Bernie Sanders (Unwittingly) Makes the Case AGAINST Renewable Energy

This from Bernie Sanders' Facebook page (hat tip to John Murphy for saving me the embarrassment of going there).



Poor Bernie. He's just made the case against renewable energy.

The average worker in coal produces 2.1e^11 BTU.  The average nuclear worker produces 1.1e^11 BTU.  The average renewable worker produces 1.8e^10 BTU.  That means the average coal worker is 1033.92% more efficient than the average renewable worker!   We’d need to put in approximately 10x the number of labor resources into renewables as coal to get the exact same results!

And, Bernie, think of all the jobs there would be if all our electricity were generated by people on those generator bicycles!

Save this for the next time (which will probably be later today) you think there is some wacky thinking coming out of the White House. It could have been worse.

Obamacare Will Implode Sooner Rather Than Later

The deadline for insurance companies filing for the 2018 Obamacare exchanges is June 22nd. Several large insurers, including UnitedHealth and Aetna have already decided to cut their losses. Once the Trump administration stops subsidies to the insurance companies, more will drop out and those that decide to stay will need to file large premium increases.  At that point, what do Democrats do? This is their creation. They can work with Republicans to produce something acceptable to both. Or they can continue to hold back votes in hopes that . . . what? Republicans will authorize new massive subsidies to insurers?

A Protectionist Fable

A farmer in rural Iowa says to his wife, "My love: I will take our corn to market, and from the proceeds I will buy our daughter a dress!"  So, he loads up his truck with his corn (which was grown with the sweat of his brow) and takes it to Iowa City.  He enters the market and a Frenchman says:

"Sir!  How fine it is to see you!  I have just what you are looking for.  I have this collection of fine dresses from Paris.  If you give me your corn, I can sell you four dresses for your lovely daughter."

A Bostonian then approaches the farmer and says: "I will give you two dresses for your corn."

The farmer considers both offers and decides to deal with the Frenchman.

"Wait!" says the custom officer.  "Do not buy those four dresses from Europe.  My orders are to keep you from buying French goods.  Rather, for the same price, you can buy these two dresses from Boston.  You, and our nation, will be better for it.  Surely you can see America will be worse off if you get the four dresses rather than the two."

"Two dresses for the same price as the four?  How will such a deal make me wealthier?"

"Oh, I can't answer that question!" says the customs official.  "But it is a fact;  for all our secretaries and department heads and legislators and journalists agree that the more a nation receives for its goods, the poorer it becomes."

And so the farmer deals with the Bostonian, but he (and everyone else) is left wondering why a person is ruined receiving four dresses instead of two
(Thanks to John Murphy)

Our Idiotic Tax Payment System

Joe Bankman, a law professor at Stanford, explains the "logic" of our income tax.

"Imagine if you had to pay your credit card bill the way you pay your taxes. 

Each month, Visa would send you a blank form. The form would instruct you to gather all your receipts, write down every purchase you had made, and calculate the total amount you owed Visa. 

After you sent in your bill, Visa would check its records. If you’d forgotten a receipt and underpaid, Visa would fine you. If you’d made a big enough mistake, you’d go to jail."

I would just add that in this example the cost of paying your Visa bill this way would be about 20 cents per dollar of purchases.

The United States is the only wealthy country in the world that forces its taxpayers to gather up tax forms and calculate their own bill. It exists because the tax compliance industry and government both benefit from the system. At your expense.

Third Party Payments are Why Healthcare Costs Are So High

Mark Perry at AEI posts this chart showing how little of health care costs are now paid for by the people receiving the service. Is it any wonder that prices would be rising rapidly when we have almost totally removed incentives for consumers to monitor prices and control usage.

What do you think would happen to the cost of food if people only paid directly for 10% of the cost of what they ate?

The Economics of Wall Building

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) estimates that the average cost to taxpayers of an illegal immigrant is $75,000  --  taking into account taxes paid and the cost of providing benefits such as education and health care. The estimated cost of completing the Southern border wall is around $20 Billion. Mathematically that means that if the wall prevents only 260,000 illegals from entering the country it will have a positive ROI.

Since Trump was elected, the number of illegal border crossings has dropped significantly (some estimates suggest a 50% reduction) just in response to the threat of building the wall and stricter enforcement of existing immigration law.  It seems rather likely that The Wall could be one of those rare government expenditures with a positive return on the investment.

Obvious and Non-Obvious Facts About GOP Health Plan

First the obvious. If you listen to the headlines (and don't dig through the facts) you're probably under the impression that the GOP alternative to Obamacare would result in millions of people being left "uncovered" by a health plan (the CBO estimates 14 million). Why is that? It's because 14 million people who are currently forced by law to buy a health plan, will no longer buy one when they are given a choice. If you were forced to participate in your employer's retirement plan and the employer then gave you the option to opt out, would you complain that those who made that choice were "left uncovered by the employer"? This should be obvious, so I have to presume the media is not pointing this out with malice aforethought.

But there is a less obvious issue. The GOP plan results in almost $900 Billion in tax and spending savings. Now let's presume for a moment (against all historical experience) that the CBO estimate of 14 million fewer people opting for insurance is accurate. That implies that there are savings of over $60,000 per person left "uncovered" as a result of this change. Do you think we could buy a basic healthcare insurance plan to these people for less than $60,000 in premiums? This highlights not only the inefficiency of Obamacare, but also the fact that the purpose of Obamacare was never to economically provide health insurance to the uninsured. It was to give government a toehold toward taking over the entire industry. Even if the cost of doing so is catastrophically high. Even if people have to lose their doctor and pay higher premiums. To a progressive, that's just collateral damage.

Asian Privilege

From AEI and the College Board, here are the trends in SAT reading scores over the last 20 years. Clearly Asian Privilege must be involved.

Philly Soda Tax Fizzles -- Just as You'd Expect

From the Washington Tines:

A newly imposed tax on sugary drinks sold within Philadelphia likely earned a fraction of the revenue its advocates had expected, city officials said Tuesday.
Philly had hoped that the 1.5 cent-per-ounce tax on sodas and other sweetened drinks would reap about $7.6 million each month for City Hall upon taking effect Jan. 1. According to preliminary data, however, the levy earned the city a measly $2.3 million during its first month on the books, or only 30 percent of what was expected, local media reported Tuesday.
Grocery stores and wholesalers alike now say they’re weighing potential layoffs to make up for lost profits attributed on the excise.

“People didn’t change what they drink,” the CEO of Brown’s Super Stores told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “They changed where they’re buying it.”
Jeff Brown, the owner of six ShopRite grocery stores within city limits, said beverage sales slipped 50 percent from Jan. 1 to Feb. 17 over the previous year’s figures, and cited a 15 percent overall dip in sales at city stores. As a result, according to Mr. Brown, he’s already eliminated about 280 jobs and is eyeing additional layoffs in the coming months.

This lesson, of course will not get to the Seattle City Council, which has proposed leaping off the same bridge. Nor will the Council stop to think about what a tax on labor (aka the $15 minimum wage) is doing to demand for labor in the City of Seattle. Nope. Seattle will continue to be a Sanctuary City for the Economically Ignorant.