30 Anti-Libertarian Fallacies

Someone named Max Borders at the Foundation For Economic Education came up with this list of anti-libertarian logical fallacies. 

Mr. Borders knows his stuff.  In fact, I've scraped it, just in case the Foundation For Economic Education goes bankrupt or the site disappears.  (This fallacy is also known as "The Blogger You're Reading Is A Lazy Bastard, And Ripped Off Another Writer".) 

Mr. Borders lists 30 logical fallacies that are often used in arguing against the libertarian philosophy.  You'll have to go here to see number 30. 

You already know what it is.  You've heard it a hundred times. 

1. Argument ad KochBrotherium: This fallacy is a cousin to the genetic fallacy and guilt by association. The twist, of course, is that anything that the Koch Brothers ever say, said, fund, funded, might fund, came close to funding, could have funded, will fund, walked by, looked at, support, think about, or mention is invalid by virtue of, well, “Koch Brothers! Boo!”
    
2. The Unicorn: You’ll recognize this fallacy from the question, “Why does no libertarian country exist anywhere in the world?” Embedded in the question is the assumption that libertarian countries don’t exist because they are fantastic creatures, like unicorns. Of course, just because something doesn’t exist yet does not mean it can’t exist. Indeed, the Internet in 1990 and the American Republic in 1775 beg to differ. And the unicorn fallacy fundamentally confuses the libertarian worldview with some “L”ibertarian platform that might be the product of some electoral processes—processes most libertarians reject. Michael Lind and E. J. Dionne have brandished this fallacy rather shamelessly, and have had it parried rather effectively by better minds.
    
3. Nut-Picking: This fallacy has nothing to do with Jimmy Carter. In this style of argument, the arguer finds the kookiest or most insane person who self-identifies as libertarian and then ascribes all of that person’s beliefs or claims to all libertarians. (This one could also be called the Alex Jones fallacy.) This is a tough one to counter simply because there are plenty of nuts to pick from, and plenty of them use the l-word.
    
4. Must Be Scared/Have No Answer: This one’s pretty simple really, and a unique creature of “debate” via social media. The libertarian leaves his computer or signs off for a while and the opponent accuses the libertarian of not being able to answer his or her FB claims, which the libertarian simply never saw or had no time to answer.
    
5. The Tin Man: This fallacy was identified and named by Cole James Gentles (here) who inspired this article. With the tin man the arguer either concludes or falsely assumes that the libertarian “has no heart” because she argues against some favored policy. 
   
   This cousin of the straw man (scarecrow) fallacy assumes a direct line between sympathies and outcomes. Any failure to support some means amounts to a failure to support the wished-for end.
   
   
   The tin man fallacy is rooted in the assumption that one’s opponent, often a libertarian, has no heart. Unlike the straw man fallacy, in which the debater needs to mischaracterize their opponent’s position, the tin man fallacy allows the debater to build a sturdy-looking, if hollow, general facsimile of their opponent’s position (“You are against state mandated universal health care?”), but not give him a heart (“Then you don’t care about poor people who don’t have access to affordable, quality insurance, or people with pre-existing conditions!! You heartless monster! WHY DO YOU HATE THE POOR?!” Heard that one before?)
    
   The frightening part of this fallacy is that its wielder usually thinks exitus acta probat.
      
6. Availability Cascade: Something big and bloody happens on the news (or goes viral) so the arguer implies or concludes that it’s a widespread occurrence.
   
   Example: A mass shooting has occurred, which points to an epidemic of gun violence.
   
   It’s not clear that if gun violence is at a multidecadal low point, the incident reflects an “epidemic.” The ready availability of some story leads one to conclude that a problem is widespread and demands a drastic response. Cass Sunstein, known for his work on “nudging,” gets credit along with Timur Kuran for identifying this phenomenon. (An availability cascade doesn’t always have to involve specious reasoning, but it very often does.)
    
7. Man on the Moon: Remember Rachel Maddow standing in front of the Hoover Dam? She’s trying to convince her viewers that the government (which she calls “the country”) must tax and build some major make-work project in order to revive the economy (or whatever). Maddow is employing a form of the man on the moon fallacy, which takes the form, “If we can put a man on the moon, we can do X.” But it misconstrues any reservations about big, awe-inspiring State projects as doubts about “America’s” ability to do big things. It’s just assumed that anything requiring extensive collaboration must be done via State power for it to count. Questions of the value, cost, or feasibility (or some combination thereof) of any particular project are sealed off from the word “if.” And of course “we” is never carefully unpacked.
    
8. The Gap: I wrote a whole book about why the following involves fallacious thinking. The fallacy goes something like this: “The free market widens the gap between rich and poor.” Now, strictly speaking that claim might be correct. But so what? I’ll pass over the problem that the “free market” has probably already been attacked with the unicorn fallacy at some prior point in the same hypothetical conversation. In any case, because economies are dynamic, the “rich” and “poor” change from day to day, and measured in quintiles, we don’t know whether the “gap” will be greater or smaller from one day to the next, even assuming a free market. The real problem with such reasoning is the built-in assumption that a gap itself is a bad thing. Suppose a really tall man moves into my neighborhood. Apart from my suddenly wishing I were taller, does the presence of the tall man make me worse off somehow? Of course not. The existence of the rich person doesn’t make me worse off, either, unless he got rich by using political means to transfer money from my pocket to his. This happens all the time. But such transfers have nothing whatsoever to do with free markets.
   
   Measuring an asset gap in and of itself tells us little. Indeed, without the functional story of how any gap came to be—stories, not snapshots matter here—we can’t make any judgments about it whatsoever. “Gap” talk is just a fetish that ignores how much better off the poor are thanks to the existence of innovators and entrepreneurs who got rich by creating value. And the unstated assumption is that if any group of people has more wealth at any particular point, the people with less are somehow being wronged simply because the other group has more. The gap fallacy is also meant to preempt debate, usually in the service of another agenda (which is rarely more than reinforcing the opponent's opinion of himself as a good guy).
    
9. The Two-Step: Some opponents will simply change the subject in the middle of a discussion, leaving the original claim by the wayside. Usually neither party notices the two-step. For example, the opponent may refuse to answer the libertarian’s direct question and instead respond with another question. Or the debater may slide into one or another irrelevant point that has no bearing on the original point at issue. This process can go on for a while unless the libertarian rigorously brings the opponent back to the original point. The red herring, ad hoc and non sequitur are similar enough fallacies, so the two-step may also be classified as an evasive tactic.
    
10. Panglossian Fallacy: Because the military-industrial complex was somehow involved in developing aspects of what later became the commercialized Internet, it follows that government funding is indispensable for such wonderful things to appear—and that all the things that go along with the funding (and revenue-collection) apparatus are therefore also acceptable. This variation of the post hoc fallacy is seductive particularly because we can never know what would have happened in the counterfactual private sector. Form: If it happened, it must be the best of possible worlds. (See also the “The Government R&D Canard.”)
     
11. Your Side: Also known as tarring with the same brush, this fallacy has a couple of related forms (see No. 1 and No. 3). An opponent may accuse the libertarian of being a Republican or Tea Party conservative because he or she happens to agree with a majority of Republicans on some particular issue. One hears: “Your side thinks . . . ” when in actuality the libertarian doesn’t have a “side” per se. It works even better as a tactic if there is really no connection at all apart from being something the opponent’s “side” would never say. The “your side” fallacy allows the opponent to appeal directly to tribal biases, which are more immediate and powerful than any argument. When it’s intentional, this rhetorical maneuver is meant to appeal to others who may be watching—the hope being that they’ll swerve into the ditch that is their own biases.
     
12. The We/Society Fallacy: This common form of hypostatization occurs when the user ascribes rational individual agency to “society” and conflates or confuses society with the State. Both usually happen immediately, or somewhere hidden, before the opponent even speaks. The opponent wants his moral position or emotional state to be reflected somehow in the organization of society.
    
     Although “we” or “society” is a useful ersatz word that appears to confer legitimacy on some aspect of the opponent’s claim, it is almost always an intellectual sleight-of-hand. Only individuals can act. Groups must work through processes of either collaboration or coercion. (Note: “The market” is often misused this way, by both supporters and detractors.)
     
13. Deus ex Machina/Market Failure: People is people. And yet opponents sometimes think that it’s enough to argue that governments, by dint of largess and force, have the power to fix certain kinds of problems, which they label “market failures” because they happened outside the purview of State action. Note that this only works in one direction: Problems in any area covered by the State are usually chalked up to being problems merely of execution, whereas “market failures” allegedly reflect an inherent deficiency. Even if one agrees that one set of people working in voluntary cooperation cannot solve some problem (or at least haven’t yet), it does not follow that another group of people—“the government”—can. Indeed, greats like James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock have given us very good reasons why government is not likely to solve problems and will likely make matters worse.
     
14. The Organic Fallacy: Such arguments take the form, “It’s organic therefore it’s good or good for you.” Or similarly, “It’s not organic therefore it’s bad or bad for you.” One hears this rationale to demand regulations and food labeling. And while there may be independent reasons to justify such regulations or labeling, these are not justified by the organic fallacy. It’s not clear that Socrates would argue for the health benefits of natural hemlock, nor would people with thyroidectomies argue they should go without Synthroid. I would add that, until there is more evidence to the contrary, there are plenty of GMOs that are good for me. (Note: Plenty of libertarians commit this fallacy too. Just because Monsanto is a rent-seeker doesn’t mean all its products are bad.)
     
15. Nobel Fallacy: You may recognize the form “X has a Nobel Prize in economics, who are you to argue against his claims?” I don’t care whether Krugman or Stiglitz has a Nobel Prize, they’re wrong about just about everything.
    
    And the truth or falsity of one’s claim doesn’t depend on his credentials. (Meanwhile Nobel Laureates James Buchanan, Vernon Smith, Elinor Ostrom, Douglass North, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek are mostly always right. I mean, that’s like 6–2 for the good guys. [*rimshot*])
     
16. No Parks for You: Snarkier opponents of libertarianism rhetorically ask why libertarians avail themselves of all the goods and services government happens to provide. “If you’re going to live by your principles, you can’t use X or Y” (insert: state universities or public roads). Of course, it does not follow that one should not avail himself of some good or service he thinks should be provided by other means.
    
    Indeed, one could argue that he is more than justified in consuming some good or service he has been forced to pay for against his will.
     
17. The Self-Exile Fallacy: Snarkier still is the opponent who argues that “If you don’t like it, why don’t you just leave?” Implicit in this question is the suggestion that there is some positive duty for one to leave a condition he doesn’t like and/or that by one’s staying, he his implicitly consenting to whatever the system is. By this “logic,” if you have just bought a house with an ‘80s bathroom, instead of improving, changing, or upgrading it, you should just take a bath in the kitchen sink.
     
18. Somalia: Opponents love to tell you that Somalia must be a “libertarian paradise.” Everyone laughs. If you respond with a phrase like “comparative institutional analysis,” everyone’s eyes glaze over and you lose, despite being correct. Somalia has been better off on most dimensions without a central government than it was under a brutal, centralized regime—warlordism notwithstanding.
     
19. Social Contract: Rousseau left a terrible intellectual legacy. And progressives use his “social contract” to justify anything under the statist’s sun.
    
    Of course, there could be a real social contract, but libertarian opponents prefer the one that allows them to justify anything under . . .
     
20. Start Somewhere: You’ve slogged through the data. You’ve offered a completely rational response. You’ve explained the ins and outs of why your opponent’s policy X won’t work and why it may even make things worse. The response? “We’ve got to start somewhere.” The idea here is that it’s better to do, well, anything—even if it might result in calamity. And, of course, the State must do that potentially calamitous thing. (See also No. 23.)
     
21. Social Darwinism: “The free market is just social Darwinism!” This is actually a pretty old meme. It was used by progressive academics in the 1940s to smear the work of Herbert Spencer. Spencer was a biological Darwinist to be sure. And he also thought the market and social phenomena like institutions and ideas would be subjected to analogous evolutionary forces. But the unit of survival in markets is the business, not the individual. In other words, businesses that fail to create value for customers die. But advocating for free people to engage in voluntary exchange is not advocating people leave the weak, poor, or vulnerable to suffer.
    
    Quite the contrary. Most advocates of the free market believe a robust philanthropy sector is part and parcel to a system of voluntary exchange. Herbert Spencer thought so too. He writes: “Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous sympathy of men for each other, it is proper that it should be mitigated.”
     
22. Argumentum Ad Googlum: This fallacy proceeds when the libertarian makes a good point or builds a stellar case, or asks a question the opponent can’t answer. The opponent disappears for a while frantically Googling away. The opponent comes back with a series of links that stand in for argument. To be fair, this isn’t always a fallacy, as some will use links to support their claims. But often the tactic is used to thrust the burden of debate back onto the libertarian who is expected to read through the links and infer some point. At best, it’s bad form.
     
23. We’ve Got to Do Something!: Related to the “start somewhere” fallacy, “We’ve got to do something!” is an argument that really means (a) the State has to do something, and (b) State action is preferable to both no action or private action. Numerous examples of this fallacy appear when opponents think any action riding on good intentions is good enough, consequences be damned. Often, however, it can be demonstrated that it is better for government to do nothing and to stop doing what it’s already doing. (Examples include stimulus spending, regulation, and other forms of intervention.) For government to do nothing is rarely presented as premise subject to debate and evaluation. Someone genuinely open to ideas would ask, “What should be done about this?” and “Who should do it?” Someone genuinely interested in answers would have the courtesy to make explicit what they already believe: “The government has to do something, which is beyond debate. Here’s what I think that something should be.”
     
24. Empirical Fallacy: A familiar opponents’ refrain of late is: How do we know X isn’t going to work until we try it? We have to wait and see the empirical evidence before calling X a failure. With such reasoning we should let monkeys go to Washington and type randomly into a big machine that spits out statutes at random. Well, we already do this in a manner of speaking, but it might be a good idea to look at some well-established economic theory and economic thinking before sallying forth into legislative adventures that could have both predictably perverse and unintended consequences. More importantly, the opponent presumes it is the prerogative of the State—and, by extension, any governmental group within the State apparatus—to experiment on those under its auspices, and that it is the duty of the subjects in that jurisdiction to submit to the experimentation. (Also called the Pelosi Fallacy.)
     
25. No True Libertarian: Ever heard of the No True Scotsman fallacy? Usually it’s applied by someone in a group to question another’s membership in that same group in terms of their ideological purity. Libertarians are famous for saying to each other “If you think X, you’re no libertarian.” But libertarians’ opponents use a variation of this, too. They’ll say something like “Libertarians believe in X. If you don’t, you’re no libertarian.” (X might be natural rights, collective non-State action, a social safety net, etc.) The No True Libertarian fallacy is a way of trying to force the libertarian to choose between a subtle variation in his argument and his own doctrine. It implies the libertarian lacks credibility: “This clown doesn’t know what he thinks!” Of course, such a tack has no bearing on the truth or falsity of either party’s claims, or the validity of their arguments. Libertarianism is a diverse school of thought. It is not a monolith. One need only demonstrate the consistency of his argument.
     
26. Fascist Ignorance: This one should be familiar: Libertarian opponents were outraged—OUTRAGED—when John Mackey pointed out quite correctly on NPR that Obamacare is a fascist policy. Fascism is, of course, a doctrine that calls for significant State control over private industries, to be carried out in the service of State ends. So the fallacy of fascist ignorance is a form of ad hominem in which a libertarian opponent refers to the libertarian or his views as “fascist” despite, strictly speaking, holding fascist views herself. (One might also refer to this as the “Chicken calling the cow ‘poultry’” fallacy.) In the interests of good discourse, however, it’s probably not wise for anyone to evoke the power of the “F” word at all, given how much baggage it carries.
     
27. Just One Life: The emotional appeal, grounded in nothing substantive, is meant to be a moralistic shutdown card. It goes “I’m sorry, but if we can save just one life with this policy, it’s worth it.” What does that even mean? Does it mean that every life has infinite value? Does it mean that saving lives at the expense of others and all other considerations is the purpose of government? Or does it mean that “worth it” is completely vague, but you just care a lot? It’s a heroic-sounding sentiment, but it demonstrates only the speaker’s commitment and earnestness—not any analysis of the policy itself.
     
28. Consensus: This hybrid of the bandwagon and appeal to authority fallacies infects lots of discourse. It takes the form, “Lots of really smart and educated people believe X, therefore it’s true.” From the USDA food pyramid dieticians to macroeconomists, authorities are not always right.
    
    There are limits to any individual’s Fability to understand all the nuances of a given issue. Prediction and forecast are even more difficult. Political decision-makers must confront the same exact same cognitive limitations as mere mortals, which is why they, like libertarian debate opponents, rely far too heavily on expert “consensus.”
     
29. Logo-phallo-euro-centric: Opponents accuse libertarianism of being hostile to women, minorities, homosexuals, and other marginalized groups. The fallacy lies in the idea that if your doctrine doesn’t acknowledge that groups deserve special, State-sanctioned treatment at the expense of other groups or individuals, it’s tantamount to some ism. Some even go as far as to say that if you use certain language some construe as racist, sexist, or homophobic, it invalidates libertarian doctrine. While many libertarians act like idiots and should probably not overreact to collectivist PC victim narratives with foul language, libertarian doctrine is at root a doctrine of anything peaceful—voluntary cooperation, decentralized power, and radical community formation. The heroes of libertarianism (of all races, sexes, and ethnic backgrounds) knew that collectivism and Statism are interdependent world views: It takes evoking collectivism and inventing group rights (or wrongs) to justify most State actions, and the State has historically had the power systematically to prop up or tear down people by group.
       
30. You'll have to go here to read #30.  Heck, the guy went to all that trouble to make this list and you need to send him some traffic!!

If Barack Obama Were To Enter My Department Store

It looks like it's going to be "All Trayvon, All The Time" through the November 2014 elections.  We're going to be overlooking the tragedy, and the easily preventable causes, of thousands of black kids murdered by other black kids every year (see previous post) and concentrate on the one black kid who was murdered by a Hispanic guy who was also partly black and part white.  I think. 

I'm so sick and freakin' tired of political hacks dividing us into Hutu's and Tutsi's.  But if you had Obama's track record to defend, you'd talk Trayvon too. 

Therefore, it's time to start ridiculing every statement that the President Of The United States makes on the subject of race.  He gave a shameful speech the other day, in which he identified with the black kid who had the Hispanic guy on the ground, pounding his head into the curb.  There was no indication that this shooting was a "hate crime", but that's the direction that Obama, going off-teleprompter, chose to take it. 

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

Oh, sweet mantle of victimhood !! 

Barack, if you think people were following you around before you were president, wait until you see what happens afterwards.....

The actor James Woods recently tweeted that they only reason they've ever followed you was to make sure you wouldn't raise their taxes. 

I can top that.....  If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he wasn't going to break my windows.  The "broken windows" parable of Frederic Bastiat really does appear to be his dominant economic misunderstanding. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he didn't take what wasn't his.  I've never known a human who was so enthusiastic about taking money from Person A to give to Person B, but not before raking some off the top to give to his Washington flunkies in Group C. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, yeah, I'd have him followed.  "You Didn't Build That" isn't that much of a leap from "You Don't Deserve That", followed closely by "I Know Some People Who Could Use That And They All Voted For Me".

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, well, I gotta be honest.....  I'd ask him for a subsidy.  I'd point out my Green Energy Perpetual Motion Machines that are invisible to the naked eye, I'd show him the documentation that the entire store is heated and cooled by Compressed Green Fairy Flatulence, and I'd agree to change the name of my website to "The Greened Sepulchre".  And, like so many of his other green energy subsidy benefactors, I might get a buncha money that I could walk away with before letting the thing go bankrupt. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd ask him to simply buy it.  Then I'd watch him destroy it, the way we shamefully destroyed all those cars during the "Cash For Clunkers" debacle. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I wouldn't insist on a cash payment.  Hell, there's no telling how much more of the stuff was printed while his limo waited in the parking lot.  I wouldn't want a check.  All of his post-dated checks are going to be bouncing soon.  I would want his credit card.  Please dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, but let me get my hands on that damn fool's credit card.  Whatever he bought, I'd add $51,000.00 to the total charge.  That's the additional amount that he's put on mine. 

But it creates jobs....

I got into an interesting conversation at the bar with an electrical contractor while I was celebrating my birthday last night.  (52nd birthday, BTW.) 

We were talking about building inspectors, corrupt building inspectors, and the people that most regulations are written to benefit.  (Hint:  It ain't you.)

The guy was obviously a skilled electrician.  Plenty smart.  But then he let loose with this statement:  At least all those rules and regulations create jobs and help the economy. 

I couldn't help myself.  Like I said, I was celebrating my birthday with plenty of Jim Beam and wasn't capable of self-censorship.  I remembered the Milton Friedman "spoons" story.

The story goes that Milton Friedman was once taken to see a massive government project somewhere in Asia. Thousands of workers using shovels were building a canal. Friedman was puzzled. Why weren’t there any excavators or any mechanized earth-moving equipment? A government official explained that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman’s response: “Then why not use spoons instead of shovels?”

So I said "If the goal is to create jobs and help the economy, why not use lanterns instead of electricity?"  I don't remember his response, if there was one. 

Here's something I found on the Forbes website while I was looking for the "spoons" story. 

Economies prosper when multitudes of ordinary people are motivated to make improvements. This is because information and insights needed to make an economy prosper are widely dispersed. There’s far more than could ever be centralized, validated and updated in a place like the federal government. The most reliable way to motivate people? Harness their self-interest: let them try making a profit by starting a business based on their information and insights. Government can best promote prosperity by, among other things, maintaining equal rights, low taxes, free trade, sound money, predictable laws and protection against force and fraud. Government should let consumers render their verdicts in open markets – no subsidies, special favors or bailouts.

Creating artificial hurdles, and then paying government bureaucrats to monitor the hurdles, does not help an economy.  It's all about production, baby !! 

I had to get that out of my system.  Have a good day, and be thankful for the electrical contractors who bring power to your laptop/phone/ipad/ipod/Blackberry reading device IN SPITE OF the electrical code, and not because of it. 

The upside of the London riots

From Zero Gov:

The Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass has released a statement in support of the economic stimulus activities undertaken this week in London.

“Over the past three nights,” said guild spokesman JM Keynes, “The brave young people of London have taken it upon themselves to guarantee the economic health of our city for years to come.” Keynes went on to explain that the Glaziers expect a 10,000% increase in demand for new glass windows over the coming weeks, which will employ hundreds of new glassmakers, who are paid as much as six francs for each new window produced.

Shopkeeper F (Frederic) Bastiat took a rather dimmer view of the stimulus package, citing its cost to his business. “Look here,” he said, gesturing to his store’s broken window. “They broke that, broke the door, came in and took things right off the shelves.” Bastiat expects that his insurance will cover some of the damages, but that much of his inventory will be a total loss. “I had a year’s profits tied up, just in what was on the shelves,” he explained. “And some of it they just destroyed! This television was too heavy to steal, I suppose, so they just smashed it.”

Bastiat’s selfishness, though, is not representative of most Londoners. In addition to creating jobs and increasing private spending, the stimulus is providing an increased standard of living for some participants. ”I got tones of stuff todayyyy!” explained one of the stimulus agents via twitter, ” … whop whop … wat ev;; it was free so i took it ennit,, didn’t get caught so[.]”

Hit the link up top to read the rest.  This guy is greatness. 

Suggestion for an October political ad

Here's an idea for a great Libertarian political ad for October. 
The text is from The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby, on the Cash For Clunkers travesty. 

IN THE market for a used car? Good luck finding a bargain: The price of “pre-owned’’ vehicles has climbed considerably over the past year. According to Edmunds.com, a website for car buyers, a three-year-old automobile today will set you back, on average, close to $20,000 — a spike of more than 10 percent since last summer. For some popular models, the increase has been much steeper. In July, a used Cadillac Escalade was going for around $35,000, or nearly 36 percent over last July’s price.



Hit the video.  Seriously.  Hit the video of these guys pumping Sodium Silicate into the engine of a Volvo, under orders from our President.  You don't have to watch, just listen while you read the rest. 
Now, back to our commentary from Mr. Jacoby. 

....Part of the answer is that the supply of used cars is artificially low, because your Uncle Sam decided last year to destroy hundreds of thousands of perfectly good automobiles as part of its hare-brained Car Allowance Rebate System — or, as most of us called it, Cash for Clunkers. That was the program under which the government paid consumers up to $4,500 when they traded in an old car and bought a new one with better gas mileage. The traded-in cars — which had to be in drivable condition to qualify for the rebate — were then demolished: Dealers were required to chemically wreck each car’s engine, and send the car to be crushed or shredded.


Crank up the volume on the video.  Hear the whine?  Does it sound like vandals destroying a car?  Destroying the economy?  Destroying employment?  DO YOU HEAR THE NOISE OF BARACKAGANDAN LUNACY?????
Congress and the Obama administration trumpeted Cash for Clunkers as a triumph — the president pronounced it “successful beyond anybody’s imagination.’’ Which it was, if you define success as getting people to take “free’’ money to make a purchase most of them are going to make anyway, while simultaneously wiping out productive assets that could provide value to many other consumers for years to come. By any rational standard, however, this program was sheer folly.

Briefly cut away to a clip of some obviously low-income people wandering through a used car lot.  Then go back to the shrieking Volvo. 

Of the 700,000 cars purchased during the clunkers frenzy, the estimated net increase in sales was only 125,000. Each incremental sale thus ended up costing the taxpayers a profligate $24,000.

Show a Cash For Clunkers-era clip of some Yuppies driving a new Prius out of a parking lot.  Be sure they've transferred their Obama bumpersticker from the Clunker to the Prius.  Then go back to the whining Volvo. 

Even on environmental grounds, Cash for Clunkers was an exorbitant dud. Researchers at the University of California-Davis calculated that the reduction of carbon dioxide attributable to the program cost no less than $237 per ton. In contrast, carbon emissions credits cost about $20 per ton in international markets.


The whole carbon credits scam is environmentalist bullshit, but some people believe in it.  Kinda like Catholics used to believe in purchasing Indulgences.  Let it stay in the ad. 

Using Department of Transportation figures, the Associated Press calculated that replacing inefficient clunkers with new cars getting higher mileage would reduce CO2 emissions by around 700,000 tons a year — less than Americans emit in a single hour. Likewise, the projected reduction in gasoline use amounted to about as much as Americans go through in 4 hours. (And that’s only if you assume — contrary to historical experience — that fuel consumption decreases when fuel efficiency rises.)

When all is said and done, Cash for Clunkers was a deplorable exercise in budgetary wastefulness, asset destruction, environmental irrelevance, and economic idiocy. Other than that, it was a screaming success.

Cut to the 3:55 mark on the video.  Watch the guy with the fire extinguisher.  Listen to the vandals giggle.  Cut to a graph of declining employment.  Cut to a quick graph of declining home sales.  Cut to a quick graph of increased automobile prices.  Then go to one more voiceover.

Do you really want to send the people who did this back to Washington? 
My name is The Whited Sepulchre, and I approved this message. 

From Henry Hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson", on the economic benefits of government spending

From Henry Hazlitt's classic "Economics In One Lesson", Chapter 4:

There is no more persistent and influential faith in the world today than the faith in government spending. Everywhere government spending is presented as a panacea for all our economic ills. Is private industry partially stagnant? We can fix it all by government spending. Is there unemployment? That is obviously due to "insufficient private purchasing power." The remedy is just as obvious. All that is necessary is for the government to spend enough to make up the "deficiency."

....Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. The world is full of so- called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing.

They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because "we owe it to ourselves." We shall return to such extraordinary doctrines at a later point. Here I am afraid that we shall have to be dogmatic, and point out that such pleasant dreams in the past have always been shattered by national insolvency or a runaway inflation. Here we shall have to say simply that all government expenditures must eventually he paid out of the proceeds of taxation; that to put off the evil day merely increases the problem, and that inflation itself is merely a form, and a particularly vicious form, of taxation.

A certain amount of public spending is necessary to perform essential government functions. A certain amount of public works-of streets and roads and bridges and tunnels, of armories and navy yards, of buildings to house legislatures, police and fire departments-is necessary to supply essential public services. With such public works, necessary for their own sake, and defended on that ground alone, I am not here concerned. I am here concerned with public works considered as a means of "providing employment" or of adding wealth to the community that it would not otherwise have had.

A bridge is built, If it is built to meet an insistent public demand, if it solves a traffic problem or a transportation problem otherwise insoluble, if, in short, it is even more necessary than the things for which the tax payers would have spent their money if it had not been taxed away from them, there can be no objection. But a bridge built primarily "to provide employment" is a different kind of bridge. When providing employment becomes the end, need becomes a subordinate consideration. "Projects" have to he invented. Instead of thinking only where bridges must be built, the government spenders begin to ask themselves where bridges can be built. Can they think of plausible reasons why an additional bridge should connect Easton and Weston? It soon becomes absolutely essential. Those who doubt the necessity are dismissed as obstructionists and reactionaries.

Two arguments are put forward for the bridge, one of which is mainly heard before it is built, the other of which is mainly heard after it has been completed. The first argument is that it will provide employment. It will provide, say, 500 jobs for a year. The implication is that these are jobs that would not otherwise have come into existence.

This is what is immediately seen. But if we have trained ourselves to look beyond immediate to secondary consequences, and beyond those who are directly benefited by a government project to others who are indirectly affected, a different picture presents itself. It is true that a particular group of bridge workers may receive more employment than otherwise. But the bridge has to be paid for out of taxes. For every dollar that is spent on the bridge a dollar will be taken away from taxpayers. If the bridge costs $1,000,000 the taxpayers will lose $1,000, 000. They will have that much taken away from them which they would otherwise have spent on the things they needed most.

Therefore for every public job created by the bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else. We can see the men employed on the bridge. We can watch them at work. The employment argument of the government spenders becomes vivid, and probably for most people convincing. But there are other things that we do not see, because, alas, they have never been permitted to come into existence. They are the jobs destroyed by the $1,000,000 taken from the taxpayers. All that has happened, at best, is that there has been a diversion of jobs because of the project. More bridge builders; fewer automobile workers, radio technicians, clothing workers, farmers.

But then we come to the second argument. The bridge exists. It is, let us suppose, a beautiful and not an ugly bridge. It has come into being through the magic of government spending. Where would it have been if the obstructionists and the reactionaries had had their way? There would have been no bridge. The country would have been just that much poorer.

Here again the government spenders have the better of the argument with all those who cannot see beyond the immediate range of their physical eyes. They can see the bridge. But if they have taught themselves to look for indirect as well as direct consequences they can once more see in the eye of imagination the possibilities that have never been allowed to come into existence. They can see the unbuilt homes, the unmade cars and radios, the unmade dresses and coats, perhaps the unsold and ungrown foodstuffs. To see these uncreated things requires a kind of imagination that not many people have. We can think of these non-existent objects once, perhaps, hut we cannot keep them before our minds as we can the bridge that we pass every working day. What has happened is merely that one thing has been created instead of others.

We must apply the same reasoning, once more, to get projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority. Here, because of sheer size, the danger of optical illusion greater than ever. Here is a mighty dam, a of steel and concrete, "greater than anything capital could have built," the fetish of photographers, heaven of socialists, the most often used miracles of public construction, ownership Here are mighty generators and power ho whole region lifted to a higher economic level, attracting factories and industries that could not otherwise have existed. And it is all presented, in the panegyrics of its partisans, as a net economic gain without offsets.

We need not go here into the merits of the TVA or public projects like it. But this time we need a special effort of the imagination, which few people seem able to make, to look at the debit side of the ledger. If taxes are taken from people and corporations, and spent in one particular section of the country, why should it cause surprise, why should it be regarded as a miracle, if that section becomes comparatively richer? Other sections of the country, we should remember, are then comparatively poorer. The thing so great that "private capital could not have built it" has in fact been built by private capital -the capital that was expropriated in taxes (or, if the money was borrowed, that eventually must be expropriated in taxes). Again we must make an effort of the imagination to see the private power plants, the private homes, the typewriters and radios that were never allowed to come into existence because of the money that was taken from people all over the country to build the photogenic Norris Dam.

I have deliberately chosen the most favorable examples of public spending schemes-that is, those that are most frequently and fervently urged by the government spenders and most highly regarded by the public. I have not spoken of the hundreds of boondoggling projects that are invariably embarked upon the moment the main object is to "give jobs" and "to put people to work."

For then the usefulness of the project itself, as we have seen, inevitably becomes a subordinate consideration. Moreover, the more wasteful the work, the more costly in manpower, the better it becomes for the purpose of providing more employment.

Under such circumstances it is highly improbable that the projects thought up by the bureaucrats will provide the same net addition to wealth and welfare, per dollar expended, as would have been provided by the taxpayers themselves, if they had been individually permitted to buy or have made what they themselves wanted, instead of being forced to surrender part of their earnings to the state.

The pics for this post came from here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. 

Broken Windows - The Video

Here's the final word on Bastiat's "Broken Windows" fallacy.
It doesn't matter if it is Cash For Clunkers, the new Cowboys Stadium, or Obama's Porkulus plan - we're all better off when you can spend your money the way you want to spend it.

John Stossel. T. Boone Pickens. Wind Farm Scams. Light Rail.

John Stossel's show tonight was about alternative energy and government rail projects.
I've made a solemn vow that I'm not going to write any more about the Climate Change Scam.

Maybe it was not a vow, just a general goal. Maybe Stossel is not going to talk about Climate Change and why they justify wind farms, except in a sort of general way.
Stossel started off with a short snippet of Al Gore and Texas Jillionaire T. Boone Pickens talking about the savings to be found in wind power. (Unh oh....I get a feeling that The Goracle and T. Boone have been looking for subsidies.)

He had a funny montage of all our recent presidents vowing and declaring that we would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, kinda like me vowing and declaring not to write any more about Climate Change Scams.
When Nixon was president, we imported 25% of our oil. Then we got the Department of Energy, it was charged with lowering this percentage, and we now import almost 70%. Stossel showed some T. Boone ads touting the purity and wholesomeness of wind power.

The first guest? T. Boone Pickens himself. (Pickens is a BIG deal in Texas.) They discussed a wager they had on the price of oil. Would oil be more or less than $100 per barrel on May 22, 2010. Stossel has the under, and Pickens has the over. Man, it must be fun to be able to place bets with T. Boone Pickens.

They discussed the T. Boone Pickens website, which shows the U.S. Wind Corridor. It runs from Central Canada down to my bedroom in Fort Worth, TX. Then they talked about why Pickens needs your money to subsidize his new wind and gas toys. (See H.R. 1835). If he could get these wind farms and gas operations going, it would reduce our dependence on foreign oil almost immediately. His project would only cost us $10,000,000,000.00. That's Ten Billion Dollars, if you have trouble counting zeroes.

They didn't discuss this, but if Pickens wants to profit from this operation, he should fund it by himself, and with the funds of other jillionaire investors, right?

(I'm more or less live-blogging this. Pickens claims that his wind farms will create jobs. Stossel is holding a baseball, and wondering if he can create jobs with the baseball. Get ready, fellow members of the Cult Of Frederic Bastiat ! ! ! We're getting ready for THE BROKEN WINDOWS PARABLE ! ! Lord have mercy, I geek out watching this show ! !)

Stossel showed some T. Boone commercials, showing how much it costs us to buy foreign oil. Pickens does these commercials with his own money, but they're basically trying to drum up sympathy for programs that require more of your money. The main thrust is that we need to act now (and have Congress vote to give Pickens....a boatload of money).

Then Pickens outlines a proposed incentive plan that makes Cash For Clunkers look like The Louisiana Purchase. I really can't describe all the things wrong with it. You buy a domestic car that uses domestic fuel (natural gas instead of diesel), and you would get a $65,000.00 tax credit. What's not to like? (Unless, of course, you're one of the 57% of Americans who have to pay Federal Income Taxes?)

1)The wind farms get tax credits, and that creates jobs.
2)Wind is currently priced off the margin, because natural gas has to be around $7.00 (per cubft?) for the proposed system to work.
3)Therefore a $10,000,000,000.00 subsidy is necessary.

Then John Stossel did it. He gave a physical demonstration of the best anti-Statist, anti-subsidy, anti-stimulus essay ever written. He made Frederic Bastiat proud, and threw a baseball through a window. A great moment in TV journalism.

Stossel lost a piece of glass, and created a job for a glassmaker. But Stossel had to pay to have the glass replaced, instead of spending the money on something else more worthwhile.
Pickens argued that he wasn't destroying anything to create any jobs with his windmill subsidy, he's wanting to create something that creates jobs. (A subtle difference, if you're drunk.)

Stossel: You're taking money from people, money that they could spend on themselves, and using it to spend it on your project.
Pickens: I'm not taking it from people, I'm taking it from what from what is PAID in taxes.

Brief audience uproar over the ludicrous nature of Pickens' statement. It almost got out of control in there. If the audience had rotten fruit and cabbages, they'd be throwing them.

Pickens quoted somebody from the Sierra club, stating that if you do the wind project over a 10 year period, it'll create 5 million jobs. Stossel retorts that the money, if left to the private sector, might have created 6 million jobs. Pickens couldn't argue with him, but responded with this joke:
You know what an economist is? Somebody who couldn't be a CPA. (I thought it was kinda funny, having known some very dull economists and very dull CPA's. But in the Stossel audience, you could hear the crickets chirping. Not even a giggle.)

Stossel mentioned that Pickens and Al Gore are agreed that America is in danger because of our dependence on foreign oil. This, of course, is enough to prove that Pickens is deeply and profoundly wrong.

Stossel brought out journalist Robert Bryce, author of a book called "Gusher Of Lies". Bryce wanted to state 3 points:

1) "Energy independence" is sheer hokum. We're the biggest energy producer and the biggest energy user. The idea that we'll ever be "independent" of the world's single biggest market is insane. If a guy talks about the evils of foreign oil, you better go out in the back yard and bury the family silver. He's up to no good.

2) In 2007, the U.S. imported oil from 90 countries. We exported oil to 70 different countries. We export two million barrels per day. We are a net importer, but so is China. It's a global market. We rely on other nations for iPods, tennis rackets, beer, and computers. We've been a net importer of crude oil since 1913. Two of our three largest sources of imported oil are Canada and Mexico, and they aren't terrorist havens.

I don't know if I can type number three. They're arguing numbers faster than I can type them. Pickens is arguing that there's only one resource we can use to replace foreign oil, and that's natural gas. (I disagree. Drill, baby, drill.)

Ethanol subsidies came in for some well-deserved abuse. (Hit the ethanol label at the bottom of this post for the reason why.)

Pickens tried to explain why he needed start-up funds to get his windmills going. Bryce argued that the entire wind industry was a scam from beginning to end.

And then it happened....When Bryce declared the obvious, that Pickens was fishing for subsidies, the audience applauded. I love this show.

The topic then switched to trains. Light rail systems in particular. Isn't government the only entity that can do a rail system? Well, the New York subways were built by private companies. A few Stossel audience members were divided on government subsidies for rail systems.

Stossel showed a Joe Biden clip, where our Veep claimed that allocating money to rail is the single best investment in travel that our country could invest in. Biden claiming this, of course, is enough to prove that it isn't.
Then they showed a clip of the Baltimore train running empty.
They showed a clip of an undisturbed coyote riding on the Portland train. (Coyotes like solitude.)
Stossel brought on The Cato Institute's Randal O'Toole, who has written a book called "Gridlock: Why we're stuck in traffic, and what we can do about it". O'Toole argues that we design our rail systems to run 18-20 hours a day, and 2/3rds of the time they're empty. The average number of people on board a light rail train at any given time is 25. We could spend the same amount on buses and be far more effective.
The trains are subsidy farms. Transit agencies feel inferior if they don't have a train. Then it turns out that most transit authorities can't run a rail system.
Before Portland Oregon opened it's light rail system in 1980, 9.8 % of commuters used public transit to get to work. Now it's at 8%. Why? There were so many cost overruns on the rail system that they had to cut back on the buses.
Buses are relatively efficient. They can go anywhere. Trains, on the other hand, are far more romantic.

Another Biden video pops up, one where Biden claims that rail is our least subsidized transportation system. O'Toole promptly calls bullshit. Highways, etc., are subsidized to the tune of less than a penny per passenger mile. Amtrak's subsidy is 25 cents per passenger mile. The subsidies on urban transit are 60 cents per passenger mile! The taxpayer is being taken by rail construction companies, drivers making 100k per year, and unions. You're paying for it.
What's the solution? Innovation. Prizes.
Stossel name-dropped the X-prize for space travel. Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic to win a $25,000 prize. There are prizes waiting in the field of human genome research, energy efficient cars, and missions to the moon.
The Progressive Automotive X Prize (for a car that can get 100 mpg) is drawing entries from all over the world. The guy who organized this one, Peter Diamandis, appeared from a remote facility someplace. He is using the prize to do "what only governments could do before".
They've currently got 51 vehicles in their competition.

Government spends billions researching stuff like this. Diamandis is getting good results by putting up only $10 million. No credential necessary to compete. You don't have to present a scholarly grant proposal. You have to want to be famous, and make money, lots of money, by selling your idea to a manufacturer. That's a much more effective system than working your way up through a government hierarchy to get your ideas heard.

Stossel closed by arguing that the phrase "energy independence" is a feel-good phrase with no merit. To promote energy independence is to oppose trade, and trade is what makes us richer. He quoted Adam Smith:

It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy...What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.

People should do what they do best. Stossel should produce TV shows, but he's a bad mechanic. Mechanics should work on cars, not produce TV shows.

What if we were "food independent", and we had a disaster? The more places we get food from, the more secure our supply.

What if a foreign supplier says they aren't going to sell oil to the U.S.? Well, they've got to sell it to somebody. And guess who that somebody would probably sell it to next?

Last but not least, for us to achieve energy independence, government would have to plan it. We wouldn't dare trust those people for overnight package delivery, cell phones, a computer, or anything else that we've gotten through private innovation. The idea that government has to guide this process is absurd.

May the best entrepreneur win.

Broken Bastiat pic came from here.

Congratulations, Intelligrated

Congratulations Intelligrated !
Modern Materials Handling, one of the many trade periodicals that shows up in my workplace inbox, was the first to give me this good news:

Intelligrated, a leading American-owned automated materials handling solutions provider, announced yesterday that it has accepted more than $24 million in financial incentives from the state of Ohio. In conjunction with the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD), company executives formally accepted the comprehensive package during Ohio Governor Ted Strickland’s visit to Intelligrated’s manufacturing facility in West Chester, Ohio.


The state’s incentive package accelerates the company’s efforts to integrate the operations of recently acquired FKI Logistex and expand its facilities in West Chester, London and Mason, Ohio. During the three-year period of the project, Intelligrated will retain 537 full-time positions and create 267 new jobs in Ohio.

The incentives include low-interest research and development investment loans and Ohio enterprise bond fund loans from Ohio’s DFAC to the Butler County Port Authority to support costs associated with the acquisition of a 282,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in West Chester to be leased to Intelligrated.

The Ohio Job Creation Tax Credit Authority also awarded Intelligrated an Ohio Job Creation Tax Credit to support the project in Butler County as well as expansions in Mason and London.

While there are millions of people in Ohio (and the rest of the United States) who think that they are the best judges of which companies to support with their paychecks, they are mistaken.
The Ohio Department of Development and Governor Ted Strickland know best. After all, Governor Strickland has a Bachelors degree in history, a Masters Of Divinity from a freakin' seminary, and a doctorate in counseling psychology.
Here's some more advice on how Big Bidness can work hand in hand with Big Government to ensure that you pay your fair share of our $12,000,000,000,000.00 debt. And how companies like Intelligrated can pay as little as possible. This is from the Intelligrated website:
Thanks to the Stimulus Package that was recently approved by the United States President, Senate and Congress, businesses are receiving special tax incentives to invest in new equipment. According to Section 179 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, businesses are allowed to fully expense up to $250,000 of new equipment acquisitions in 2009. Also, the first year depreciation bonus is boosted to 50%
For example, if a business were to purchase $750,000 in new equipment, they can fully expense $250,000 and then take 50% of the balance (50% of $500,000=$250,000), plus the first year’s MACRS (14% of $250,000=$35,000). This adds up to $535,000 or over 71% of the purchase price. The balance would be depreciated normally on the standard seven–year schedule.
If you were planning a project prior to the recent economic downturn, please speak to your tax or financing professionals about the incentivized options you have in 2009.

This picture of the Intelligrated Logo, with the E Pluribus Unum slogan came from the Intelligrated website. E Pluribus Unum means "Out Of Many, One" - Many revenue streams, and only one that matters.

75,000 stimulus jobs just disappeared

The Washington Examiner has done a bit o' Googling, and pulled together accounts of false stimulus results from about 30 city newspapers.

The results?

The Teleprompter Jesus And Company have been claiming that The Porkulus Swindle created or saved 640,000 jobs.

It ain't so. 75,343 of them don't exist. Hit the link for a morbidly fascinating map. The chart at the bottom of the page is equally dismal.

More than ten percent of the jobs the Obama administration has claimed were "created or saved" by the $787 billion stimulus package are doubtful or imaginary, according to reports compiled from eleven major newspapers and the Associated Press.

But wait, there's more.....

Today's report from ABC News tells us that prior to releasing its jobs report, the administration cut out 60,000 additional jobs from unreliable reports, none of which appear to overlap with the ones we've highlighted here. Had those jobs been included in the original count, the number of jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus would have exceeded 700,000, and the number of imaginary or doubtful jobs would have approached 20 percent.

The point is that the Obama administration at least did a preliminary fact-check to weed out the more obvious falsehoods.

The Examiner hasn't even published findings from others. They're putting out the call to the citizenry to email reports from local papers.

Do you have examples of inflated jobs 'created or saved' by the stimuls? Send a link to DFreddoso (or) MHemingway@washingtonexaminer.com

Now, on to the remaining 90% of the Porkulus jobs......

There are businesses all across the nation that want to swap their merchandise and services for your money. I take it as a given that you are the best judge of how you want to spend your money. Or not spend your money. It is, after all, yours.

Every time you spend a dime, you are casting a vote for which jobs to create or save.

The Stimulus Bill took that choice away from you and your children, and gave the money to the most bizarre assembly of hacks, toadies, vote-wranglers and victims that they could get away with.

Advocates of the bill argued that only government could get the funds into the system fast enough to prevent a total meltdown. But if that's the case, why have they only spent about 40% of the funds?

Cash For Clunkers - Another Rant

I just watched The McLaughlin Group segment that ran yesterday. Eleanor Clift said that the Cash For Clunkers program was highly "succesful".

Larry Summers, who was a Free Market kind of guy until he went to work for The Teleprompter, was on Meet The Press an hour later. He pointed to the Cash For Clunkers programs as something they'd done that was "succesful".

The follow-up on Meet The Press was Harold Ford, Jr. (Mommy Party - Tennessee) and J.C. Watts (formerly Daddy Party - Oklahoma). Ford said that Cash For Clunkers was "succesful".

I think we can safely say that the Talking Points Memo for Sunday morning, August 2nd, included instructions to call the Cash For Clunkers program succesful.

Those three acted like the administration had performed miracles along the line of the loaves and fishes.

Let's break it down into comparable situations, shall we?

If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Wal-Mart with guns (it's legal when Timmy does it) and we force everyone who passes by to give us some of their money, and then we give $7.00 of that money to everyone who is going to purchase a pair of jeans (if they'll trade in one of their old pair), we'll probably be succesful. But only if you're looking at nothing but the number of jeans sold.

If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Home Depot with guns and we require everyone who passes by to give us money, and then we give $40.00 of that money to everyone who is going to purchase a lawnmower (if they'll trade in their old one), we'll probably be succesful. But only if you're looking at nothing but the number of lawnmowers sold.

If Tim Geithner and I stand outside Neiman Marcus....$2,000....purchase a chocolate covered skink....we'll probably be succesful. ....the number of chocolate covered skinks sold.

Can you imagine the furor that would erupt if the nation learned that Neiman Markups, Home Depot, or, God help 'em, Wal-Mart, had actually lobbied for Timmy and me to execute this robbery? Wouldn't there be protesters in Bentonville, Arkansas by now????

So why in the heck aren't people totally outraged over this wealth transfer to Detroit? Beats the heck out of me.

Barack Obama really is our shepherd, and we are The Sheeple of his pastures.

Cash For Clunkers - Name That Economic Fallacy !

This is from John Stossel's ABC News blog. (The essay, not the picture.)

I've never seen this guy on TV since I don't watch much that isn't Tivo'd, but I'm a fan of his editorials, books, and website. It's sort of like being a fan of Winston Churchill's paintings, or Billy Bob Thornton's music. Here's Stossel on the Cash for Clunkers program:

Because sometimes, one billion isn’t enough.
The Obama Administration’s “Cash for Clunkers” program offers to buy used cars for $3,500 -$4,500 with taxpayer money. The government then destroys the “inefficient” used car. Not surprisingly, a lot of people want to sell their junk cars to the government. So many, in fact, that the $1 billion program has already run out of money.
Now it appears that Congress will ask not just for another billion, but another TWO billion. Look how generous Congress is with your money!

The idea is that by destroying used cars, people will buy new cars, which creates jobs. But this commits the “broken window fallacy”. That $3 billion taken from taxpayers to, essentially, destroy used cars now cannot be put towards college, or a new home, or new clothes, or anything else. Some used cars are no longer available for poor consumers to buy. If the “new car” market is helped by “Cash for Clunkers”, every other market is hurt because that $3 billion cannot be spent on anything else.

Here's Stossel's concise explanation of the Broken Windows fallacy, from an earlier post:

Economists call this the "broken window fallacy." In the 19th century, French economist Frederic Bastiat illustrated it with the story of a boy who breaks a shop window. At first the townspeople lament the loss, but then someone points out that the shopkeeper will have to spend money to replace the window. What the window maker earns, he will soon spend elsewhere. As that money circulates through town, new prosperity will bloom.
The fallacy, of course, lies in the fact that if the window had not been broken, the shopkeeper would have "replaced his worn-out shoes … or added another book to his library." The town gains nothing from the broken window.
This logic is lost on the stimulus promoters. I'm surprised they don't suggest that we prevent recessions by breaking lots of windows.

This is similar to the forklift program we took advantage of at my employer, Jukt Micronics. The government gave us a huge rebate in exchange for trading in our old planet-warming forklifts for new ones that also warm the planet, but not as quickly. That was their logic, anyway.

Which finally gets me to my point. We're dealing with a group of Chicago machine politicians who are looting The Treasury and giving the money to their contributors - in this case, the UAW and the Big 3 auto makers. They use the wholesome, environmentally-friendly bullshit to convince The Sheeple that this isn't a scam.

But isn't it an article of faith in the Mommy Party that we need fewer cars on the road and more use of public transportation?

Instead of the Broken Windows fallacy, that would make it a case of Anarchic Hand Syndrome.

Or perhaps Craniofacial Duplication.

And what if the money to repair the Broken Windows doesn't exist, and has to be printed on the spot? Instead of the Broken Windows fallacy, isn't this the Monopoly Money fallacy?

Anyway, I know something is wrong here, but what is it?

The Broken Windows Fallacy?

Anarchic Hand Syndrome?

Craniofacial Duplication?

or The Monopoly Money Fallacy?

Sometimes things are so wrong, one explanation can't cover it.