Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Gun Control, Fiscal Cliff Cronyism and more


Some good links for this week.

Enjoy!

This is perhaps my favorite article of the week, though there were plenty of good ones, and I quite honestly lost track of some.


With Gun Control, Cost Benefit Analysis Is Amoral
Really nice take on the whole gun control issue.  I especially like his statement: "Statistics about how often gun-related crimes occur in the population is no evidence against you. That’s collectivist thinking. The choices made by others are irrelevant to the choices that you will make."


Senators, Representatives—and Americans Who Voted for Them—to Blame for Increased Spending and Tax Hikes

Obama's Debt Problem
Even Politico.com recognizes that the debt is Obama's now, not Bush's (though Bush did his share to start digging the hole.)

Crony Capitalist Blowout
Great write up of all the pork in the fiscal cliff bill.

Rum Subsidies Included in Fiscal Cliff Pork
Still more pork, or in this case rum, in the fiscal cliff bill.

Of Hurricanes, Pork and Subsidies
And yet more pork.

The Spending Cliff
The real issue facing America.  While increasing taxes is bad, not cutting spending is what will sink the country.

Has the Kyoto protocol done more harm than good?
Did the effort to fight global warming via the Kyoto Protocols contribute to "outsourcing" of manufacturing to undeveloped or developing countries?  Seems like it could very well have had a part to play.  Also, the countries where manufacturing moved too use less efficient fuels so likely have higher emissions, so overall global emissions are up.  Great example of unintended consequences.

My Boys Like Shootouts. What's Wrong With That?
Ah, the craziness regarding guns.  And apparently butter knives.

So What's Next, Mr. President?
And still more on the failure of the fiscal cliff deal to actually deal with the country's real problems: debt and out of control spending.

No Regulation, No Problem
Stossel on the need (lack there of) for government regulation.

Farm Bill Extension Better Than Trillion-Dollar Bill
Repealing the old "permanent" law regarding dairy price supports would make too much sense.  Much easier to be able to scare the public with the thought of doubling or tripling milk prices.  The government really has no place in the economy other than making sure that force and fraud are removed from it.

It’s a Spending Problem
More support for my contention in an earlier blog post that we can't tax our way out of the financial problems we have in this country.

Closing the Jobs Gap
Great little calculator for seeing how long it would take to recover all the jobs lost during the recession based on average monthly job gains.  Interesting fact is that 88,000 is the average number of new workers entering the job market each month from population growth.  So when you see 155,000 new jobs as we did in the latest jobs report, that is actually only about 67,000 net jobs recovered.  Something to keep in mind when the government claims to have created X million jobs in Y years.  Subtract 12*Y*88,000 to see how many people who lost their jobs might have found new ones.

Libertarian Purity Test
Interesting "libertarian purity" test.  My score was 98 out of a possible 160.  A number of the high value questions I didn't agree with, such as privatizing law or the police for example.

Climate Impact of the Keystone XL Pipeline
Just how little impact the Keystone Pipeline would have on the environment.

Regards

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