Bjorn Lomborg isn’t favorably impressed by Germany’s environmental policies.
Jonah Goldberg reflects on the mainstream-media’s absurd obsession with the Koch brothers. A slice:
Al Gore reportedly left government with a net worth of less than $2 million; he’s now worth more than $200 million, in part by profiting from climate policies he lobbies for. Gore surely believes in those policies, but why does he get the benefit of the doubt? GE spent millions on politics in exchange for “green energy” policies that generate billions in profits that wouldn’t exist in a free market. Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon recently chronicled how George Soros and new liberal golden-boy fat cat Tom Steyer have financial interests at stake in their own preferred public policies. And yet they get glowing treatment from the press as idealists sacrificing profit for principles.
The irony is that it’d be in the media’s business interest to report on the seedy underbelly of liberal politics, too. But they don’t, because they actually do put their liberal principles before profits.
Terree Summer rightly warns against falling for governnments’ odious appeals to envy – as in their efforts to “correct” market-driven income inequality. Here’s her conclusion:
A society that encourages envy in order to “level the playing field” for its citizens is a society that will implode from within. Oppressive government spending programs requiring high taxation and controls on individuals can lead to economic stagnation or even collapse. There is something particularly sordid about politicians who play on our envy. It is a game of power and contro,l and it can lead people to justify using violence to take the property of others. Citizens of every country should learn to recognize whether politicians are manipulating them by playing on their envy. Only when we learn to aspire and admire those that are economically successful, and not be envious of them, will we see our economies flourish.
