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The Economist reviews and critiques a new book by Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves.
THIRTY years ago, Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich entered into a famous bet. Mr Simon, a libertarian, was sceptical of the gloomy claims made by Mr Ehrlich, an ecologist best known for his predictions of environmental chaos and human suffering that would result from the supposed “population bomb”. Thumbing his nose at such notions as resource scarcity, Mr Simon wagered that the price of any five commodities chosen by Mr Ehrlich would go down over the following decade. The population bomb was defused, and Mr Simon handily won the bet.
Now, Matt Ridley has a similarly audacious bet in mind. A well-known British science writer (and former Economist journalist), Mr Ridley has taken on the mantle of rational optimism from the late Mr Simon. In his new book, he challenges those nabobs of negativity who argue that the world cannot possibly feed 9 billion mouths, that Africa is destined to fail and that the planet is heading for a climate disaster. He boldly predicts that in 2110, a much bigger world population could enjoy more and better food produced on less land than is used by farming today—and even return lots of farmland to wilderness. …
…The progress (and occasional retardation) of innovation is the central theme of Mr Ridley’s sweeping work. He starts by observing that humans are the only species capable of innovation. Other animals use tools, and some ants, for example, do specialise at certain tasks. But these skills are not cumulative, and the animals in question do not improve their technologies from generation to generation. Only man innovates continuously. …
Mark Steyn discusses how our government and other western governments try to avoid addressing the pathological aspects of Islam. We leave the frightening examples for you to read in the article.
…At Fort Hood, Maj. Hasan jumped on a table and gunned down his comrades while screaming, “Allahu Akbar!”, which is Arabic for “Nothing to see here” and an early indicator of pre-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Times Square Bomber, we are assured by The Washington Post, CNN and Newsweek, was upset by foreclosure proceedings on his house. Mortgage-related issues. Nothing to do with months of training at a Taliban camp in Waziristan. …
…You may not be interested in Islam but Islam is interested in you. Islam smells weakness at the heart of the West. The post-World War II order is dying: The European Union’s decision to toss a trillion dollars to prop up a Greek economic model that guarantees terminal insolvency is merely the latest manifestation of the chronic combination of fiscal profligacy and demographic decline in the West at twilight. Islam is already the biggest supplier of new Europeans and new Canadians, and the fastest-growing demographic in the Western world.
Therefore, it thinks it not unreasonable to shape the character of those societies – not by blowing up buildings and airplanes, but by determining the nature of their relationship to Islam. …
John Fund reviews the election news in Massachusetts.
…This week saw a special election for the state senate seat that Mr. Brown gave up when he became a U.S. Senator. The suburban Boston district has been competitive, with Mr. Brown first winning it in a 2003 special election with only 51%.
This time it wasn’t even close. GOP State Representative Richard Ross defeated Democrat Peter Smulowitz, an emergency-room physician, with 62% of the vote. Mr. Ross even won Needham, a liberal bastion in the district, by over 200 votes. “The Democratic machine is striking out in Massachusetts,” claimed Jennifer Nassour, the state’s GOP chairwoman.
Not quite. The highly competitive race for governor has seen Democratic Governor Deval Patrick rebound somewhat from his recent dismal poll numbers. He now leads Republican Charlie Baker, a protégé of former GOP Governor Bill Weld, and state Treasurer Tim Cahill, who left the Democratic Party to run as an independent last year. In a new Rasmussen poll, Mr. Patrick scores 45% support against 31% for his GOP opponent Mr. Baker. …
Michael Barone thinks Utah Senator Bob Bennett’s loss may be only the start of the election year upsets.
…While incumbents of both parties may be in trouble this year, it is significant that both Mr. Bennett and Mr. Mollohan lost to opponents on their political right. Utah Republican convention delegates were in no mood to accept even a thoughtful backer of bipartisan proposals. West Virginia Democratic primary voters were ready to oust an incumbent who backed Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. And polling suggests that Republicans will run much better against Democrats in November than they did in 2006 or 2008. …
Peter Wehner looks at how quickly politics can change.
On ABC’s Good Morning America yesterday, the Democratic political strategist James Carville — in commenting on this devastating (for the Democrats) Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll — said that it is “absolutely possible” that the Democrats could lose control of Congress, and, if the election were held today, they almost certainly would. That is by now a commonplace belief.
Carville’s admission is quite a contrast to what he was saying just last year. “Today,” he proclaimed, “a Democratic majority is emerging, and it’s my hypothesis, one I share with a great many others, that this majority will guarantee the Democrats remain in power for the next 40 years.” Carville even wrote a book on the topic: 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation. …
In the Washington Examiner, Noemie Emery responds to arguments that conservatives want big government because some want the government to help with the oil spill cleanup.
…Government is a big and blunt instrument, while markets are smaller and flexible tools. Government acts for the whole, and gives things one direction; markets react to and serve individuals, respond to a great many small discrete interests, and facilitate the pursuit of happiness by creating demands for a great many diverse and various skills. …
…Government does well when it opens doors and lets people go through them; less well when it tries to micromanage or fix destinations. It did well when it outlawed segregation, but affirmative action became a disaster; welfare was a boon at the start, but became counterproductive.
One can applaud the state when it wins wars, stops terrorists, and rushes aid to flood- or to drought-stricken areas, and still feel a national health care reform bill will be courting disaster if it tries to take over one-sixth of the economy and directs the employment decisions of millions of doctors and hospitals, the research decisions of hundreds of companies, and the personal health care decisions of 300 million-plus people. …
…In a misapplied quote, President Reagan once said that government itself was not the problem; it became the problem when it went beyond its legitimate sphere of endeavor. …
John Stossel explains how the US will match Greece’s financial crisis. He uses economist Paul Krugman’s stats to reach this conclusion.
…But it’s Krugman who is confused. All his graph shows is that Greece is worse off than the US now, and in the near future. That should be obvious to anyone following the news of riots in Greece.
His graph hides the fact that, while our annual deficits may shrink — some forecasters expect the economy to get better and stimulus funding to phase out — every year the government will still spend more than it takes in, so total U.S. debt will keep rising. And Krugman’s graph doesn’t get at the important question: are we on track to become what Greece is like now? This graph, which uses the same data set as Krugman’s chart, helps answer that…
…In short: In 10 years, under Obama’s budget plan, the USA will likely be in same debt position as Greece is now.
John Hinderaker has Edmund Conway in the UK Telegraph with an IMF report on how quickly the US debt will grow if liberals continue the current course.
Is the United States Greece? The short answer is: not yet, but it will be if the Democrats remain in control in Washington for two more election cycles.
In the Telegraph, Edmund Conway summarizes a lengthy report by the International Monetary Fund on sovereign debt that came out today:
[T]he really interesting stuff is the detail, and what leaps out again and again is how much of a hill the US has to climb. Exhibit a is the fact that under the Obama administration’s current fiscal plans, the national debt in the US (on a gross basis) will climb to above 100pc of GDP by 2015 – a far steeper increase than almost any other country. …
…The Democrats in Washington are both too stupid and too ideologically committed to read the writing on the wall. They are leading the United States over a financial cliff, and they have no intention of turning back. On the contrary: if they can, they will hobble our economy further by enacting a carbon tax. There is only one way to stop them, and to save our children–from whom greedy, selfish Washington liberals are borrowing trillions of dollars–from a lifetime of debt. The Democrats must be voted out in 2010, and Barack Obama must be denied a second opportunity to deconstruct the country that he doesn’t much like.
The Streetwise Professor has some damning statistics for liberals who claim that low tax rates are the reason that the US debt is so high.
…There is no doubt that Greece is doomed. We’re not doomed, but we are in very deep trouble. From this I’m supposed to take comfort?
Of course, Krugman beckons his standard villain to explain the US’s budget troubles: conservatives who have starved the government of revenue:
“And bear in mind, also, that taxes have lagged behind spending partly thanks to a deliberate political strategy, that of “starve the beast”: conservatives have deliberately deprived the government of revenue in an attempt to force the spending cuts they now insist are necessary.”
As if. Krugman is, how do you say it? A liar. That’s it. In 1970, federal revenues as a fraction of GDP: 19 percent. 1980: 18.9 percent. 1990: 18 percent. 2000: 20.8 percent. 2010: 19.2 percent. Some starvation. …
The Streetwise Professor also comments on Edmund Conway’s article on the IMF report.
This article from the Telegraph summarizes the dreary conclusions of an IMF report which says, contrary to Alfred E. Krugman, the United States faces one of the most daunting fiscal crunches in the years ahead. …
…However, the flip side of this is that because it has yet to feel the market strain, the US also has yet to face up properly to the public finance disaster that could befall it if it does not do anything about the problem. America is not Greece, but if it does not start making efforts to cut the deficit within a few years, it will head in that direction. The upshot wouldn’t be an IMF bail-out, but a collapse in the dollar and possible hyperinflation in the US, but it would be horrific all the same. America has time, but not forever.
In The Hill, A.B. Stoddard has an excellent article on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
…Christie is tackling the nation’s worst state deficit — $10.7 billion of a $29.3 billion budget. In doing so, Christie has become the politician so many Americans crave, one willing to lose his job. Indeed, Christie is doing something unheard of: governing as a Republican in a blue state, just as he campaigned, making good on promises, acting like his last election is behind him.
Upon taking office Christie declared a state of emergency, signing an executive order that froze spending, and then, in eight weeks, cutting $13 billion in spending. In March he presented to the Legislature his first budget, which cuts 9 percent of spending, including more than $800 million in education funding; seeks to privatize numerous government functions; projects 1,300 layoffs; and caps tax increases.
…Can Christie succeed? We will find out on June 30, when the Legislature must pass a budget . But no matter the political price, Christie is determined. “You just have to stand and grit your teeth and know your poll numbers are going to go down — and mine have — but you gotta grit through it because the alternative is unacceptable,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
The alternative is unacceptable — words a growing majority of Americans desperately want to hear from their elected officials.