In the Wisconsin GOP primary we have a choice between Rebecca and Tim. WI GOP primary voters need to vote for Rebecca to have the best chance of unseating our current governor, The Suit in November. In addition, putting a dismal choice like Tim at the top of the state ticket will not be good for America’s Best Senator, Ron Johnson.
Stay away from stupid WI GOP! We can have a great November if you do.
There has been a heatwave in Europe and any extreme weather brings out the worst of the arguments over Climate Change. The folks at The Morning Dispatch have their knickers in a knot over the extreme weather where England hit an all-time (well, for the few hundred years we’ve been recording temperatures) high. It is the second item for that morning and since The Donald is the first item, it might be that the editorial work went into The Donald. Here is the second paragraph on weather:
An unprecedented heatwave ripped through Europe this week, killing at least 1,900 people in Spain and Portugal alone—a toll that’s likely to rise in the next few weeks as countries collect data. More than 20 countries were under heat warnings on Tuesday, and—considering only 5 percent of European homes have air conditioning, and parts of Europe are as far north as Canada—the people and infrastructure are ill-equipped to handle heat topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit. [Emphasis added]
We can see the editorial problems with the phase, as far north as Canada. We are really saving Captain Obvious for later but Europe and Canada are big places. And the Canadian-US border has lots of zigzags. It helps if you know Canada is the answer to the trivia question: What international border do you cross first when going south from Detroit? The folks at The Morning Dispatch are trying to go sensational on the European heatwave and not getting there. Then there is the comment about the people. As someone else pointed out, the Europeans colonized large and mostly very hot portions of the planet a few centuries ago while wearing suits and hats. Joe Cocker made an album about how Englishmen are heat resistance.
Our real interest, however, is on the next item from the paragraph above: infrastructure. If you think that the current heat wave is a harbinger of the future then you need to think about infrastructure. To spell it out, if you think that we will have more and more extreme weather events that kill thousands of people then you are duty bound to think about infrastructure. And if you believe that then you think that they are going to increase for the next 28 years until the net zero target in 2050. When, we suppose, they continue on indefinitely.
Sidebar One: We see the chance of reaching net zero in 2050 as very close to zero. Unreliable sources of energy are not going to help much. We see that as India backed down unreliable sources and went back to coal. Coal is low-tech, available, and bad for the environment but it is an easy choice for the Indians between death and discomfort. Folks in DC, London, and Brussels might pick Indian deaths but Indians won’t. End Sidebar One.
Captain Obvious, tell The Dispatch what could prevent these deaths? Captain Obvious says, “Infrastructure, in particular reliable energy could prevent these deaths.” The Dispatch and the rest of the climate guys are going to have to make some hard decisions.
Sidebar Two: If a miracle happens such a new form of energy like cold fusion then all our thinking is for naught. Miracles are not a good policy strategy. End Sidebar Two
Are they willing to support expanding the least offensive sources of energy, nukes or natural gas, or put up with all those deaths and the increased coal use as well? We are glad we are not them.
A friend and colleague, Dave Bange had taken to the local paper to recommend that we submit to authority because … well, we are not sure exactly. He is almost as upset as we are delighted with the Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. EPA. After complaining about some of the other decisions by the Supremes Dave summarizes the situation:
[O]n June 30, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that greatly limited the possibility that the US can meet the Biden [The Frontrunner] Administration’s goal of reducing greenhouse gasses to 50% of their 2005 levels [by 2030]. The ruling against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was a dark day for everyone concerned about the increasing amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.
Then there is the fuzzy thinking about wind and solar power:
Given the steady decline in the costs for installation of both solar panels and wind farms, and the resulting implementation of both by power utilities, some progress toward reducing carbon emissions is being made. I believe this trend will continue despite the Court’s ruling.
Wind and solar are still unreliable, probably costly (and certainly subsidized), and have environmental concerns. Here is the data on US power over time. Looking at the charts one obvious question is: What about nuclear power? Of course, the great reduction in carbon dioxide over past years was made possible by the market switching from coal to natural gas because of the fracking revolution. Wind and solar could continue to grow but it will still be unreliable as the Texas blackouts made obvious. A little snow means no solar power.
There are two major problems with Dave’s argument beyond the pie-in-the-sky alternative energy solution. First, it is circular. The Frontrunner’s administration wants large reductions US emissions of carbon dioxide. They are reluctant to discuss the plan because the costs will likely be enormous. The people’s representatives, Congress, fortunately, disagree. So the 44th president (the one before The Donald) recognized that legislation wouldn’t pass and ordered the EPA to do what it didn’t have authority to do. The Supremes said the law said what it said and here we are. There is no reason why we should allow The Frontrunner and the EPA to act illegally. The 44th president, The Frontrunner, and Dave have little to say on why the US should try to meet those goals.
The second problem is the framing of the argument. The problem is not carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The problem is Climate Change. Climate Change has costs and benefits, e.g., more people die from cold than from heat. We agree that as of today the best estimates are that the costs of Climate Change outweigh the benefits. Carbon dioxide is part of the cause of Climate Change. Different methods of reducing carbon dioxide have different costs and (almost?) all of them are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Trying to reach The Frontrunner’s goals is likely to be extraordinarily costly and not produce equal benefits.
We need to weigh the cost and benefits of government policies. One of the costs of The Frontrunner’s extraordinarily expensive goals is that they discourage fossil fuel exploration, extraction, and refining. These fuels that currently produce most of our electrical power and almost all of our transportation power are not going away anytime soon. But announcements like this shutdown of a refinery means more problems down the road.
Sidebar: Why is this refinery being shut down during a period of high gas prices? It is because of the long-term investment. The owners believe the administration when they say they want to stop fossil fuels and so millions or billions of dollars in updates that must make a return over decades become a bad investment. End Sidebar.
We need energy and Climate Change policies that consider both the costs and benefits of such actions. We continue to like what we wrote for sensible energy policies the other day:
It should start with modest carbon tax replacing the gas tax. Then we encourage the market with the elimination (well, reduction) of energy-specific subsidies. We create a safe harbor for X (50?) years for finding, recovering, and refining fossil fuels. And there should be an emphasis on economic growth world-wide including free trade because wealthy countries can adapt.
Perhaps we should add nuclear power too. Top-down solutions like The Frontrunner’s goals are not able to adapt to new information. It is even worse that the goals were arrived at in an illegal manner. Our goal should be to minimize the cost of Climate Change rather than minimize carbon dioxide or Climate Change. The is room for government action in encouraging research, helping nuclear power, and setting rules but the constant recalibrations necessary are what markets do best.
Matthew Daly’s “explainer” post from June 30 of Why The Supreme Court’s EPA-Climate Change Ruling Matters showed up in our local paper today. It is a whole half page that demonstrates the problems we as a country have in trying to create sensible policies for energy and Climate Change. His summary is:
In its major decision, the court limited the reach of the nation’s main anti-air pollution law that’s used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The 6-3 ruling declared that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to regulate emissions from plants that contribute to global warming.
More precisely, it was the 44th president that tried to create the idea that carbon dioxide, not a pollutant, is a pollutant. The Supreme Court stopped that silliness. Then he tells us more good news:
The decision also could have a broader effect on other agencies’ regulatory efforts, from education to transportation and food.
Although we are not sure that Matthew sees it as good news that regulators should be limited by laws. Then he gives us a misleading read of the sides in the contest:
Leaders in coal-state West Virginia welcomed the ruling. But [our current president The Frontrunner] called it “another devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards.” He said he will continue to use his authority when possible to protect public health [huh?] and address climate change.
It is particularly dishonest paragraph because coal produces a substantial amount of pollutants. The Clean Air Act instructs the EPA to regulate those and other pollutants. The people that should be the most economically happy are the natural gas producers because burning natural gas produces carbon dioxide but less pollution than coal. An alternative and similarly dishonest way to summarize the sides in the dispute would be: Leaders in Communist China, the main supplier of solar panels created by slave labor, were disappointed in the ruling but reasonable people who think the laws should be enforced equally were delighted with the outcome.
It is proper that the issues of energy and Climate Change policy have been returned to the people’s representatives in Congress. There is still the danger that they will do something as stupid
Sidebar One: We try to steer away from stupid and call bad choices foolish. In creating energy and Climate Change policies, however, there are lots of ideas that deserve stupid as a modifier. The current high cost and low return scheme richly deserves that. End Sidebar One.
as what the EPA was doing and The Frontrunner still wants to do. If Congress takes such stupid actions they will be accountable to the voters.
Sidebar Two: So what might sensible policies for energy and Climate Change look like? It should start with modest carbon tax replacing the gas tax. Then we encourage the market with the elimination (well, reduction) of energy-specific subsidies. We create a safe harbor for X (50?) years for finding, recovering, and refining fossil fuels. And there should be an emphasis on economic growth world-wide including free trade because wealthy countries can adapt. End Sidebar Two.
Our system is not a perfect system as voters make mistakes too. But at least the voters bear the cost of their own mistakes.
We were reading Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt that discussed the economic disaster in Sri Lanka and a phrase stuck with us. We had a hard time finding it until we realized that it was actually Jim quoting Dominic Pino from a month ago as part of Capital Matters at NRO. The phrase is:
But poor leadership is common in the developing world, and less robust economies are especially susceptible to bad luck. [Emphasis added]
Yes, you should read all of both of them. In fact you should subscribe to NRO. The phrase stuck in our mind because of what we have bolded in the first half and the second half as well. To start with the first half, we don’t think that the developing world has the exclusive rights to poor leadership. The state of New York banned fracking awhile ago and did this more recently. Texas had electricity blackouts. Of course there is Venezuela on the developing side but there is Germany and many other European countries that decided to rely on Russian natural gas.
We think that poor leadership is the natural state of affairs. The voters should take some of the blame, look at the senate candidates in Pennsylvania (GOP & Dem) this year, but leadership is hard. Even Churchill isn’t always right (you need to scroll down a bit if you are not familiar with the issue).
So if bad leadership is the natural state of affairs among countries then does the second part, “less robust economies are especially susceptible to bad luck,” tell the tale? Yes, in part. An excellent analogy is if Sri Lanka and the USA sit down to all all night high stakes game of chance we know the likely winner. The USA and Sri Lanka have taken foolish actions related to Climate Change and the environment. They both had the bad luck of Russia v. Ukraine. Now we could try to compare measurements on the actions but we don’t have a foolometer. Since we don’t have one we will go with the different robustness of the two economies as explaining why Sri Lanka is in big trouble and the USA isn’t (yet?).
Related to robustness are institutions like rule of law and free trade. Most of those institutions are reflected in the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom where Sri Lanka ranks 132 out of 177 while the USA ranks 25 and Germany 16. These institutions make the economies in countries like the USA and Germany robust and they also make them less susceptible to bad luck.
As we see it, any country only gets good leadership once in awhile. If that leadership is able to build the institutions that lead to a robust economy then the country can suffer the fools in leadership with much less damage.
We need to break the current logjam on energy policy as relates to Climate Change. Holman W. Jenkins, jr. at the WSJ takes a swipe at it. It is worth reading it in full if you can get past the paywall. We think he has some excellent ideas but he asks and expects too much. First, we start with the good ideas. Near the beginning Homan has a great summary of where we stand now on the issues of energy, climate, infrastructure and the carbon tax:
The political system continues to have nothing useful to say about the possibility that fossil fuels might be influencing the weather. But the carbon tax deal that’s been on the table for decades is also still on the table.
The reason a carbon tax is still on the table is that Democrats hate market solutions and the GOP dilsikes taxes. Later on he gets into the problem, the real problem as we see it, of infrastructure. Again, the carbon tax plays a part:
The price mechanism would do the work of limiting emissions and pernicious activists in and out of government could stop trying to sandbag a drilling project here, a pipeline investment there, as if this were having any impact other than metastasizing fragility through the energy system.
We see two major problems with Holman’s view: holding out for pro-growth tax cuts and controlling obstruction. We love the growth fairy more than almost anyone and recognize that growth is perhaps the best climate policy because wealthy countries can afford to adapt. Holman, however, wants pro-growth tax cuts in return for a carbon tax. It is not going to happen for at least three reasons. First, any modest carbon tax, say, up to double the gas tax, is not going to be a big revenue generator so there isn’t big money to spend. Second, it is not going to be the deal the left is looking for. They are not excited about a carbon tax and they are not pro-growth so it is at best Holman’s proposal is a tie and loss for them. Third, us fans of the growth fairy, both Holman and MWG, are going to get growth from the increased energy efficiency and the expansion of infrastructure for all kinds of energy including fossil fuels. A better suggestion for the small government windfall would include research into energy including nuclear and reducing the deficit.
The second major problem with Holman’s proposal is that the Democrats, greens, Luddites, and others that metastasized the fragility of the energy system are not going to go quietly because there is a carbon tax. There will need to be leadership by the Democrats and legislation to reduce the opportunities for obstruction. The Democrats and the rest on the left want a top-down solution but the carbon tax is a market based solution. We’d love to see a Democrat thundering down on the obstructionists to fossil fuel and nuclear power infrastructure but it is hard to imagine anyone in that party providing leadership in that direction.
Then there is legislation needed on two fronts. First, investors need some assurance that the government is not going to run them out of business like our current energy secretary wants. We have no idea what such legislation would entail but there will be little of the enormous long-term investment in fossil fuel and nuclear power infrastructure we need without it. Second, we need to rewrite existing legislation so that energy infrastructure is not caught in a series of revolving lawsuits. It is not going to be easy to protect the environment and the right to a day in court while getting projects approved or disapproved on a timely basis.
Energy policy related to Climate Change is a serious problem with an obvious solution. The attempts by government to force wind and solar as a solution while rejecting fossil fuel and nuclear power have been an abject failure. The obvious solution is using a carbon tax to reduce the use of fossil fuel eventually while committing to effective use of all energy sources for some substantial period. The concept is easy but the implementation is going to be a bitch.
We are delighted with retirement. We were a professor and some times an administrator at various universities for forty years and loved it but we have other interests like family, handball, bridge, travel, and blogging that a well planned and financed retirement would allow us to pursue.
Our great sadness comes from the evidence that our chosen profession is not for us the option it was. To be clear, it is not an option for a roughly 24 year-old version of us because of our conservatism and the expansion of the oddly named diversity, inclusion, and equity programs (DIE) at universities. Inclusion excludes, among many others, conservatives.
Sidebar: Of course, the 24 year-old version of MWG would likely ignore some of the walls and still try to run through the other walls. We, like most entering academia we think, didn’t really understand how the academic world worked. It is just that the almost three times older version of us understands the walls better and how they have been reinforced by DIE. End Sidebar.
To be a professor you obviously must be hired and then retained, promoted, and tenured to remain at your post. The focus of our concern came from a Campus Reform report that the University of Washington failed to pass a DIE proposal (although they change the order of the letters):
A proposed revision to the University of Washington’s faculty code requiring professors to commit to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has failed to pass the Seattle institution’s faculty senate.
It only failed to pass because a super-majority was required. Over 60 percent were in favor but that was not quite enough to pass the proposal. We wonder if it was a secret ballot. In addition, the report notes that many other institutions have passed such requirements.
It doesn’t matter if the proposal actually passed because of the nature of hiring, retention, promotion, and tenure. These processes vary across universities but generally they are handled by faculty committees with oversight from the administration. At our former school, there would generally need to be agreement between the faculty committee and the dean. Generally (as in almost always), the dean would only support a candidate when there was strong faculty support. Thus, six-four vote in favor of a candidate by the faculty committee means that the dean is likely to be a nay and the candidate will not be hired, retained, promoted, or tenured. It doesn’t matter if DIE is the official or unofficial policy of the university. With so many faculty on the DIE bandwagon, as even the failed vote indicates, and the administration staunchly behind DIE, any individual bringing intellectual diversity of a conservative bent is highly unlikely to survive because the faculty and the administration will use DIE as part of their decision making. To be convinced of the administration’s support for DIE, go to the website of our former school and see that diversity is on of the seven buttons on the home page. Try searching diversity at that or any school website. You find many internal websites. Then type in “conservative.” You will find a entirely different level of connections. This is a great one – the first black GOP WI state senator is one of our alums but it is just news. DIE is a real force at almost every university.
DIE will make it difficult for any academic conservative to prosper at almost any school. Yes, there are schools like Hillsdale College and few others, but, from our perspective, there are few schools with quality accounting programs without DIE. It is sad to reflect that we have lost the opportunity to do what we think we did best.
Our president, The Frontrunner, has been betraying his lack of understanding of markets and particularly the gasoline market by harping on everyone he can to shift the blame for high gas prices away from his administration. He has tried Vladimir Putin, the oil companies, and lately gas station owners. The opinion editors at the WSJ have this tweet from The Frontrunner:
“My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril,” Mr. Biden tweeted Saturday. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.”
The editors have a nice take on The Frontrunner’s tweet:
It’s embarrassing for the leader of the free world to sound like he’s channeling Hugo Chávez. A Chinese state media flack praised Mr. Biden’s tweet: “Now US President finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation. He didn’t believe this before.” Or maybe he did, and nobody wanted to believe it.
Well said. Many others have piled on about The Frontrunner’s lack of understanding of gas station economics. Here is part of a post from Eric Boehm at Reason:
The Hustle, a business and tech newsletter, put together a useful breakdown of the economics of gas stations last year. “Selling gas generally isn’t very profitable” due largely to intense price competition among retailers and the ease with which consumers can shop around (because they are literally in their cars). On fuel alone, gas stations have an average margin of 1.4 percent.
You already knew that right? Convenience stores usually are more expensive than grocery stores but if you’ve already stopped for gas you might as well pick up a few things. Does Kwik Trip make more on our $60 fill-up or the bottle of Diet Pepsi we get with it? We don’t know but suspect it is a closely run thing. We would like to add one more reason why gas stations can’t reduce prices. It is illegal in Wisconsin and a number of other states that have minimum markup laws to prevent cutthroat competition. He is part of a post from Ike Brannon and Will Flanders at Cato arguing for the repeal of such laws:
Fifteen states, including Wisconsin, have minimum markup laws that apply to most retail goods, and an additional eight states have such laws applied specifically to gasoline.
It is worth a read to see the strange rules business owners have to be careful about. So, The Frontrunner is telling the gas station owners to reduce prices while many states are making it illegal for them to do so. Trying to be a capitalist has its challenges.
Minimum markup laws and Vlad’s war are small part of the energy problem. The biggest problem is that The Frontrunner and the Democrats have vowed to end fossil fuels in a short period of time. See this search. Jennifer Granholm is The Frontrunner’s Secretary of Energy. A few weeks ago she said:
She added that the only way for the nation to avoid “boom-and-bust cycles” was to break its “sole reliance” on fossil fuels. That effort, she said, would mean diversifying the nation’s fuel sources by deploying “clean energy.”
We wish Jennifer was right about sole reliance on fossil fuels. As the Democrats are currently in power and regularly come to power fossil fuel companies are reluctant to make long-term investments like new oil wells, pipelines, and the refineries we desperately need. We are in big trouble because their favored sources, wind and solar, are ineffective at producing power and they also reject nuclear power.
We need a modest carbon tax, an end to energy specific subsidies, and most of the things on the API list. To do it we need a president that works with Congress and a Congress that actually considers and sometimes passes legislation. Only then will we get the energy that is readily available.
In case you didn’t read our review of The Rivals, here is our opening paragraph with some small adjustments that is mostly about American Players Theatre (APT):
American Players Theatre (APT) in Spring Green, Wisconsin is almost fully back. We had to insert almost in the previous sentence because when we went to the link above one of the recent performances was cancelled because of COVID. APT has two theatres: Up The Hill and Touchstone. As you might guess, Up The Hill is an open air affair in a bowl near the top of a hill that we would guess seats around a thousand. Touchstone is a much smaller indoor theatre. We recommend it for matinees as Wisconsin afternoons can get warm. We spent two delightful evenings Up The Hill and under the stars.
The first night was the previous post on The Rivals and the second night was William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet. It is one of the most produced, most quoted, and, best plays of all time. APT does it justice. Here is one list of quotes from the play. It doesn’t include the one we remembered: down the primrose path. One of the many great things about Will is his ability to inject humor into tragedy. So when Polonius says, “Brevity is the soul of wit,” we know that he is a man without wit. Another example is the gravedigger scene that is late in the tragedy and yet laced with humor. As always, modern writers can learn from Will. One point is that tragedy become even more pronounced when there has been a moment of humor or hope. The writers of so many dark shows on TV could take note.
Hamlet at ATP is a great show and you should see it. We should like to point out three items that help make it great: the set, the costumes, and Kelsey Brennen as Horatio. The set is a prison set in metal gates that are always being noisily open and shut. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (R&G) are all but locked in when they arrive.
The costumes are epic and a great theme in the play. The costume on Ghost of Hamlet’s Father (David Daniel) is worth the price of admission. David should get an award for making it up and down the aisles in that costume. The current king, Hamlet’s uncle, is in charge of the prison and dressed like the guards. Polonius and especially Gertrude (Colleen Madden) are dressed elegantly as they court the guards and the current king. Colleen has never looked lovelier. Hamlet and Ophelia are the rebels and dressed as such. They are not trying to impress their captors. Hamlet is in ill-fitting jeans and a hoodie. R&G look like Hamlet’s frat brothers that wander into the horror that is Elsinore. If the BBC is looking for a new Dr. Who, then Kelsey as Horatio has already got the costume. The costumes in Hamlet reflect the attention to detail you get when you go to APT.
There are several great performances including David Daniel as the King’s ghost/player/gravedigger and Nate Burger as Hamlet but we picked Kelsey Brennen as Horatio. Part of the reason for singling her out was she was flighty Lydia Languish on Friday and steadfast Horatio on Saturday. We should all have a friend in need like Horatio. It is hard to believe it that Lydia and Horatio are the same person. Another joy of going to APT is that the eighth lead, according to playbook, is so impressive. You should find a way to get to Spring Green and see the shows this summer. There is nothing like live theatre and there are few places like APT.
American Players Theatre (APT) in Spring Green, Wisconsin is almost fully back. We had to insert almost in the previous sentence because when we went to the link above one of yesterday’s performances was cancelled because of COVID. APT has two theatres: Up The Hill and Touchstone. As you might guess, Up The Hill is an open air affair in a bowl near the top of a hill that we would guess seats around a thousand. Touchstone is a much smaller indoor theatre. We recommend it for matinees as Wisconsin afternoons can get warm. We spent two delightful evenings Up The Hill and under the stars.
The first evening was a rollicking comedy, The Rivals written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in 1774 at age 23 or 24. It started with a song, probably not part of the original script, reminding us to turn off our cell phones and giving us an introduction to the plot. The lovely Lydia Languish (Kelsey Brennen) is being wooed by three or four suitors depending on how you count them. Lydia comes from money but want to rebel and elope. Captain Jack Absolute (Marcus Truschinski) is wooing Lydia as Ensign Beverly, a poor enlisted man, in order to appeal to her rebellious nature. Jack’s dad has conspired with Lydia’s aunt, the eponymously named Mrs. Malaprop (Tracy Michelle Arnold), to marry Jack and Lydia. It is a great sit-com with other developing relationships but the night belongs to Mrs. Malaprop and Tracy. How Richard Brinsley Sheridan thought of all of these malapropisms at such a young age and how Tracy can deliver them in such a serious tone are both beyond us.
Go to see The Rivals up the hill at APT. It is great comedy made complete by the professionals at APT. It has the performances (even singing), costumes, staging and the crowd that you would want to be able to truly savor a great show.
menwithgloves 