The predictability of powermongers and the idiots that follow them

A succinct and scathing examination of the utter idiocy behind HR 2454:

Before the last few years, scholars used to say that we couldn't get a depression today because policymakers wouldn't make mistakes as bad as the ones they made in the 1930s. Though we've made some great moves in the last year — increasing the money supply and guaranteeing money markets funds — we're also repeating many of the same mistakes as Hoover and FDR (propping up failing industries; raising taxes; wasting money on unneeded public works projects; corruption; expensive new anti-business government programs).

Certainly, the Smoot-Hawley bill of 1930 was dumb; it imposed huge tariffs on foreign goods imported into this country, which backfired when those countries raised their tariffs too. In a sense, cap-and-trade looked like it would be even dumber; it seemed that it might impose a tariff on our own US manufactured goods, but not on foreign goods. But the House realized this and decided to require the administration to impose tariffs on goods imported from countries that don't restrict their own emissions to the same extent as the US (tip to Maguire and OandO. This 21st century version of Smoot-Hawley will probably take years before the tariffs will be imposed.

The cap-and-trade bill, if passed by the Senate and actually implemented over the next few decades, would do more damage to the country than any economic legislation passed in at least 100 years. It would eventually send most American manufacturing jobs overseas, reduce American competitiveness, and make Americans much poorer than they would have been without it.

In other news, America still has manufacturing jobs.

The commentary regarding the smug, self-satisfied masturbatory group-think regarding carbon-footprints, offsets, credits, et al from Matt and Trey in the South Park episode "Smug Alert" is both devastatingly funny (although, as one might expect, not safe for work) and tragically accurate; much to the misfortune of the nation, the Bay Area has already demonstrated that not only does it produce power-hungry fascists with questionable mental stability, it can bring the rest of its party to heel with its lunacy.

We are long overdue for a second discussion regarding the voluntary association of "these United States".