restrict emissions.
But what of the standard liberal and conservative? Doesn’t the liberal recognize that the same non-falsifiable rhetoric* is being used in the War on Carbon as the Bush Team used for their wars? And how can the standard (neo)conservative object to the claimed necessity for urgent action? After all, the conservatives are defending the Iraq invasion even after the alleged threat was shown to be false! At least it’s still possible that the climate alarmists are correct.
* Note that I said the rhetoric is non-falsifiable, not the science.
I Love Internet Comments
Even if someone’s blog post or a news story drives you crazy, you can always skim the comments to see other people’s zingers. For example, take this WSJ story about all the experts and Nobel (Memorial) laureates who are defending the Fed’s “independnece” against Ron Paul’s pitchforked legions. (HT2 Bob Roddis who got it from LRC.) Most of the comments are pretty funny, especially this one:
Marcello wrote:
I cannot believe the attitude of these “Populists” who want to audit the Fed. It doesn’t matter that 70% of the American people want an audit of the Federal Reserve. The American people are ignorant and can’t be trusted to look after their own interests. These 270 economists and academics are way more qualified to decide that the secret central bank needs no oversight whatsoever. After all, it is hard for the average boobus American to understand how the Fed can create money out of thin air and buy up any asset they want. I’m sure that these “academics” are totally unbiased and would never let their relationships or benefits from the current system influence their decision. After all, we’ve seen how honest and unbiased the climate research scientists are in their pursuit of the truth.
Potpourri
* I have been saying for years that pennies are stupid. I don’t pick up pennies (unless I dropped them and it would look like litter). If you disagree, what about a proposal to introduce a new coin that had the value of 1/1000th of a dollar bill? You can agree that would be dumb, right? Anyway my wife sent me this NPR story on the issue.
* Someone wanted me to dissect Andrew Gause’s claim that we should nationalize the Fed, not end it. I disagree strongly, but Gause’s arguments deserve more time than I can give. Discuss.
* Austrian economist Alex Padilla is clearly in the pay of Big Porn (HT2MR). BTW I don’t want you to get your hopes up–the only photo at the link is of Padilla.
"Fear Your Government, Not Your Neighbor"
That’s not an actual quote, but I think it sums up this short video by Sean Malone:
Citizens Sign Petition for Five Years of 100% Inflation
I only watched the first 2 minutes, but this was pretty funny. (HT2 Danaver for sending me the Mish link.) Insert Scott Sumner joke here.
The Benefits of Procrastination: The Economics of Geo-Engineering
I don’t think this EconLib article will get me on Joe Romm’s Christmas card list. An excerpt:
Many critics of geo-engineering overlook an important fact: there is a gain from procrastination. In some of their expositions, they argue, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, that because humans will eventually have to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions anyway, we might as well do the adult thing and start the painful adjustment today. But this ignores the principle that a “quick fix” can allow the deferment of solving a particular problem, lowering the total cost of the long-run solution.
Although procrastination is often a sign of immaturity, in the context of climate change it may not be. In the typical debate over geo-engineering, proponents argue that it is “the” solution to global warming, while the critics worry about all the things that could go wrong. Yet this “geo-engineering: yes or no?” debate overlooks the important possibility that the most economically efficient outcome involves the postponement of carbon-abatement strategies, along with the simultaneous research and development of varied geo-engineering techniques to be deployed if they should become necessary. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that this strategy could leave our descendants many trillions of dollars richer than the alternative of implementing immediate and large cuts in emissions.
Recent Comments