Arnold Kling ponders producers versus parasites. A slice:
What I notice is that the elites on the Republican side tend to earn a living as producers. They make things that other people want or need.
In contrast, elites on the Democratic side include many people one may think of as parasites. They depend on producers for taxes or donations, but they do not produce what consumers want. They may even make a living by impeding production.
For example, land-use regulation serves to transfer resources away from the producers to various parasites. Taxes are collected to pay for government officials to implement the regulations. Developers hire staff whose task is to comply with regulations. They also devote resources to funding friendly politicians in order to speed the process of obtaining permits and exemptions.
As President Joe Biden continues to mull whether to allow one private steelmaking company to purchase another, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the bizarre political alliances that opponents of the U.S. Steel/Nippon Steel deal have forged.
Like the American steelmaking company that’s working with a prominent environmentalist group to lobby the White House to block the deal.
The steel company is Cleveland-Cliffs, the Ohio-based company that lost the bidding war to buy U.S. Steel last year. Since then, Cleveland-Cliffs has been using whatever leverage it can find to get the federal government to block Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion purchase of U.S. Steel — because if Nippon’s purchase doesn’t go through, Cleveland-Cliffs will be well-positioned to swoop in and buy U.S. Steel at a discount.
The full extent of Cleveland-Cliffs’ efforts was detailed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week. The rival steelmakers allied with the union representing many U.S. Steel employees, called in favors from Sen J.D. Vance (R–Ohio), and lobbied hard both in public and behind the scenes to call the deal into question. Indeed, it was Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves who pushed the idea that Nippon’s purchase of U.S. Steel could somehow threaten U.S. national security, despite the fact that Nippon is a publicly traded company based in Japan, a close U.S. ally. Nonetheless, the Biden administration has taken that claim at least somewhat seriously.
My GMU Econ colleague Bryan Caplan writes a sympathetic open letter, about immigration, to Elon Musk.
Bjorn Lomborg reports that “green energy costs a bundle.” Two slices:
As nations use more and more supposedly cheap solar and wind power, a strange thing happens: Our power bills get more expensive. This exposes the environmentalist lie that renewables have already outmatched fossil fuels and that the “green transition” is irreversible even under a second Trump administration.
The claim that green energy is cheaper relies on bogus math that measures the cost of electricity only when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Modern societies need around-the-clock power, requiring backup, often powered by fossil fuels. That means we’re paying for two power systems: renewables and backup. Moreover, as fossil fuels are used less, those power sources need to earn their capital costs back in fewer hours, leading to even more expensive power.
…..
At least climate-obsessed European governments are generally honest about solar and wind costs and raise electricity prices accordingly, making consumers bear the weight of green energy policies directly. In the U.S., by contrast, consumers pay solar and wind costs indirectly—through tax deductions and subsidies.
Solar and wind credits cost the federal government more than $20 billion in 2024, supplemented by state subsidies. Texas received about $2 billion in federal subsidies last year, and state government subsidies at least tripled that cost. This suggests a total hidden cost for the entire U.S. that perhaps runs more than $60 billion annually, implying that the actual cost of electricity with solar and wind is far higher than stated prices.
My Mercatus Center colleague Emily Hamilton explores possible reforms of U.S. building codes.
“Would You Want Any of These People Teaching Your Student?”
Timothy Taylor writes about economics and public policy. A slice:
Oddly enough, we just had a presidential election in which both Trump and Harris were undergraduate economics majors. This fact does not necessarily raise one’s hopes about how economics can contribute to public debate and policy-making.
Tevi Troy surveys the legacy of Jimmy Carter. A slice:
Carter’s inability to prioritize effectively was evident from the beginning. Somehow, he even managed to botch his own inauguration. His team, led by strategist Hamilton Jordan, snubbed Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill on inauguration tickets. It was a slight O’Neill would not forget. O’Neill took to referring to Jordan as “Hannibal Jerkin,” and wrote in his memoirs that “As far as Jordan was concerned, a House Speaker was something you bought on sale at Radio Shack.” One time, O’Neill called Carter himself and, when Carter asked what he could do for him, O’Neill said acidly, “I would like you to go down the hall and ask Hamilton Jordan to return my call.” The snubs made O’Neill less interested in cooperating with the new president on his legislative agenda.
Carter’s problems with Congress went beyond the Speaker. At one point, Carter legislative aide Frank Moore asked Carter to invite Democratic senators Fritz Hollings and Lloyd Bentsen over to play tennis. They played a set, and then Carter walked back to the White House. The senators were irked not to have a chance for a post-tennis schmooze, but Carter was unapologetic, dismissively telling Moore, “You told me to play tennis with them. I played tennis with them.” It’s not for nothing that his media guru Gerald Rafshoon once observed, “You know, JC only stands for ‘Jimmy Carter.’”
