Environment
Environment
Big Brother Wants Your Compost – Or Else
In October, San Francisco’s newest garbage management law goes into effect, potentially fining residents up to $100 per violation – businesses up to $500 – for failing to separate compostable garbage from their trash. Fines can also be incurred if garbage collectors notice an individual is not producing enough compost ...
Climate Change
A War on CO2? Civil Libertarians, Beware!
It seems clear that the first major penalty man will have to pay for his rapid consumption of the earth’s nonrenewable resources will be that of having to live in a world where his thoughts and actions are ever more strongly limited, where social organization has become all pervasive, complex, ...
Environment
What Is Socialism in 2009?
It seems that whatever President Obama talks about — whether it’s overhauling health care, or regulating Wall Street, or telling schoolchildren to study hard — his opponents have called him a socialist. “Socialism” was an epithet on many placards at protests in Washington over the weekend. What does the word ...
Climate Change
‘Environmental Justice’
The Van Jones backstory. So Van Jones now takes his place as the Lani Guinier of the Obama administration, undone by his radical views. Like Guinier, the ousted “green jobs” czar will doubtless employ his political martyrdom to transform himself from a minor celebrity of the left into a major ...
Commentary
Cochrane Threatens Austrians More Than Krugman Ever Did
This is a very short-sighted view. Just because someone gets in a fight with someone who we can’t stand–and I’ve criticized Krugman enough to have credibility on that score–doesn’t mean we should endorse any old arguments. There was quite a bit in Cochrane’s response that should alarm an Austrian economist, ...
Business & Economics
Without legal reforms, the health care system will remain broken
There’s an old joke about the boy who goes to the doctor and uses his index finger to point all over his body, explaining, “It hurts here, here, here and here.” The doctor sighs and says, “Son, your finger is broken.” This poor kid was looking for his ailment in ...
Agriculture
Labor Day fix: cut taxes, spending, regulation
For Californians, this Labor Day may not be a cause for celebration. The federal government recently reported that the state’s unemployment rate reached 11.9 percent in July, its highest level in more than four decades. Many have blamed the ailing national economy for these dismal jobs numbers. Although there is ...
Business & Economics
The Triumph Of Optimism
You call this a crisis? Think back nearly 30 years ago. When Ronald Reagan took office the country’s economy was in a shambles—inflation was running into the double digits, growth had stagnated and the top marginal tax rate was 70%. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, bristling with imperial designs and nuclear ...
Commentary
Environmentalists Oppose Mojave Desert Solar Power
Environmental groups advocating for land conservation and protection of endangered species are lining up in opposition to measures to expedite solar energy projects on federal lands, particularly in the Mojave Desert, announced by Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar on June 29. Loss of Water, Habitat With solar power plants having ...
Commentary
Mackinac Center Analysts Refute NRDC Green Energy Claims
The Examiner, September 1, 2009 Reliance on renewable mandates will cost, not create, jobs MIDLAND — The adoption of “green energy” policy recommendations made in a recent report by the National Resources Defense Council would push Michigan’s economy into a freefall, according to Mackinac Center for Public Policy energy analysts ...
Big Brother Wants Your Compost – Or Else
In October, San Francisco’s newest garbage management law goes into effect, potentially fining residents up to $100 per violation – businesses up to $500 – for failing to separate compostable garbage from their trash. Fines can also be incurred if garbage collectors notice an individual is not producing enough compost ...
A War on CO2? Civil Libertarians, Beware!
It seems clear that the first major penalty man will have to pay for his rapid consumption of the earth’s nonrenewable resources will be that of having to live in a world where his thoughts and actions are ever more strongly limited, where social organization has become all pervasive, complex, ...
What Is Socialism in 2009?
It seems that whatever President Obama talks about — whether it’s overhauling health care, or regulating Wall Street, or telling schoolchildren to study hard — his opponents have called him a socialist. “Socialism” was an epithet on many placards at protests in Washington over the weekend. What does the word ...
‘Environmental Justice’
The Van Jones backstory. So Van Jones now takes his place as the Lani Guinier of the Obama administration, undone by his radical views. Like Guinier, the ousted “green jobs” czar will doubtless employ his political martyrdom to transform himself from a minor celebrity of the left into a major ...
Cochrane Threatens Austrians More Than Krugman Ever Did
This is a very short-sighted view. Just because someone gets in a fight with someone who we can’t stand–and I’ve criticized Krugman enough to have credibility on that score–doesn’t mean we should endorse any old arguments. There was quite a bit in Cochrane’s response that should alarm an Austrian economist, ...
Without legal reforms, the health care system will remain broken
There’s an old joke about the boy who goes to the doctor and uses his index finger to point all over his body, explaining, “It hurts here, here, here and here.” The doctor sighs and says, “Son, your finger is broken.” This poor kid was looking for his ailment in ...
Labor Day fix: cut taxes, spending, regulation
For Californians, this Labor Day may not be a cause for celebration. The federal government recently reported that the state’s unemployment rate reached 11.9 percent in July, its highest level in more than four decades. Many have blamed the ailing national economy for these dismal jobs numbers. Although there is ...
The Triumph Of Optimism
You call this a crisis? Think back nearly 30 years ago. When Ronald Reagan took office the country’s economy was in a shambles—inflation was running into the double digits, growth had stagnated and the top marginal tax rate was 70%. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, bristling with imperial designs and nuclear ...
Environmentalists Oppose Mojave Desert Solar Power
Environmental groups advocating for land conservation and protection of endangered species are lining up in opposition to measures to expedite solar energy projects on federal lands, particularly in the Mojave Desert, announced by Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar on June 29. Loss of Water, Habitat With solar power plants having ...
Mackinac Center Analysts Refute NRDC Green Energy Claims
The Examiner, September 1, 2009 Reliance on renewable mandates will cost, not create, jobs MIDLAND — The adoption of “green energy” policy recommendations made in a recent report by the National Resources Defense Council would push Michigan’s economy into a freefall, according to Mackinac Center for Public Policy energy analysts ...
