Presto Agitato

Medical Econ 101

Funny thing about heathcare markets, they work just like every other market.  Go figure.

Feck, Shite, Arse

James Q. Wilson, RIP

I was unhappy to learn, yesterday, of the death of Andrew Breitbart — and not just because he was, um, not much older than me (coff) — but this is just devastating:

With the death of James Q. Wilson earlier today, America has lost a towering intellectual figure. The mind reels when thinking about the issues Professor Wilson wrote about with such precision, intelligence, originality, and elegance: crime and human nature;  drug legalization, science, and addiction; moral character; benevolence; free will; families and communities; race; business ethics and capitalism; American government; democracy and the Islamic world; and much more.

James Q. Wilson was not only America’s pre-eminent political and social scientist, he was one of our leading moral philosophers. There was no subject, it seemed, on which he couldn’t deepen our understanding.

He was also a monumental presence within conservatism. Professor Wilson brought to the movement what it desperately needed: rigorous and cogent analysis; respect for social science and empirical data; and a calm, measured style that never exceeded what the evidence indicated.

Requiescat in pace, sir.  Sigh.

Halftime

Quote of the Day: Barbed

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me. — Jourdan Anderson

*Snort*

Mr. Conservative

Pete Wehner stumbles to the point about Mr. Gingrich:

The single most important idea, when it comes to fundamentally changing Washington, is the budget plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan last April.  When most massive-scale-of-change conservatives were defending Ryan’s plan against scorching criticisms from the left, Gingrich described the plan as an example of ‘right-wing social engineering’.  It was Gingrich, not the rest of us, who was counseling caution, timidity, and an unwillingness to shape (rather than follow) public opinion.  (The Medicare reform plan Gingrich eventually put out wasn’t nearly as bold and far-reaching as the one put out by Governor Romney.)

So much for Mr. Fundamental Change.

One does notice, as an aside, that American ‘conservatives’, this year as in 2010, are demanding fundamental change regarding several things, most importantly regarding federal spending and the size and role of government in private lives, which gives the lie to the standard terminology of American political debate; in the standard political terminology, contrary to the fraudulent argot of American political punditry, this year's Republicans (or, more specifically, ‘Tea Partiers’) are the liberals, i.e. the ones who are standing for liberty.

Chuck Woolery for President

These aren't just ‘baseline cuts’ but for-real, bona fide, honest-to-goodness cuts!  But Chuck, honey, $1.5 trillion isn't even a drop in the ten-year bucket (a few trillion here, a few trillion there…), so let's get back to the chopping-block, eh?

Oh, yes, one more thing: Those ‘squirrels’ are rabbits.

Free Markets and Competition — Unless We're Losing

It seems that the economic principles of several candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are subject to, um, modification when class warfare is more convenient:

How, one wonders, does a person make money by bankrupting a business?  Profit, without government intervention, is about adding value, either according to customers' wishes or in the view of investors — and it's hard to accomplish the second if you don't accomplish the first. 

It is certainly possible to reorganize a troubled business so that it is profitable, which may involve reducing expenses, selling off parts that don't fit well with the whole, and closing other parts that are beyond help, and bankruptcy can be a tool in reorganizing old debt, but any business that is a candidate for such treatment is — let me say this again — troubled, and jobs will be lost either way.  The only question is whether the business and at least some of its jobs will survive or the whole thing will go down the drain.

So the question for Gingrich, Huntsman, Perry, and Santorum is: You're running for the nomination of which party?

Don't Like Huntsman? You're Nuts!

I'm not sure Jon Huntsman really wants to run with this theme:

In an interview Friday, the Utah governor turned [ambassador to China] said bluntly that the GOP had lost its equilibrium in the Obama era but predicted it would eventually return to its bearings — and vindicate his own brand of pragmatism.

‘I believe in the ideas put forward by Theodore White, the cycles of history’, Huntsman told POLITICO.  ‘I believe we are in one such cycle.  I think that cycle ultimately takes us to a sane Republican Party based on real ideas.’

So smaller government, lower taxes, and balanced budgets don't count?  And he wonders why he polls so poorly?

Mr. Huntsman began his campaign by excoriating Republicans as antiscientific know-nothings for questioning the global-warming panic.  Yet only a week ago, Huntsman was declaring himself the true conservative in the race.  Makes you wonder what he means by ‘conservative’, doesn't it?  (Assuming that you give a damn, of course.)

What the Frack?

This week in ‘environmental science’, from The Fiscal Times:

Environmental Protection Agency Strikes Gas!  That should have been the headline last week that instead ran as ‘EPA says fracking may be polluting groundwater’.  Here’s the story: the EPA says tests it conducted in Pavillion, Wyoming ‘indicate that ground water in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing.’  However, it turns out that the EPA drilled two monitoring wells to some 900 feet — much deeper than water wells which are usually at about 300 feet — and indeed found hydrocarbons.  In short, they drilled into the natural gas reservoir that has long attracted industry producers.  It may the single most productive moment in EPA history.

Sigh.