Government Entitlements Kill True Charity

Obama and Charity

"Green Jobs" Come at a Price --- Destroying Other Jobs and Inefficiency

Green jobs have been the foundation to any of President Obama’s jobs speeches. “Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,” he said in a speech last month. We’ve long argued that subsidizing jobs comes at the expense of others and will result in net job losses. Sunil Sharan, director of the Smart Grid Initiative at GE from 2008 to 2009, details in the Washington Post how smart metering will create jobs but destroy many more in the process:

It typically takes a team of two certified electricians half an hour to replace the old, spinning meter. In one day, two people can install about 15 new meters, or about 5,000 in a year. Were a million smart meters to be installed in a year, 400 installation jobs would be created. It follows that the planned U.S. deployment of 20 million smart meters over five years, or 4 million per year, should create 1,600 installation jobs. Unless more meters are added to the annual deployment schedule, this workforce of 1,600 should cover installation needs for the next five years.

Although a surge of new digital meters will be produced, the manufacturing process is highly automated. And with much of it accomplished overseas, net creation in domestic manufacturing jobs is expected to be only in the hundreds. In R&D and IT services, high-paying white-collar jobs are on the horizon, but as with manufacturing, the number of jobs created is forecast to be in the hundreds or low thousands. Now let’s consider job losses. It takes one worker today roughly 15 minutes to read a single meter. So in a day, a meter reader can scan about 30 meters, or about 700 meters a month. Meters are typically read once a month, making it the base period to calculate meter-reading jobs. Reading a million meters every month engages about 1,400 personnel. In five years, 20 million manually read meters are expected to disappear, taking with them some 28,000 meter-reading jobs.”

Job destruction through efficiency improvements isn’t a bad thing, but it is when the government forces it upon us. If new smart metering technologies are economically sensible, the private sector will introduce these technologies to the market. Just as the government shouldn’t attempt to create jobs, it shouldn’t protect jobs from being destroyed, either. Sharan writes, “[I]nstead of creating jobs, smart metering will probably result in net job destruction. This should not be surprising because the main method of making the electrical grid “smart” is by automating its functions. Automation by definition obviates the need for people.” We replaced ditch diggers with mechanized agriculture equipment with the end result being a net gain in productivity and wealth. The process of creative destruction allocates capital and labor to better use, increases gains from productivity and makes us all better off. Using stimulus money for smart metering is unnecessary if it such a good idea.
The other way the government can destroy jobs through a clean energy initiative is to mandate and subsidize labor intensive, inefficient, and expensive power sources. If it takes more labor and capital to produce renewable energy, there is a net drain on the economy. Government spending will create some jobs to build windmills and solar panels and work at biomass plants but this diverts labor, capital and materials from the private sector that could be used more efficiently to create even more jobs
An Institute for Energy Research-commissioned study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid by Gabriel Calzada found that, for every green job created, 2.2 jobs in other sectors have been destroyed. Furthermore, Spain’s government spent $758,471 to create each green job and used $36 billion in taxpayer money to invest in wind, solar, and mini-hydro from 2000-2008. The country’s unemployment rate is currently at 19.4%.
Losing jobs through increases in efficiency and productivity is a sign of progress. Losing jobs through government mandates and subsidies is a sign of Congress.

Posted February 26th, 2010 at 1:48pm in Energy and Environment 2

To Govern Little is to Govern Best

Instead of doing a few things well, government has mutated into a smothering cancer that does everything it can think of ---- badly. It's not that there is not enough money for police or firefighters or 911 service or garbage collection, it's that too much money is being spent on CRAP that the government has no business or legal authority to do.

From Cafe Hayek:


There’s a debate going on in the punditsphere about whether America is ungovernable. We can’t seem to get anything done. On one side people argue that the failure of health care legislation and cap and trade prove that America is ungovernable. On the other side are those who argue that those are unpopular and America is as governable and ungovernable as ever.
I think it’s the wrong debate. Thomas Friedman in the New York Times unintentionally illustrates why:

A small news item from Tracy, Calif., caught my eye last week. Local station CBS 13 reported: “Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 911 for a medical emergency. But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year, which allows them to call 911 as many times as necessary. Or there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.”
Welcome to the lean years.
Yes, sir, we’ve just had our 70 fat years in America, thanks to the Greatest Generation and the bounty of freedom and prosperity they built for us. And in these past 70 years, leadership — whether of the country, a university, a company, a state, a charity, or a township — has largely been about giving things away, building things from scratch, lowering taxes or making grants.
But now it feels as if we are entering a new era, “where the great task of government and of leadership is going to be about taking things away from people,” said the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum.
Indeed, to lead now is to trim, to fire or to downsize services, programs or personnel. We’ve gone from the age of government handouts to the age of citizen givebacks, from the age of companions fly free to the age of paying for each bag.

The lean years? The lean years!?!?!?!!?
Government has never been fatter.
The crisis of government in America is that it does too many things badly instead of doing a few things well.
We don’t need more money for government. We need government to do what citizens struggle to do for themselves. We can debate what that range of activities is. I am on the side that government has taken on too many tasks that we can do as well or better for ourselves. When government takes on too many tasks, it is hard to find money to do the core activities of government well.
The ungovernability aspect of this problem is that it is hard to take away things from people and thrive politically. If you think 911 is an important activity of government, it is easy to keep it free. Get rid of all the nonsense government does that doesn’t need doing. Go back to the “lean” years of 1995, say, when California and the Federal government spent a lot less. Those weren’t the dark ages. But along the way, a bunch of money got added to a bunch of deparments and for some reason, instead of saying that was a mistake or unnecessary or best done privately, we start charging for 911.
That is a sign of ungovernability and it comes from ignoring the proper role of government.
Stop subsidizing housing. It’s bad enough that the Feds do it. But there is a vigorous California effort on top of the Federal effort. Stop subsidizing food and rich farmers. Stop policing trans fats. And smoking in restaurants. Stop trying to steer education from the top down. Stop creating programs for retirement and health that give money to rich people. Stop subsidizing rail travel. Stop all corporate welfare. Stop all tariffs and quotas. Get rid of the nanny state.
The mission creep of government makes it obvious that governmen is poorly run. Get out of the things it does poorly and do important things well.
How do we get there from here?
Read. Listen. Educate yourself. Teach your children. Talk to your neighbors. Vote as wisely as you can.

The Effect of Universal Health Coverage on Life Expectancy is.....Zero!

Medicare was introduced 1965 in the US. Public health coverage for the elderly existed by 1950 in Sweden, but full universal coverage dates to 1955 in Sweden (a public health insurance was founded in 1891, and public municipal public health existed for even longer).

In 1950, before Medicare, and before Universal coverage in Sweden the difference was +2.6 at birth and +0.3 at 65. In 2001-2005 the difference between the Sweden and US was +2.7 at birth and +0.3 years at 65. Identical!

First, regarding the life expectancy at birth we can note that 50 years of different health policy, labor mark policy, welfare state coverage seems to have had zero effect on total outcome.

The Left Thinks They're Right, But They're Wrong

The Left believes they are superior. They are smarter. They know what to do with your life and you don't. They believe there is no right or wrong. The individual must be sacrificed for the greater good of the State. The ends justify (their) means. Man is perfectible -- just look at them.

They are wrong and they are diametrically opposed to Conservatism which believes in the individual.

American Thinker: The Left's Great Motivator

Anthem Premium Increases - A Small Taste of What ObamaCare Would Produce

Contrary to the cries from the Obama administration, the recently announced premium increases by Anthem in California are not evidence for the need to pass ObamaCare, either the House or Senate version. It is in fact evidence of what will happen on a larger scale and nationwide if it is passed.

A Taste of Health Care Reform | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

UK Leftist Think Tank: Work Less, Save the Planet? I don't think so.

The New Economics Foundation claimed in a report the reduction in hours would help to ease unemployment and overwork. The foundation admitted people would earn less, but said they would have more time to carry out "worthy tasks". Why am I not surprised that a Leftist Think Tank thinks it knows of more "worthy tasks" for people to do --- rather than work?

Here’s an open letter to the study’s co-author, Anne Coote, who is quoted in the BBC report:

Ms Anna Coote
New Economics Foundation
London, UK
Dear Ms Coote:
The BBC reports on a newly released study in which you and your co-authors endorse a 21-hour workweek (“Cut working week to 21 hours, urges think tank,” Feb. 13).  You’re quoted by the BBC: “So many of us live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume, and our consumption habits are squandering the earth’s natural resources…. [With a 21-hour workweek] We could even become better employees – less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive.”
Intrigued, I read your study on line.  I’ve many questions; here are four.
First, if a shorter workweek makes people more productive in their paid jobs, how do you know that they won’t the “squander the earth’s natural resources” at a faster pace than they’re doing now?
Second, even if a 21-hour work week results in less “squandering of the earth’s natural resources” while at paid jobs, why are you so sure that the total amount of resource “squandering” won’t rise as a result of all the “unpaid labour” that you are so keen that folks do with their time away from paid work?  Driving Granny on Friday to a holiday in the Cotswolds might “squander” more resources than staying in London to work for pay that day.
Third, because much paid work is devoted to discovering new resources, new supplies of resources, and new ways to get more output from each unit of resource, how do you know that shortening the workweek won’t result inlower supplies of the earth’s natural resources?  For example, BP’s recent discovery of a huge oil supply at its Tiber Prospect in the Gulf of Mexicoincreased the relevant supplies of the earth’s natural resources.  After all, resources that remain unknown to humans are effectively non-existent: these ‘resources’ might not be “squandered,” but being unavailable for use as resources today and forever means that, economically, they don’t exist – they’re not resources in any meaningful sense.
Fourth, you choose 21 hours because it’s close to the average amount of time each week that working-age Brits (employed and unemployed) work for pay.  So what?  If I work 42 hours a week and my unemployed neighbor works zero hours, why does the average of 21 hours of paid work between us present itself as the ideal length of the workweek – especially given your goal of reducing the total number of hours that people spend “squandering the earth’s natural resources” while working for pay?  Why not, say, a ten-hour workweek?  Because you merely presume that most people will be happier with Britain’s workweek shortened from 35 to 21 hours, why not presume that they’d be downright euphoric by being allowed to work no more than ten hours weekly?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Obama Crafting His Economic Policy......(He's the Professor)

The Story of Aragorn's (Lord of the Rings) Father

The (Unemployment) Darkening of America

Funny Satire of Ayn Rand's Inner Circle

Geez, Global Warming is Responsible for.....Everything!

Thanks to a UK citizen for keeping track of all the things Global Warming is claimed to be responsible for...

Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, poppies more potent, Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pressure changes,  airport malaria, Agulhas current, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end,  amphibians breeding earlier (or not),  anaphylactic reactions to bee stings,  ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows,Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk,   anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom,Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear,  Arctic tundra lost, Arctic warming (not), asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty,  atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased,  Baghdad snow, Bahrain under water,  bananas grow, barbarisation, beer and bread prices to soar, beer better,  beer worse, beetle infestation, bet for $10,000, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billion homeless, billions face risk, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, bird loss accelerating, bird strikes, bird visitors drop, birds confused, birds decline (Wales), birds driven north, birds face longer migrations, birds return early, birds shrink, bittern boom ends, blackbirds stop singing, blackbirds threatened, Black Hawk down,  blood contaminated, blue mussels return, bluetongue, brain eating amoebae, brains shrink, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain one big city, Britain Siberian, British monsoon,  brothels struggle, brown Ireland, bubonic plague, budget increases,Buddhist temple threatened,  building collapse, building season extension, bushfires,   butterflies move north, carbon crimes, camel deaths,  cancer deaths in England, cannibalism,  caterpillar biomass shift, cave paintings threatened,  childhood insomnia, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increase,  coast beauty spots lost, cockroach migration, cod go south,  coffee threatened, coffee berry borer, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), cold wave (India), cold weather (world), computer models, conferences, conflict, conflict with Russia, consumers foot the bill, coral bleaching, coral fish suffer, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , coral reefs twilight,  cost of trillions,cougar attacks, crabgrass menace,  cradle of civilisation threatened, creatures move uphill, crime increase, crocodile sex, crops devastated, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, curriculum change,  cyclones (Australia),   danger to kid's health, Darfur, Dartford Warbler plague,  deadly virus outbreaks, death rate increase (US), deaths to reach 6 million, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, depression, desert advance,  desert retreat,  destruction of the environment,  dig sites threatened,  disasters, diseases move north, dog disease, Dolomites collapse, dozen deadly diseases - or not, drought,   ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt,  earlier pollen season,  Earth axis tilt, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down,  Earth spins faster,Earth to explode, earth upside down,  earthquakes, earthquakes redux, El Niño intensification, end of the world as we know it, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, English villages lost, equality threatened, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing,  eutrophication, evolution accelerating,expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation,  logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod,  pikas, polar bears,   possums,  walrus,  toads,  plants, salmon, trout,  wild flowers, woodlice,  a million species, half of all animal and plant species, mountain species,  not polar bears, barrier reef, leaches, salamanders, tropical insects) experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, fading fall foliage, fainting,  famine, farmers benefit, farmers go under, farm output boost,  fashion disaster, fever, figurehead sacked, fir cone bonanza, fires fanned in Nepal, fish bigger, fish catches drop, fish downsize,   fish deaf, fish get lost, fish head north, fish shrinking,  fish stocks at risk, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, flesh eating disease, flies on Everest,  flood patterns change, floods,  floods of beaches and cities, flood of migrants, flood preparation for crisis, flora dispersed, Florida economic decline, flowers in peril, food poisoning, food prices rise, food prices soar, food security threat (SA), football team migration,   forest decline, forest expansion, frog with extra heads, frostbite, frost damage increased,   fungi fruitful, fungi invasion, games change, Garden of Eden wilts, geese decline in Hampshire, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, geysers imperiled, giant icebergs (Australia), giant oysters invade,  giant pythons invade, giant squid migrate, gingerbread houses collapse, glacial earthquakes, glacial retreat,   glacier grows (California), glaciers on Snowden, glacier wrapped,global cooling,  glowing clouds,  golf course to drown, golf Masters wrecked, grain output drop (China), grandstanding, grasslands wetter, gravity shift, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop,  great tits cope, greening of the North,  Grey whales lose weight, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss,haggis threatened, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome,    harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, health affected, health of children harmed, health risks, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation affected,   hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late,  homeless 50 million, hornets,  human development faces unprecedented reversal, human fertility reduced, human health risk, human race oblivion, hurricanes,  hurricane reduction, hurricanes fewer, hurricanes not,  hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice age, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, icebergs,  illness and death, inclement weather, India drowning, infrastructure failure (Canada),  industry threatened, infectious diseases,  inflation in China, insect explosion, insect invasion, insurance premium rises, Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, invasion of alien worms, invasion of cats,  invasion of crabgrass, invasion of herons, invasion of jellyfish, invasion of king crabs, invasion of midges,  island disappears,islands sinking, Italy robbed of pasta, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, jets fall from sky,  Kew Gardens taxed, kidney stones, killer cornflakes,killing us, kitten boom, koalas under threat, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, lake empties, lake shrinking and growing, landslides,landslides of ice at 140 mph, large trees decline, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful,  lawyers' income increased (surprise surprise!),  lawyers want more, legionnaires' surge,  lives saved, Loch Ness monster dead, locust plagues suppressed, lush growth in rain forests,   Malaria,   mammoth dung melt,mango harvest fails, Maple production advanced, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, Meaching (end of the world),Meat eating to stop, Mediterranean rises, megacryometeors, Melanoma, Melanoma decline, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, methane runaway, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration,  migratory birds huge losses, microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly,minorities hit, monkeys at risk,  monkeys on the move, Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, moose dying, more bad air days,   more research needed, mortality increased, mountain (Everest) shrinking,  mountaineers fears,  mountains break up, mountains green and flowering,   mountains taller,mortality lower,  Myanmar cyclone, narwhals at risk, National Parks damaged, National security implications, native wildlife overwhelmed, natural disasters  quadruple, new islands, next ice age, NFL threatened, Nile delta damaged, noctilucent clouds, no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened,nuclear plants bloom, oaks dying,  oaks move north,  ocean acidification, ocean acidification faster, ocean dead spots, ocean dead zones unleashed,ocean deserts expand, ocean waves speed up,  Olympic Games to end, opera house to be destroyed, outdoor hockey threatened,   ozone repair slowed,ozone rise,  penguin chicks frozen, penguin chicks smaller, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts,  pines decline,plankton blooms,   plants lose protein, plants march north, plants move uphill,  polar bears aggressive, polar bears deaf,  polar bears drowning,   polar tours scrapped, popcorn rise, porpoise astray, profits collapse, psychiatric illness,   puffin decline, pushes poor women into prostitution, rabid bats,  radars taken out, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rape wave, refugees,  reindeer endangered, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice threatened, rice yields crash,  rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war,   river flow impacted, rivers raised, roads wear out, robins rampant,   rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, rooftop bars, Ross river disease,  ruins ruined,  Russia under pressure, salinity reduction,salinity increase,  Salmonella,  salmon stronger, satellites accelerate, school closures, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, seals mating more, seismic activity, sewer bills rise, severe thunderstorms, sex change, sexual promiscuity, shark attacks, sharks booming, sharks moving north, sheep shrink, shop closures, short-nosed dogs endangered,  shrinking ponds, shrinking sheep,  shrinking shrine, Sidney Opera House wiped out, ski resorts threatened, slow death,  smaller brains, smog, snowfall decrease, snowfall increase, snowfall heavy,  snow thicker,  soaring food prices, societal collapse, soil change,songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, space problem, spectacular orchids, spiders getting bigger, spiders invade Scotland,  squid larger, squid population explosion, squid tamed, squirrels reproduce earlier,  stingray invasion, storms wetter,  street crime to increase, subsidence, suicide, swordfish in the Baltic, Tabasco tragedy, taxes, tectonic plate movement,   terrorists (India), threat to peace, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tigers eat people, tomatoes rot, tornado outbreak, tourism increase, toxic seaweed,  trade barriers, trade winds weakened, traffic jams,  transportation threatened,tree foliage increase (UK),   tree growth slowed, trees in trouble, trees less colourful,  trees more colourful, trees lush, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, truffle shortage, truffles down,  turtles crash, turtle feminised, turtles lay earlier, UFO sightings, UK coastal impact, UK Katrina,  Vampire moths,Venice flooded, violin decline, volcanic eruptions,  walrus pups orphaned,  walrus stampede,  wars over water, wars sparked, wars threaten billions,wasps, water bills double, water scarcity (20% of increase),  waves bigger, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whale beachings, whales lose weight, whales move north,  wheat yields crushed in Australia,  wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced,winds stronger, winds weaker,  wine - Australian baked, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California),  wine industry disaster (US),  wine - more English, wine -  England too hot, wine -German boon, wine - no more French ,  wine passé (Napa), wine - Scotland best,  wine stronger, winters in Britain colder, winter in Britain dead, witchcraft executions, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World at war,World War 4, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, World in flames, Yellow fever.

and all on 0.006 deg C per year! 

Obama Knows His ObamaCare Will Increase Cost and Government Health Coverage....Right?

At his impromptu press conference yesterday, President Barack Obama again defended his health care plan this time claiming:

I don’t know if people noted, because during the health care debate everybody was saying the President is trying to take over — a government takeover of health care. I don’t know if anybody noticed that for the first time this year you saw more people getting health care from government than you did from the private sector — not because of anything we did, but because more and more people are losing their health care from their employers. It’s becoming unaffordable. That’s what we’re trying to prevent.

First of all, we definitely noted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report the President references above. But more importantly, if we are to take the President at his word, and believe him when he says he wants to prevent a government takeover of health care, then he should know that his plan is the exact wrong direction to go.
In a separate report on the Senate health bill issued earlier this year, the CMS projected that over half (18 million) of the 33 million Americans who would gain health insurance because of Obamacare, would do so by enrolling in Medicaid … which is a government run health care program. And another 2 million would enroll in Medicaid for supplemental coverage.
The President also said yesterday:

We’ve got to control costs, both for families and businesses, but also for our government. Everybody out there who talks about deficits has to acknowledge that the single biggest driver of our deficits is health care spending. We cannot deal with our deficits and debt long term unless we get a handle on that. So that has to be part of a package.

But guess what? According to that same CMS report, Obamacare would increase, not decrease, U.S. health expenditures by $234 billion by 2019.
President Obama said of his February 25th health care infomercial:

Let’s establish some common facts. Let’s establish what the issues are, what the problems are, and let’s test out in front of the American people what ideas work and what ideas don’t. And if we can establish that factual accuracy about how different approaches would work, then I think we can make some progress.

As the facts above clearly show, if reducing health care spending and stopping the government takeover of health care are your priorities, then Obamacare needs to be scrapped and Congress needs to start over.

Beware the Progressive's (Unsubstantiated) Belief in Their Own Superiority

James Surowiecki writes,

People want the government to help provide jobs, but they also want it to cut the deficit.

His point is that people are inconsistent, so the government just has to ignore them and run a deficit to create jobs. I have two questions about this:

1. Is it really the case that people want the government to create jobs? I have seen many progressives and pundits claim that people are angry about jobs, but I have not seen any people clamoring for the government to create jobs.

2. Does the government know how to create jobs?

Kurt Andersen writes that the Founding Fathers did not want a democracy. Instead,

They wanted a government run by an American elite like themselves

Of course, they also wanted a government of limited powers, but that is not important, is it?

Later, Andersen writes,

the job of serious Washington grown-ups with big populist constituencies--both presidents Roosevelt, Reagan, even Richard Nixon--is to respond to the rage with the minimum necessary demagoguery, throw them a few bones to calm them down, and then make deals with your fellow members of the elected elite.

...In the old days, the elite media really did control the national political discourse; there were no partisan, splenetic cable news or ubiquitous talk-radio channels and no blogosphere to keep the populists riled up and make them feel the excitement of a mob. Until fifteen years ago, presidents and congressional leaders could pretty well manage the policy conversations, keep them on reasonable simmer. But the new technologies have, maybe permanently, turned up the political heat to boil.

Finally, from two months ago there is Thomas Friedman,

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Progressives say that the Republicans are just throwing sand in the gears of good government and not offering any ideas. What that means is that they are not offering ideas to enlarge government. Congressman Paul Ryan's ideas do not count, because those would cut back on government, particularly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

My point here is not to champion Republicans. It is not to champion democracy. My point is that the ones throwing the temper tantrum right now are the Progressives. They think that the 2008 election gave them the right to operate like China's autocracy, and they are lashing out hysterically at those they perceive as preventing them from doing so On the one hand, the villains are a small minority in the Senate. Or maybe the villains are the incoherent majority of the people.

The important point is that Progressives are never wrong. Top-down reform is the only way to fix the health care system. Anthropogenic global warming is scientifically proven, and its solution requires strenuous exercise of political control over individual behavior. Deficit spending is necessary and sufficient to create jobs. Technocrats can make banks too regulated to fail. Markets without technocratic control are like adolescents without adult supervision. Individual happiness can be improved by political authorities using scientific knowledge. Concentrated political power is the wave of the future, and it is good.

I am not a populist. I fear the mob. But how can I fear the Progressives any less?