A Closer Look at the Left’s Agenda: Scientific, Economic, and Numerical Illiteracy on the Campaign

The Green New Deal

The Green New Deal, mocked for some of its more absurd initial suggestions, such as abolishing airplanes and cows, is a top-down government-planning industrial-policy nightmare. It proposes over twelve years to:

(1) Require that 100 percent of power be provided by renewables. Impossible. Wind and solar now account for just 8 percent and, despite all the subsidies and mandates, are not projected to reach even 30 percent for several decades. Intermittent wind and solar require backup if electricity is to be reliably provided, and that will come from fossil fuels. The only renewable alternatives are hydroelectric power and nuclear power. Together they account for more than three times the power from wind and solar, of which nuclear accounts for two-thirds but will decline with impending plant retirements. We should be using more, not less, nuclear power, but it cannot be expanded quickly for a host of reasons, from a dearth of young nuclear engineers in the pipeline to permitting red tape. In any event, it
is strongly opposed by most environmentalists, as are more dams. California’s legislature and regulators are so captured by the solar and wind lobbies that hydro is excluded from meeting renewables standards, and of the state’s two nuclear power plants, one is shuttered and the other likely soon will be.
Finally, battery storage is beyond prohibitively expensive, costing many trillions of dollars because of the required scale. Decades of publicly funded university and national lab—and private—research has not resulted in sufficient progress. Worse yet, massive amounts of rare earth minerals and a huge expansion of lithium production from China, or huge costs and significant time to discover, produce, and scale output from Australia, Brazil, and the United States, would also be required to produce the magnets for wind turbines and the batteries for electric cars.
 
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, brewer, and baker that we expect our daily dinner, but from their regard to their self-interest.”--Adam Smith
 
“Free Everything” and the First Law of Politics
Entrepreneurs do a much better job than politicians at alleviating scarcity through efficient, value-creating production.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019


The other night, a politician criticized Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for offering voters “free everything and impossible promises.” Remarkably, the critique came not from a Republican fiscal conservative but from a fellow Democrat during a primary debate. John Delaney, a former congressman from Maryland, said such policies were based on “fairytale economics.”

Fairytale Economics
As economist Thomas Sowell wrote,

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

So it was surprising to see a presidential candidate give a nod to the first lesson of economics and lay off the first lesson of politics for a moment.
https://fee.org/articles/free-every...dRrMhleA8fM6ajqrIV5Tiy25tHoe2g&_hsmi=75407244
 
https://fee.org/articles/alexandria...sm-a-recently-taken-photo-suggests-otherwise/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says She Opposes Capitalism. A Recently Taken Photo Suggests Otherwise

Although people disagree with capitalism, they seem to agree with the results it produces.
Friday, February 15, 2019

There are many who speak loudly against capitalism, all the while still enjoying its benefits.
To illustrate this point, just look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez texting from her iPhone, wearing a Movado watch, and drinking a Starbucks coffee. A democratic socialist, who thinks of capitalism as an immoral system, seems to enjoy the goods provided by big corporations. It is not only Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, however; this is common behavior in Western societies.

The iPhone that @AOC is texting on, the Starbucks coffee under her arm, and the Movado watch she is wearing were all made by "greedy corporations."



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long-unemployment-line.jpg


Democrats Idea of Employment..." Unemployment "..!
 
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