The Road Ahead

Like many of you, I was happy that Donald Trump won the election. Kamala Harris is a committed Marxist, supporter of baby killing, and passionate advocate of the woke ideology. In foreign policy, she would have been guided by the neocons who control brain dead “President” Joe Biden.

But we shouldn’t be complacent. Trump is far from ideal, and we need to do all we can to work against the policies he favors that are inimical to a free society. Beyond that, we need to work for a fully libertarian society, as advocated by Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul.

Let’s first look at Trump’s bad areas, and a good place to start is foreign policy. One bright spot is that he wants to settle the Ukraine war, instead of supplying the pro-Nazi Zelensky regime with billions of dollars and shipping them American missiles. Even here, we need to be alert to the influence of neocon Trump supporters like Lindsey Graham.

But Trump wants to intensify a trade war with China that could easily become a hot war. He has proposed a 60-100 % tariff on Chinese imports. When he was President the last time, he challenged China’s attempt to secure control over the South China Sea. Here is an AP story on Trump’s China tariff policy: “Donald Trump has identified what he sees as an all-purpose fix for what ails America: Slap huge new tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States.

The former president and current Republican nominee asserts that tariffs — basically import taxes — will create more factory jobs, shrink the federal deficit, lower food prices and allow the government to subsidize childcare.

He even says tariffs can promote world peace.

‘Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented,’ Trump said this month in Flint, Michigan.

As president, Trump imposed tariffs with a flourish — targeting imported solar panels, steel, aluminum and pretty much everything from China.

‘Tariff Man,’ he called himself.

This time, he’s gone much further: He has proposed a 60% tariff on goods from China — and a tariff of up to 20% on everything else the United States imports.”

Even worse, Trump supports “Bibi” Netanyahu’s genocidal devastation of Gaza. He risks embroiling us in a war with Iran, which could quickly escalate into a nuclear holocaust. He said about Netanyahu “Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu in one call this month, ‘Do what you have to do,’ according to six people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and confidential information. Trump has said publicly that the two have spoken at least twice in October, with one call as recently as Oct. 19.

‘He didn’t tell him what to do militarily, but he expressed that he was impressed by the pagers’ said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who was on a call this month with Trump and Netanyahu, referring to the Israeli operation that killed Hezbollah leaders with explosive batteries inside pagers. ‘He expressed his awe for their military operations and what they have done.’ Graham added: ‘He told them, do what you have to do to defend yourself, but we’re openly talking about a new Mideast. Trump understands that very much there has to be change with the corrupt Palestinian state.’”

Speaking of foreign policy, we also need to abolish the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI. These agencies have been responsible for military interventions in many foreign countries, and they spy on American citizens.

As the quotes above make clear, Trump strongly supports tariffs generally, not just against China. Tariffs are bad for American consumers. They raise prices on goods consumers want to purchase, and it is no coincidence that practically all economists think they are a bad idea. Perhaps even worse is that Trump does not want to cut government spending. To the contrary, his budget proposals call for more spending than the proposals of the free-spending Democrats. Trump will not end what Dr. Ron Paul aptly calls the “spending mania.” Trump would make our already blown-up budget deficit higher than it now is: “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s tax and spending plans would produce more than twice as much new debt as the plans from Vice President Kamala Harris, a budget-focused think-tank estimated on Monday.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which advocates reducing federal deficits, released new detailed estimates showing Harris’ tax and spending plans would add $3.5 trillion to deficits over 10 years, while Trump’s would add $7.5 trillion.”

When Trump was President the last time, he pressured the Fed to lower interest rates. The Austrian theory of the business cycle has conclusively proved that this leads to artificial booms and depressions. Instead we need to “End the Fed!,” a call to battle that will always be associated in our minds with the great Ron Paul: “‘Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve,’ writes Texas Congressman Ron Paul in his latest book hitting shelves this week, titled ‘End the Fed.’

‘It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class.’

Paul makes the case that the Fed is the main culprit responsible for the current economic mess the country faces through the destructive policies of cheap credit and excessive money printing.’

‘Prosperity can never be achieved by cheap credit,’ says Paul. ‘If that were so, no one would have to work for a living. Inflated prices only deceive one into believing that real wealth has been created.’

The Federal Reserve, created in 1913, has been acting as the main central bank of the United States for nearly one hundred years. Many Americans are either not sure or not interested in what role the Fed plays in managing the economy. ‘The economic crisis has changed everything,’ writes Congressman Paul.”

One final point. Trump has shown a commendable resistance to the woke ideology. But it has been aptly said that while the Democrats are the evil party, the Republicans are the stupid party. We must be alert to attempts to keep DEI while doing it in a “reasonable way” and favoring “equality of opportunity” not “equality of result” instead of rejecting equality altogether, as Murray Rothbard did: “If mankind is diverse and individuated, then how can anyone propose equality as an ideal? Every year, scholars hold Conferences on Equality and call for greater equality, and no one challenges the basic tenet. But what justification can equality find in the nature of man? If each individual is unique, how else can he be made ‘equal’ to others than by destroying most of what is human in him and reducing human society to the mindless uniformity of the ant heap?”

Originally published at LewRockwell.com.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia.

Originally Posted at https://mises.org/

zerohedge
Economics , News , Politics , Science
November 22, 2024
2 views

Utility Companies Are Not On Our Side

Authored by Linnea Leuken & H. Sterlin Burnett via RealClearPolitics,

When electric power was a novel idea and just beginning to be adopted in urban centers, the industry had a Wild West feel to it as multiple companies strung wires, opened power plants, and sold electricity on an unregulated market. Competition was fierce, but state and local governments concluded that the inefficiencies and redundancies endangered the public and imposed higher costs.

So states set up service territories with monopolistic or oligopolistic service providers, who were entrusted with providing reliable power and sufficient reserve for peak periods in return for being guaranteed a profit on rates proposed by the utilities but approved or set by newly established state public utility commissions (PUCs). These commissions were charged with ensuring public utilities served the general public universally within their territory, providing reliable service at reasonable rates.

Much has changed since then. Politicians began to supplant engineers to decide, based on self-interested calculations, what types of power should be favored and disfavored, and what types of appliances and modes of transportation Americans could use. As the 21st century dawned, a new consideration entered the picture: Climate change.

Under the banner of combatting global warming, utilities were at first encouraged and then coerced into adopting plans and policies aimed at achieving net zero emissions of carbon dioxide. The aim of providing reliable, affordable power – the rationale for the electric utilities’ monopolies in the first place – was supplanted by a controversial and partisan political goal. Initially, as states began to push renewable energy mandates, utilities fought back, arguing that prematurely closing reliable power plants, primarily coal-fueled, would increase energy costs, compromise grid reliability, and leave them with millions of dollars in stranded assets.

Politicians addressed those concerns with subsidies and tax credits for renewable power. In addition, they passed on the costs of the expanded grid to ratepayers and taxpayers. Effectively, elected officials and the PUCs, with a wink and a nod, indemnified utilities for power supply failures, allowing utilities to claim that aging grid infrastructure and climate change were to blame for failures rather than the increased percentage of intermittent power added to the grid at their direction.

Today, utilities have enthusiastically embraced the push for renewable (but less reliable) resources, primarily wind and solar. PUCs guarantee a high rate of return for all new power source (wind, solar, and battery) installations, which has resulted in the construction of ever more and bigger wind, solar, and battery facilities. The costlier, the more profitable – regardless of their compromised ability to provide reliable power or the cost impact on residential, commercial, and industrial ratepayers.

A new report from The Heartland Institute demonstrates the significant financial incentives from government and financiers for utilities to turn away from affordable energy sources like natural gas and coal, and even nuclear, and instead aggressively pursue wind and solar in particular. All of this is done in the name of pursuing net zero emissions, which every single major utility company in the country boasts about on their corporate reports and websites. Reliability and affordability come secondary to the decarbonization agenda.

Dominion Energy is a good example, as they are one of the most aggressive movers on climate-focused policy. Dominion CEO Robert Blue speaks excitedly about government-forced transitions to a wind- and solar-dominated grid in interviews. During one interview with a renewable energy podcast, he said:

“[S]ometimes the government needs to focus on outcomes. We’re trying to address a climate crisis, and we are going to need to move quickly to do that.” In the same interview, he expressed enthusiasm about federal policy that would achieve a government-directed transition.

And why wouldn’t he? Dominion, like most utilities, is granted government tax credits and guarantees on returns for investing in large, expensive projects like offshore wind, the most expensive source of electric power. The bigger the project, the bigger the profit with guaranteed returns.

Also, onshore wind companies have received special “take limits” from the Fish and Wildlife Service to kill protected bald eagles and golden eagles, while prosecuting oil companies if birds are injured or killed on their sites.

Net zero policies are not the environmental panacea that climate change activists proclaim. Industrial-scale wind and solar use substantially more land than conventional energy resources, disrupting ecosystems and destroying wildlife habitats in the process.

And despite recent technological advances, wind and solar are still not dispatchable resources, meaning they cannot provide consistent power at all times needed. Refuting claims made by environmentalists and utilities that wind and solar are the cheapest sources of electric power, costs have risen steeply as the use of wind and solar has increased. Customers of Duke Energy in Kentucky, for example, are paying 78% higher rates in the wake of coal-fired plant closings.

Politicians and utilities are pushing for even more electrification for appliances and vehicles despite the fact that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials have repeatedly warned in recent years that adding more demand for electric power while replacing reliable power sources with intermittent renewables is destabilizing the power system.

It appears that the utilities prioritize short-term profits over grid reliability or keeping costs reasonable – and the government officials who are supposed to keep them in check are only encouraging them. It doesn’t need to be this way. The U.S. grid was not always this way. Only in recent years, with the obsessive pursuit of net zero, have rolling black and brownouts become so common.

Today, utility companies are sending lobbyists to conservative policymakers in order to convince them that the utilities have our best interests in mind. Their track record tells another story. Meanwhile, Americans have less reliable electricity at higher costs.

Linnea Lueken (llueken@heartland.org, X: @LinneaLueken) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/22/2024 – 06:30