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On March 31, 1998, General Motors took a colossal step forward. Years of research had yielded a car capable of replacing petroleum powered vehicles. The EV1 proved to naysayers that electric cars were a feasible enterprise. A quick glance at statistics on the EV1 prove that the car provided affordable and efficient transportation to all drivers. The futuristic styling was intended to appeal to auto enthusiasts everywhere, as were the nimble 0-60 speed (8 seconds), and the higher than average range (60 miles on a single charge). The EV1 was “simply put…amazing,” claimed Generation 2 EV1 driver Kris Trexler. Trexler’s 3,275 mile voyage through the United States showed that the EV1 was a car that was, in fact, efficient and capable of replacing gasoline powered vehicles. GM pleased thousands with the EV1. One day in 2003, however, the American automaker announced they were recalling all EV1s. The death of the electric car was abrupt and swift. Who Killed the Electric Car?, a documentary by director Chris Paine, documents the rise and fall of the EV1. Lire le reste de cet article »

Popularity: 66% [?]

Walter Williams wrote an editorial confronting a few collectivist economic fallacies that we hear all to often in argument. Here he makes a poignant and slightly amusing remark on bleeding heart government regulations:

How many times have we heard: If it will save just one life, it’s worth it? The “it” could be bike helmet laws, childproof medicine bottles, or formaldehyde and asbestos safety regulations. A good economist cringes hearing such statements because they only consider the benefits of an action while ignoring the cost. Looking at benefits only, just about anything is worth doing because there’s usually a benefit. Let’s look at it.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, some 43,443 people were killed on the nation’s highways in 2005. If Congress were to enact a 10 miles per hour national speed limit, we’d save thousands of lives each year. You say, “Williams, that would be stupid and impractical!” My response to you is: But look at all the lives that would be saved. What you really mean by stupid and impractical is that preventing thousands of highway fatalities is not worth the cost and inconvenience that would result from having to poke along at 10 miles per hour. Of course, calling a 10 miles per hour law stupid and impractical is a more socially acceptable way of saying those saved lives aren’t worth it.

The contentions I’d essentially make against regulations and laws of the same spirit are:

1) Government changes the incentives present under the free market–that, you’re on your own and you get what you deserve (i.e. produce)–to “you get whatever the political climate sees fit.”

2) Most importantly: government has no right to tell me what to do with myself and my stuff (which also counts as myself insofar as I earned it and I own it).

Especially when you get into the narrow minded logic of “one life makes it all worth it” you run the risk of infinite waste and fiscal irresponability. As any honest man will acknowlege, you can have only a finite amount of economic resources at any given point in time. The goal of an economic system is to allocate that wealth in the most effecient and logical way. Once you apply the “one life” mentality you will justify plundering any amount of your resources on one problem without regard to what may be the present and future sideffects in other realms of the economy.

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I’ve been saying it since a little before the midterm elections but I thought it was about time I definitively mark my words.

2008 Prediction: Giuliani over Hillary.

Giuliani

1) Very successful, efficient chief executive in NYC; tuned the city around.

2) 9/11 (been through the shadow of the valley of death, can also offset his problem of closeness to Bush on Iraq issue).

3) Leadership. Seems repetitive, but to the extent that it is it bears repeating he has experience speaking on the topic, knows how to lead, and will successfully use it as the theme of his campaign (i.e. “Rudy leads, gets things done”)

4) A good conservative–cut taxes, a lot; turned deficit into surplus; recognizes and perfoms fundamental jobs of government well (law and order); got the whole bad-ass, patriotic New Yorker thing going for him.

5) Religious right has lost wind in the past couple of years. GOP will not worry that much about his views on abortion, gays. Plus, there isn’t a definite candidate of the religious right.

Note that thebigger challenge for Rudy will be winning the crowded, competitive GOP primary. If he does, I am pretty confident he will take it all.

Hillary

1) Money.

2) “Mainstream” Democrat. Positioned herself well on the issues. Edwards and Obama both running to the left of her, at the same time she hasn’t gone too far to the center.

3) Institutional Dem support. She will get the backing of most Democratic pols, endorsements of many of the interests (ie unions), connections from her husband’s presidency, etc.

4) Political smarts. Not just her husband’s either. She has experience playing the game (much more than Edwards or Obama) and she plays it well.

5) Bill, Slick Willy, the former president, her husband.

Editor’s Note: these 2008 predictions are solely those of the author and do not represent the general consensus of the authors of New School Politics.

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The always interesting Jane Galt made a pithy and amusing critique on behavioral economics (the study of the rationality, or lack thereof, of economic actors in the [free] marketplace; often used by the left to criticize the idea of free market efficiency):

The post below also applies to behavioural economics, which the left seems to believe is a magical proof of the benevolence of government intervention, because after all, people are stupid, so they need the government to protect them from themselves. My take is a little subtler than that:

1) People are often stupid
2) Bureaucrats are the same stupid people, with bad incentives.

Asymmetrical Information:

Popularity: 16% [?]

On President’s Day George Will published a wonderful article in Newsweek on libertarian Congressman and GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX):

Most congressional offices are decorated with photos of representatives gripping and grinning with presidents and other eminences. Paul, who thinks the presidency has swollen to anticonstitutional proportions, has photos of two Austrian School economists, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who warned against what Hayek called “the fatal conceit” of governments thinking they can allocate wealth and opportunity more reasonably than can markets. Paul’s office has a picture of one president—Grover Cleveland, the conservative Democrat who asked, “What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?”

I knew that Paul had strong Austrian influences (economic and political) and I knew he would agree that presidential powers have grown to dangerously authoritarian levels (which are two prime reasons why I am supporting his run for the presidency), what I was pleasantly surprised to find was that his favorite president, like mine, was Grover Cleveland. It lead me to consider the best “libertarian” presidents.

(I put “libertarian” in quotations because being a good Objectivist I am of course supposed to despise the label as it lacks definition and philosophical substance and such. Let me then define best “libertarian” presidents as the presidents who best embodied the principles of individual liberty and limited government in their time.)

I think that Grover Cleveland has to be at the top of the list. The empirical evidence shows this, but I postulate that many, if not most, “libertarians” would put the former sheriff from Buffalo at the top of their list. A senior faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Thomas J. Dilorenzo, wrote back in 2004 that Cleveland was the best president in line with a limited government tradition (“The Last Good Democrat”). Its a very interesting article, and his stance reaffirms my claim that Grover is the libertarian’s favorite president.

So here are my rankings.

Best “Libertarian” Presidents: 1) Grover Cleveland. 2) George Washington. 3) Calvin Coolidge. 4) Ronald Reagan. Honorable Mention) Thomas Jefferson. Andrew Jackson.

Defeated Presidential Candidates: Samuel Tilden. Barry Goldwater.

Lire le reste de cet article »

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The Iraq Study Group report is brief but full of information. The problem I had with the report is that it was far too basic. If you read blogs or watch serious political news shows, the information contained in the Iraq Study Group report will seem boring. There was not any information that I read in the report that I did not already know or that was not easily available, and the summaries I had read online before receiving the book from Amazon covered all of the relevant information. I am keeping this review brief because the book was not worth that much of my time. If you are reading this blog or any political blog you probably know more than the information that is available in the report. That being said, it is a good source to gather figures and statistics from and it summarizes complicated ideas into the lexicon that most Americans can understand. There are some ideas suggested that have merit, but you can find the ideas in the Iraq Study Group report and political theories that contradict them online. If you know little about the situation in the Middle East it is worth reading but to rely on it as an exclusive source of information and opinion would be a mistake.  The report is available online as a PDF courtesy of the United States Institute of Peace.

Book Reports are a feature on New School Politics. In these articles, the author presents his opinion of a book, including its relevance to present day America. The same book may be reviewed multiple times by authors with different perspectives.

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Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept is a book that will raise your blood pressure. The book is filled with information that will not only horrify you but will infuriate you. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that a self-identified liberal who is also a member of the gay community wrote it. The author, Bruce Bawer, left for Europe in the late nineties when he became disgusted with the United States and sought an experience that would better align with his views. He moved to Amsterdam, one of the most liberal cities in the world. What he found shocked him. The level of anti-Americanism were appalling. The Europeans love to hate Americans but they fail to realize the monster that they have created. The Muslim influx into Europe is not only crippling the economies of Europe but it is sharply dividing the culture and raising the crime and murder rates. Europeans hope that Muslims will integrate into their society but many are sending their children back to schools in the Middle East to ensure that they are brainwashed to hate Westerners and follow the teachings of the Koran. The accounts of honor killings, terrorism, and the depictions of simple blind hatred will make you revaluate your views on the world. Lire le reste de cet article »

Popularity: 31% [?]

Everyday thousands of Americans stand in line at airports, taking off their shoes and removing their laptops to be screened by the joke of an organization known as the TSA. What is stopping a terrorist from blowing himself up in that TSA line with one hundred and fifty people before he even enters security. The fact that Americans need to realize is we can never be secure and our attempts to be secure are costing us lives and treasure. More Americans are killed every year from drunk driving than have been killed in our entire history from Islamic fundamentalists. When the Islamists look at CNN or Fox News and see our attempts to secure ourselves they laugh. Lire le reste de cet article »

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The news and current events aren’t the only things we care about at New School Politics. Books are a large part of our political socialization and are very important to our society. The three of us at New School Politics do a lot of reading and felt our readers could benefit from good book recommendations. Therefore, we have decided to introduce a new feature: Book Reports.

Each book report will include a short synopsis of the book and our detailed impressions. At the end we’ll present the book with a simple grade to tell our readers whether or not it’s worth reading. In addition, we’ll be adding a Shelfari widget to the website in our sidebar. Shelfari will help us to show off the books we’ve read and help us to discover new books. The three of us will use it to update our readers on what we’re currently reading and what we read in the past. The opinions posted on the blog will be cross-posted on Shelfari for the enjoyment of their community.

Our bookshelf will be viewable on Shelfari and some of our recently read titles are going to be displayed in our sidebar. Our Wish List contains books we’re looking to read in the future. Our Reading List contains books we’re reading now. All other books that we have read are going to be contained within the Shelf. We’d love reading recommendations from our readers. If you’ve got any, feel free to contact us or tag us as “newschoolpolitics.” Please add us as a friend if you decide to use Shelfari. We’ll also be tagging all entries on our blog pertaining to books as “bookreport.” You can read all of our entries under that tag.

This is just one of the many new “people-powered” features we plan on adding to New School Politics. We hope you enjoy the new features. If you have any suggestions, feel free to contact us.

technorati tags:shelfari, books, bookreports, newschoolpolitics

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Especially from the Democratic presidential candidates there appears to be a significant push for “universal” (i.e. socialist) healthcare. Out of the top three in the running Obama has come out for implementing it in six years, Hillary is infamous for her push to do so back in ‘93 as first lady, and Edwards has already outlined as specific plan for it. And, at the same time, outside of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), no republican candidate appears as they will come out principled against the idea. Lire le reste de cet article »

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