Tag Archives: Economics

How the irrational left prefers intentions over actual results

Post from Red State. (H/T Babalu Blog via ECM)

Excerpt:

A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.

A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a  year.

So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

They claim 700,000 vehicles, so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

Five million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.

We spent $8.57 to for every dollar saved.

How good a deal was that ???

They’ll probably do a great job with health care though!!

But at least they’re nice people, and so generous with other people’s money.

The latest podcasts from Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

Here are some helpful podcasts from Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse.

The first two talks were given to 110 lawyers in training at an Alliance Defense Fund event. I highly recommend them. If you like informed, passionate advocates of social conservatism who are also experts in libertarian economics, then you’ll enjoy these podcasts!

Podcasts

  1. Marriage & Sex
    (June 12, 2009) Dr. J guest-lectures on the economic and societal impact of marriage and sex.  This talk, delivered at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship in Phoenix, is a little over an hour long.  Its companion talk was podcast on June 23, 2009.

    Direct download: Sep02_09.mp3

  2. Iowa Supreme Court: Same-Sex Marriage
    (June 12, 2009) Dr. J guest-lectures on the recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling on homosexual marriage.  This talk, delivered at the Blackstone Legal Fellowship in Phoenix, is a little over an hour long.  Its companion talk is podcast on September 2, 2009.

    Direct download: June23_09.mp3

  3. Informed Consent, et. al.

    (August 25, 2009) Ignorance = Informed Consent?  Dr J sheds some light on this troubling trend, the groups behind it, and how mothers and children are losing out. (Note: this program is about Oklahoma overturning the law that requires doctors to conduct an ultrasound before performing an abortion.

    Direct download: Sep04_09.mp3

  4. Defense of Marriage Act
    (August 19, 2009) Dr J appears on Issues, Etc to discuss the Obama Justice Department’s impending defense of DoMA.  She also shines some light on the strategies of the homosexual movement as they attempt to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act.

    Direct download: Sep03_09.mp3

  5. #4: Same-Sex Marriage in Vermont
    (September 1, 2009) Vermont becomes the 4th state to legalize homosexual marriage.  Dr J and Todd Wilken discuss how it happened, the next target(s) of the homosexual lobby, and why it’s so important for supporters of traditional marriage to respond.

    Direct download: Sep05_09.mp3

It’s more fun to discuss these issues if you get the proper training first. Dr. Morse is the William Lane Craig of social issues, and social issues matter. If the left makes it illegal to advocate socially conservative positions in public, then we run the risk of not being able to teach Biblical values to our own children.

Can a social conservative support social safety net programs?

The full text is available in a PDF here. (H/T Stephen Baskerville)

I highly recommend this essay to social conservatives who do not yet understand why limiting the size of government is vital to preserving the autonomy of the family.

Every social conservative should be in favor of limited government, even in fiscal matters, not just on social issues. In my view, any social conservative who wants the government to tax “the rich” or big corporations is in reality undermining social conservatism.

The more money is taken from individuals, families and corporations, who have no political power to influence your family, and given to secular-left government bureaucrats who cater to left-wing special interest groups, the more the family is endangered.

Excerpt:

State controlled programs today in developed countries, almost universally, are polyamorous-friendly and monogamy-hostile. This is unjust from every perspective of political analysis because those who choose monogamy are, generally, the most effective, the cheapest and the safest in raising the next generation.

But they are unjust mainly because it is a universal, inalienable right of parents to raise their children as they see fit, including raising them in their culture.

Further, the social welfare state asks the monogamous to support the polyamorous, and uses the universal safety net insurance scheme (or taxes) to ensure that the monogamous pay more to support those who choose the polyamory culture. This is plainly unjust, but even more so because the monogamous do not have their own culture-friendly programs and their own children are the target of the culture of polyamory’s “Janissary” scheme. Justice will increase and tensions decrease when that culture of polyamory begins to pay its own costs.

One way to progress in this direction and to make the behavioral bureaucracy to serve both cultures is to give all parents, parents of both cultures, and control over the program money set aside for their children. That is giving parents vouchers, in one form or another for all three program areas

The social welfare safety net will still be in place but the parents (be they monogamous or polyamorous) will choose who holds the net in place for their children.

This requires a huge political effort on the part of the monogamy culture. Diverting the flow of money from the special interest groups (organized doctors, teachers, schools) and instead directing the voucher money (cost per child served) to the parent– who can then choose the individual doctor, teacher or school they want. The professionals will still receive the same amount of money. But instead of serving a bureaucracy they will be cooperating with the parents. But such a change is a big one in the political order and the culture of monogamy must harness itself to the task.

The whole thing is worth reading.