Updated: Cash-For-Clunkers Cry Babies (& The Tragedy Of The Commons)

Conservatism, Constitution, Economy, Political Economy, Private Property, Republicans, Socialism

I don’t feel sorry for the many car dealers who opted to take taxpayer funds, via the government, and lure equally greedy and gormless customers into junking perfectly good rides, purchasing new ones instead, and taking on more debt. I’m not in the least sorry for them, now that Uncle Sam has stiffed them, no Sirree.

Ridiculous too is the incredulity the auto dealers are feigning at being stiffed (if you can call it that) by their paymaster. “We just expect the same sort of courtesy and treatment from the federal government,” they whimper. Boohoo.

“Dealers across the state are owed more than $3.6 million, according to a dealers’ group which says that so far Uncle Sam has only written three checks totaling about $14,000.”

And:

“You simply can’t ask businesses to front $200,000, $300,000 for any period of time,’ Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told KRQE News 13. ‘These applications are simply not being processed fast enough.'”

You don’t say!

Equally stupid is the only deduction conservatives can muster: If the government can’t manage the CFC scam, how will it run the unconstitutional, confiscatory, immoral healthcare undertaking.

Of course, they omit the key phrases I just used—“scam, unconstitutional, confiscatory, immoral”—these are nowhere apparent in the debate; although Hitler is. A pretty—and pretty dumb—townhaller, taking her cues from Rush, paired health care and Hitler. Good job.)

There’s a lot conservatives can’t find words for: private property, for one. Principles is another. Nothing works in government because there is no private property. If you were given something to manage that you don’t own, have no stake in, on behalf of millions of people you don’t know, and who have no recourse against your mismanagement, except to whine like wimps—how well would you perform? Why are privately owned homes cared for and public housing trashed? Why don’t Republican and conservative bimbos and beaus of the media ever open a book and learn a few concepts.

Okay make it one crucial concept: the “Tragedy of the Commons.”

Update: To the comment below: The “calculation problem” means nothing to the lay reader. Private property means everything—or ought to. It should be understood to those who bandy about the “calculation problem” that the reason there cannot be rational allocation of resources in a state bureaucracy is because there is no private property. In a free market, the institute of private property ensures that we have prices. Prices are like a compass: pegged to supply and demand they ensure the correct allocation of resources. Conversely, in a nationalized system there are no prices because there is no private property. Absent such knowledge, misallocation of capital is inevitable.

Property precedes all else.

Hanging At The White House

Barack Obama, Healthcare, Media, Propaganda

Michael Smerconish, “a Philadelphia-based radio talk show host,” voted for Barack Obama, which is why, presumably, he is considered a conservative. Today was Smerconish’s big day—he made his way to the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House to interview the president. “The White House said that the president’s participation in the radio show was meant to counter some misinformation that is circulating widely concerning the administration’s health care agenda.”

I haven’t heard the interview, but I imagine that Smerconish provided the president with a conducive forum for his purposes. The New York Times, in its report, would have mentioned it if a typical townhaller mouth breather bothered Obama in any way.

The Times chose to air this provocative question: “One caller to the radio program asked Mr. Obama which elements needed to be included in a health care plan. He listed four points: reducing the cost of health care, protecting consumers from insurance abuses, providing affordable coverage to uninsured Americans and not adding to the deficit.”

Meanwhile, Smerconish has been doing the rounds on cable and crowing about his coup (but not his audience’s). His stock has soared. A day in the life of a successful media hustler.

Guinness World Record For Fuel Economy Set By Non-Hybrid

Energy, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Media, Technology

You don’t need a commie car to conserve (your private) resources. “A 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI powered with Shell ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel” will do just fine. (My Turbocharged GTI is pretty thrifty and never gutless, as the Jetta tends to be.) Tire Business has the goods:

“Australian drivers Helen and John Taylor recently broke the ’48 Contiguous U.S. States Fuel Economy’ Guinness World Record, driving a car fitted with Goodyear’s Assurance Fuel Max tires.

The couple previously set the record in 2008 at 58.82 miles per gallon, driving 9,419 miles in a 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI powered with Shell ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel. Their new record, which was set using the same car, fuel and driving route, stands at an average of 67.9 mpg.

According to Goodyear, the pair began their trip July 28 in Sterling, Va., and traveled in a counter-clockwise route that included 14 official check-in and refueling stops across the country. They crossed the finish line at a Virginia Tire & Auto retail outlet in Ashburn, Va.”

Mrs. Taylor attempted to explain to Contessa Brewer—MSNBC’s large-faced, childish, lip-smacking anchor—that driving in high gear (and not necessarily slowly) conserves fuel. In other words, driving well. But Tess had only ever driven an automatic really really slowly, and so lost interest. Her focus further waned when she discovered (by stepping right into the trap and asking) that the fuel-efficient vehicle was not a commie car. A research assistant or producer will be in hot water.

Still, and as a I’ve written, “Perhaps the biggest obfuscation in the gimmick-car racket—which President Bush had fallen for too—has to do with the source of the energy. Whether a vehicle is propelled by hydrogen-powered fuel cells or electricity, both electricity and hydrogen don’t magically materialize in the vehicle. They must first be generated. Be it coal, natural gas, nuclear or a hydroelectric dam, these cars are only as clean as the original source of energy that generated the vim that powers them.

Other than to increase the consumption of gas, because people drive more in them, mandating so-called fuel-efficient cars is a grand exercise in compulsory misallocation and waste of capital. It proves that the development of technologies is best left to the market, not to environmental bureaucracies.”

Unemployment Worse Than They're Letting On

IMMIGRATION, Labor, Propaganda

The Center for Immigration Studies: “While the current high rate of official unemployment is well known, it only includes those who have looked for work in the last four weeks. There is a broader measure of employment, referred to by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as U-6, which includes the unemployed and people who would like to work, but who have not looked for a job recently, as well as those involuntarily working part-time. This report examines the U-6 measure and finds that things are much worse than the official unemployment numbers imply. The situation is particularly bad for minorities, the young, and less-educated Americans. These are the workers who face the most competition from immigrants—legal and illegal. (All figures in this report are seasonally unadjusted and are from June 2009.)

Among the findings: * As of June 2009, the overall unemployment rate for native-born Americans is 9.7 percent, but the broader U-6 measure shows it as 16.3 percent. There are 12.7 million unemployed natives, but using the U-6 measure it is 21.7 million. … ”

I reported this earlier this month.