Comments on: R.I.P. W.S.J.

By: Drew dowdell

Drew dowdell — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:34:35 +0000

Our nuclear waste really isn’t waste at all and Yucca Mountain is completely unnecessary. The “waste” can be used in Integral Fast Reactor – Breeder Reactors to generate even more electricity.

By: RW

RW — Tue, 27 May 2008 03:45:00 +0000

Oso: glad you like the post, but please show me evidence that anything Chavez is doing is actually benefiting the poor of Venezuela. The only people benefiting from the Chavez regime are the well-connected oligarchs that support him.

He's a communist megalomaniac who steals elections, actively and directly supports FARC terrorists (see the lastest Interpol dossier) and has tried to rewrite the country's constitution to make himself president for life.

He also actively supports Iran's attempts to not just achieve nuclear power, but to acquire atomic weapons--his was the only "no" vote on an IAEA resolution in September condemning Iran for failing to come clean on its nuclear activities.

He's a raging anti-Semite, having said in a Christmas Eve broadcast last year that "minorities, the descendants of those who crucified Christ (i.e. Jews), have taken over the riches of the world." He's also had his goons raid Jewish Day Schools that he claims were storing weapons. For whom, he didn't say. The claims were never substantiated. All of this was a clear attempt to foment class hatred, which is a typical tactic of communist dictators. It's pretty clear that's what Chavez aspires to be, given his reverence for Castro and his regime.

He is totally mismanaging the country's natural resources after driving out "imperialist" multinationals. The WSJ reported in January:

"With Venezuelan oil fields experiencing an annual depletion rate on the order of 25% and little government reinvestment in the sector, infrastructure problems are looming in oil"

I could go on....

By: Oso

Oso — Sun, 25 May 2008 21:51:00 +0000

Rolf, well written column with the exception of the idiotic comments about Chavez/Venezuela. Using a nations resources to benefit the poor is hardly despicable behavior. Despicable is invading another country for THEIR resources and claiming it’s for security. Nevertheless aside from the idiotic polemic, your point is well made.

By: rolfew

rolfew — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:17:00 +0000

Yes, certainly tax policy can help "align private incentives with" social costs. Drivers don't pay the full cost of their driving. Indeed, global warming is the SMALLEST of the costs they don't pay. Taxes should be a tool for members of society to pay for the services of society that they use.

This is essentially the problem with socialized medicine. If individuals use it but don't pay for it, then everyone has an incentive to use as much as possible. It's why public health care systems only stay solvent via rationing, via the government making decisions about what health care people may receive. That scares me more than an insurance company making those decisions.....

Check out this link by Steve Leavitt

By: Clif

Clif — Sat, 24 May 2008 20:25:00 +0000

The Newsweek article you linked is excellent but it raises a question about tax. If the market is to decide then people should pay the market price and act accordingly. To increase taxes as the Europeans have done is contrary to this and admits that government can use taxes to accomplish something that has a positive result, which the free market school would say is not something the gov't should be doing.

I wonder about the ability of the market to decide about things that have long term consequences. As surely as the present value of a dollar in the future is smaller the more distant the time that dollar would be paid, can't we also say that people act on the immediate situation - that the present value even of total disaster in the future is small?

Americans have unquestionably said through their vehicle purchases, the market, that they will put aside the congestion, the pollution, the problem of parking, the waste of a single person driving alone, all for the sake their fondness for big and heavy vehicles.

I say all of this because I think that as time goes on we will see more and more pressure for top-down authority - for gov't to use taxes and laws to restrain individual behavior for the common good. It will not go down well in the United States. People will look back at the 20th century and realize that 1) they were never so free (coincident with cheap energy) 2) there was never so little self-restraint (cheap energy was squandered). In other words freedom was used without responsibility.

Point? The market may not price things appropriately because the future cannot be adequately taken into consideration. People act on current market conditions though the consequences of those actions extend into the future. When the future consequences becomes present and start to hurt by way of the market, the consequences of earlier action cannot be easily reversed if they can be reversed at all.