Categories
Common Sense free trade & free markets

Why Plant Crops?

With the financial crisis and bailout bill, our energy problems have been pushed off the front page. But they’re not gone. We still need energy to run our cars, homes, businesses, you name it.

So, I wanted to address a goofy argument that has been made a lot about drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, way up north in Alaska. Some say that we shouldn’t drill because it won’t do anything at all to help lower the price of gas now.

We’re continually told that it will take seven to ten years for the oil found there to be pumped out, processed and pumped into our cars as gasoline.

Not shocking. It’s true. Most things do take some length of time to fully accomplish.

Say you order an appliance. It’s days before delivery. Have an idea for a book? It takes time to write, edit, and publish it. You’ll have to wait to get your first copy.

You know, the price of food is up, too, in part because of America’s stupid ethanol policy, which we’ve talked about before. Apply the logic of anti-​drilling advocates and we won’t plant crops anymore because, after all, no food pops into existence ex nihilo, instantaneously. It takes months before harvest. Even longer for the food to trundle off to market.

So, why plant? Why drill? Why buy that book, knowing that you can’t read it until you get home?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Wind Turbine Blues

I’m all for alternative sources of energy … providing that they actually produce enough to cover their costs.

Sad to say, it’s beginning to look like wind power is for the birds, if not the bats.

One big fear some people had about wind turbines was that they might kill too many birds. Think giant food processors in the sky.

But it turns out that the bigger danger is to bats. Dead bats are found all around wind turbines. Why?

Wind pressure. The poor little creatures can’t stand the quick change in air pressure around those spinning blades.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the government agency overseeing the state’s rebate programs for alternative energy, has put a halt to subsidizing small wind turbines. No more bucks for housetop windmills, folks.

The agency sponsored a study that has calculated that the average energy output for the turbines reviewed was no more than 27 percent of what installers had projected. It could be worse, and sometimes is. In Britain, a study found that some poorly placed turbines sucked up more energy converting current from DC to household AC than produced, making them economic and energy sink holes.

We should remember, when activists start talking about revolutionizing things, that subsidies are for the birds, and technology based on hope alone, bats.

It’s from successful business operations that future revolutions come, not from mere wishful thinking. Or any amount of government subsidy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Stimulus, Response

Wall Street and the real estate markets have taken big hits, and so, to prevent a major recession, our president and representatives immediately began one-​upping each other about a “stimulus package.”

And my thoughts go back to my classroom days. In biology.

There were these frogs, see. Dead frogs. On the table. Some of the kids would take a battery with some wires attached, and prod the dead frog, stimulating nerves to make the dead, half-​dissected frogs jump.

Half the boys in the class thought it a hoot, half the girls thought it gross. Or maybe more than half.

Sometimes I think this is about as much as we ever were prepared for thinking about stimulus packages.

The economy is not a dead frog. it’s alive, and it’s received a shock. A better analogy might be to someone who’s received a blow to the head. You don’t necessarily immediately start applying shock therapy to get the person moving. Ask a nurse what to do. Most of the time, the body repairs itself. In due time. With care taken not to jar the person again.

But a blow to an ecosystem — like an economy — is more complicated than even some guy with a concussion. And, listening to the debate over the stimulus package, and then reading actual, astute economists consider the politicians’ proposals, and Iâ’m thinking …

Frog or no frog, the stimulus notions politicians prefer seem more directed towards influencing voters than getting the economy to jump back into action.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.