Coronavirus. Government-Mandated Economic Shutdowns. But is there a Third, More Fundamental Cause of the 2020 Economic Crisis?

I can’t answer that. But I can speculate.

Today’s economic collapse brought to mind a statement from an acquaintance during a long exchange on Facebook some time ago. In defending democratic socialism, the acquaintance said in 2018: “I fear we are headed for a collapse in the near future.” She was referring to an economic collapse, and blamed her fear on technology and  “unrestrained capitalism.”

I answered her misplaced blame in detail. But I never replied to her fear. The discussion was long and involved, so I never got around to it answering that fear. In view of the crisis we’re experiencing now (2020), I thought I’d post what I wanted to say back in 2018. Here is what I would have replied:

“I fear we are headed for a collapse in the near future.” 

Of course we’re going to have another collapse. The government’s interference into the economy has only increased since the 2006-2009 housing bust/financial crisis, which itself resulted from massive interference from the Federal Reserve, Fannie and Freddie, regulatory mismanagement, and the politics of “affordable housing.” What will cause the next collapse is anybody’s guess. But be assured that imbalances due to government policy are building up. This doesn’t mean the current (2018) prosperity is not real. But alongside the prosperity we’re having, the imbalances are building and danger is gathering beneath the surface. Trump’s regulatory reductions and corporate tax cuts will help, but will not nearly be enough.

FAST FORWARD: 

Sure enough, we got the catalyst--the coronavirus. A secondary, more serious catalyst is the massive shutdown of the economy engineered by our political leaders (It remains to be seen if this will ultimately cause more harm than good). These certainly are important factors. But I believe one of the biggest causes is getting too little notice. While those two are getting the public’s attention, a third and probably more important catalyst is greatly exacerbating the crash--the years of near-zero interest rates engineered by the Fed. These artificially low rates have incentivized massive increases in debt, both for individuals and for businesses (not to mention government), well beyond what people would do if markets set the rates. This huge mal-allocation of resources is now unwinding, giving a huge push to an already falling economy and stock market.

Let me focus on one sector--individuals. Typically, savers have reasonable low-risk interest-bearing options. But with interest income shriveling up, people have for years been looking for other options. That has meant common stocks. Hence, many people have been piling into stock market investments out of desperation for better yields. 

Now, I love stocks. They are a great way for average people to ride the coattails of business growth and entrepreneurial “prime movers” and build wealth over time. But thanks to the Federal Reserve’s near-zero rate policies, a lot of money has flowed into the stock market that shouldn’t have gone in--that is, has gone in for the wrong reason, yield. This means that a lot of people have put a lot of money into stocks that they normally would not have. This over-investment has made these people ripe for panic, and that panic is showing up in the stock market crash. This problem is particularly acute for retirees. Retirees, to put it bluntly, have been royally screwed for most of the last 20 years, when the Fed first reduced interest rates to near zero following 9-11. Retirees, who need a lower risk investment strategy and thus less stock exposure, were incentivized into taking on much more risk that prudence dictates. They are now adding substantially to the panic selling according to what I’m hearing on CNBC, the financial news program.

I believe that the acquaintance mentioned above was right, but not for the reason she believed. It’s not unrestrained capitalism (which doesn’t even exist, but should), but central planning, that is the problem. A collapse was going to happen. If coronavirus didn’t come along, something else would have, eventually.

As I said, I can’t say how the various factors influenced the current crisis. Economics is complicated. This period will be analyzed for years to come. But I am convinced that as long as the government coercively interferes in the natural workings of the market, and meets each crisis with more of the same, there will always be a realistic “fear we are headed for a collapse in the near future.”

Related Reading: 

A Tale of Two Bubbles: How the Fed Crashed the Tech and the Housing Markets: “Central Bankers appear to have learned little from recent history.”—Luka Nikolic for the Foundation for Economic Education. [This article was published on August 10, 2019. It is almost prophetic.]

The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure—by John A. Allison

A Free Market is the Only ‘Natural Order of Things’

Related Viewing:

The Pandemic and the Economy—with Onkar Ghate, Yaron Brook, and Rob Tarr from ARI

Fascism: Back Door to Socialism that Obama and the Left Well Understand

Steve Forbes reviewed Barack Obama’s article in The Economist in which Obama said, “capitalism has been the greatest driver of prosperity and opportunity the world has ever known.” Yes, Obama said that. But Forbes looks past that window dressing, or what he correctly identifies as “Obama’s trademark disingenuousness”:

Yet as President of the U.S., the bastion of free enterprise, he has successfully pursued a socialist agenda that has Karl Marx applauding from the grave.

Smart socialists years ago recognized that government doesn’t need to seize “the means of production” to control the economy. Instituting sweeping and intrusive rules and regulations that make the survival of whole industries and companies dependent on the whims of government bureaucrats is sufficient.

The proper name for this is fascism, though Forbes doesn’t use the term (undiluted fascism also entails one-party rule, censorship, political imprisonment, etc., which invariably follows from economic control). Forbes then exposes the extensive array of additional controls Obama has foisted on private enterprise. It’s an excellent article. I have one thing to add. Once again quoting from the Economist article, Forbes writes:

Obama’s real feelings about free markets come through: “Economists have long recognized that markets, left to their own devices, can fail. This can happen through the tendency toward monopoly and rent-seeking. … More fundamentally, a capitalism shaped by the few and unaccountable to the many is a threat to all.”

Forbes correctly replies, “Free markets don’t fail. Bad government policies fail.” But I think he misses a crucial point.

“Rent-seeking” is an economic term which means government favor-seeking by private enterprise, whether to advance one’s own economic advantage or stifle competitors. Rent-seeking is only possible under the kind of economy Obama champions; a mixed economy that gives government officials the power to dish out economic and regulatory favors. This forces all economic interests—big business, small business, labor, “green” energy, etc.—to curry favor with government officials, either to defend against harmful regulations or seek favors (or both). Rent-seeking favors the economically established, stifling competition, which leads to monopolization. A monopoly, properly understood, entails coercive government interference. Such a monopoly, in which government favors one company (or companies) thus stifling or blocking competition, is not possible under capitalism. True, a single company can gain a dominant or exclusive market share under capitalism, but only by winning in the market, not by blocking competition.

Only full, laissez-faire capitalism—the complete separation of economics and state, modeled after the church/state separation—prevents rent-seeking and thus empowers the market—the people—to determine economic success and failure. Under capitalism, businesses can only succeed to the extent they deliver value for consumers in voluntary win-win transactions known as trade. There is no “tendency toward monopoly” but a tendency toward companies with the best product at the best price with the best service to win for as long as that company[ies] maintains those advantages.

This is devastating Obama disingenuousness. In the name of stopping voluntary market “monopolizers” accountable to consumers, Obama calls for coercive market domination by unaccountable government officials. In the name of preventing “the tendency toward monopoly and rent-seeking,” Obama awards a whole termites nest of regulation-writing bureaucrats to determine who gains and who loses in the economy. Someone once asked, “But who will protect us from our protectors?” Exactly.

The American Left—the so-called liberals or progressives—know full well what they are doing. They are socialists, and fascism is their means to that end. Simply regulate your way to socialism, and let the remnants of capitalism carry the responsibility for enforcement, take the blame for the growing pile of economic catastrophes the regulators create, and count on a clueless majority to let it happen without knowing it is happening. Forbes’ Fact and Comment article, Obama's Piece In 'The Economist' Gets Everything Wrong, is well worth reading—and keeping and re-reading periodically as a reminder of how the Left has been sneaking socialism into America and destroying capitalism under cover of pro-capitalist proclamations about “making markets work better.”

Related Reading:

We Need a Deeper Understanding of Socialism

Atlas Shrugged—Ayn Rand

The Capitalist Manifesto—Andrew Bernstein

Sanders’s Open Socialism Blows the Cover Off of the Left’s Stealth Socialism

A is A, and Socialism by any Other Name...

The Tax System and Income Inequality are Two Separate Issues

The New Jersey Star-Ledger editorially railed against the “richest 0.1 percent” for using their political influence to rig the tax system to lower their tax bills, thus contributing to economic inequality. In the process, the Star-Ledger took a shot at Ted Cruz for his call to abolish the IRS, which the Star-Ledger sees as a tool to fight inequality through redistribution of wealth. In A tax loophole that needs to be nailed shut, the Star-Ledger writes:

Nearly 250 years ago, Adam Smith noted in The Wealth of Nations that capitalists are predisposed to conspire against the public, whether it's through the creation of monopolies or some other form of privilege, usually with the blessing of the state.

Economists call it rent-seeking. The rest of us call it daylight robbery.

Whatever you want to call it, the current tax system has contributed to obscene levels of income and wealth inequality.

Notice the editors’ phrase “usually with the blessing of the state.” I wonder if they realize the implication: that government’s tax and regulatory powers, not free markets, leads to “rent-seeking.”

I left these comments:

The Star-Ledger is mixing apples and oranges here; economic inequality and income taxes.

There are two types of economic inequality; market-based, the good kind, and political-based, the bad kind. We should want more of the first, and eliminate the second. What kind on inequality is highlighted in this editorial? Political-based, because fostered by a corrupt income tax system.

The Star-Ledger is partly right that the tax system fosters economic inequality—It fosters the bad kind.

Inequality in and of itself is not bad. Just the opposite: Unfettered market-based economic inequality is a sign of a just society where people are free to rise as far as their talents, ambition, and personal circumstances will take them. Market-based inequality is built on value creation and trade, the win-win transaction. People who get the richest do so by creating the most value for the most people. As Sam Walton said, “There is only one boss—the consumer. [H]e can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money elsewhere.” Only free markets empower consumers in this way. We should want the rich to keep getting richer. We should want more people getting rich. I’m completely selfish. I want more and more availability of the benefits created by entrepreneurs. It makes my money worth more and my life incalculably better than I can ever hope to achieve by my own hand. Who cares about inequality when we’re being showered with great companies, great mass-market products, and millions of jobs? We decide who gets rich through our buying decisions. This is moral economic inequality.

Cruz is obviously right, as well. The current tax system fosters political inequality. Eliminate the IRS and replace it with a simple, special provision-free, low-rate, revenue neutral flat tax. (Personally, I like Steve Forbes’s idea, which leaves the first $45-$50 thousand tax free for a family of four, and taxes every other dollar at 17%—interestingly, the same rate that the NY Times claims the super-rich now pay.)

When the government created the convoluted income tax, it created the incentive for special interests to lobby for special provisions. Of course the rich benefit the most from this system. They make the most, have the biggest tax liability, and thus the most incentive to look for legal ways to avoid taxes. Is it fair? No. But we all cash in on this corruption. The home mortgage deduction is huge and mainly a middle class government favor. High earners are no more wrong to take advantage of legal tax-minimizing provisions as any homeowner, and are no more cheating the treasury than the homeowner.

Special interest lobbyists, rich or otherwise, didn’t create this crony system. The system created the lobbyists. It’s interesting that the Star-Ledger should bring up Adam Smith and rent-seeking. Rent-seeking is another name for government economic favoritism, and is inherent in a mixed economy; the mixing of political power and economics. Only free market capitalism eliminates rent-seeking, because capitalism—properly understood—separates economics and state in the same way as church and state.

The government created this tax system. It should abolish and replace it. What the tax system shouldn’t be used for is to reduce economic inequality. It would be morally wrong to use tax reform to cut down the most talented and productive people. Just replace the tax system, and a major source of rent-seeking—of crony “capitalists” or anyone else conspiring to create privilege with the “blessing,” i.e., force, of the state—will be eliminated. Eliminate the power of politicians to dish out tax favors, and you eliminate rent-seeking tax favoritism. Adam Smith, who identified the virtue of free markets, would approve. That would be real progress.

Related Reading:

Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality—by Don Watkins and Yaron Brook

Free Market Champions Must Defend Economic Inequality

Contra Obama’s Pandering to Cuba’s Dictator, Economic Inequality is America’s Strength and Equality is Cuba’s Tragedy

Obama's Corrupt "Equality" Campaign and the 99/1 Premise

Law-Favored Unions are Quasi-Criminal Organizations

The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld, by a 4-4 tie vote, to uphold the power of public sector unions to impose union dues on non-union workers. In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, SCOTUS  refused to overrule a lower court’s decision not to overturn a prior SCOTUS ruling granting this power to public sector unions.  

In a New Jersey Star-Ledger letter lauding this decision, GOP is killing the middle class, correspondent John F. Hessel wrote, in part:

With the Supreme Court evenly divided, [Republicans’] assault on lower-court decisions that favored organized labor has come to an abrupt end. Thank goodness.

Seventy years ago, following the end of World War II, workers voted to join labor unions to represent them in collective bargaining with their employers. This led to the creation of a middle class that helped drive our economy for 60 years, until all of the free trade agreements were passed.

However, the Republicans continue their assault on labor unions, particularly those that represent state and local workers.

Hessel is wrong on several counts.

Laws that favor unions—i.e., force employers to deal with unions and force unwilling workers into unions—turn unions into quasi-criminal organizations. This is especially true of public sector unions. The idea that the middle class is a product of criminality is absurd. If all that is needed to create the middle class are compulsory unionization laws, then why not force every human on the planet into a union?

Contrary to Hessel’s absurd assertion, the middle class is a product of free market capitalism, not coercive labor unions. Capitalism liberated the individual from omnipotent government. Once liberated, industrious individuals lifted themselves through work and free trade. The whole history of the average man prior to the late 18th Century was poverty-ridden, back-breaking stagnation. Then, with the rise of capitalism enabled by Enlightenment politics, prosperity exploded in the 19th Century. This prosperity, which quadrupled real wages in a single century after generations of stagnation, coincided with and was caused by the rise of the professional businessman/industrialist, the highest middle classer, who spread increasingly productive job-creation and material prosperity throughout society. Of course workers were integral to the productive process, but they did not cause it or lead it.

The middle class is characterized by productiveness and self-reliance, not government favors. Unions may help their members, and if they are compulsory unions they “help” their members at the expense of others’ freedom and jobs. Notice that for all of Hessel’s bluster, he doesn’t give a damn about Rebecca Friedrichs, on whose behalf the legal challenge to compulsory unionism was filed. I guess Hessel doesn’t consider Friedrichs, who doesn't want to be part of the union, to be a “worker” worthy of free choice.

Unions do not raise the general standard of living. Only productivity-enhancing investment can do that, as any basic economics text will tell you. Workers have a right to form unions and ask employers to negotiate with them. This is guaranteed by the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of association. But valid unions are voluntary associations that deal with employers in the spirit of trade, offering value in exchange for value in a mutually beneficial way.

Valid laws don’t favor unions or any economic factor over others. They simply banish aggressive force and equally protect every individual’s right to act on his own judgement, and associate with others by voluntary agreement, not force. Anything else is legalized criminality. The recent SCOTUS ruling upholding compulsory unionization is an indication of the threat to individual freedom and peaceful coexistence we face with a more “liberal”—meaning omnipotent government-favoring—Supreme Court.

[NOTE: I am a lifelong member of a private sector trade union.]

Related Reading:

The Capitalist Manifesto—Andrew Bernstein

Fast-Food Workers Seek Government Guns to Back Demands

End “Collective Bargaining Rights” and “Right-to-Work” Laws

Abusive Teachers Union Power Results from Government School Monopoly

Democratic Socialism: The Rise of the Pigs

There is an outfit called Join the Coffee Party Movement. The Coffee Party, probably inspired by Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy, stands for Democratic Socialism and invites people to join up. This image is displayed on its Facebook page:

An accompanying explanatory statement, lifted from Wikipedia, reads:

Democratic socialism is a political ideology advocating a democratic political system ALONGSIDE a socialist economic system, involving a COMBINATION of political democracy with social ownership of the means of production. Although sometimes used synonymously with "socialism", the adjective "democratic" is often added to distinguish itself from the Marxist–Leninist brand of socialism, which is widely viewed as being non-democratic.

Socialism is now in full bloom in American politics. The era of Democrats pushing socialism along bit by bit while simultaneously denying they are socialists has come to an end. Thank you, Bernie Sanders. A debate involving three protagonists—defenders of socialism, of our mixed economy status quo, and of capitalism—is now part of the 2016 presidential campaign.

The definition above, I think, accurately describes the basic macro elements of Bernie Sanders-style democratic socialism. On the surface, it looks like more mixed economy, with statism increasing and liberty decreasing. But make no mistake, “a COMBINATION of political democracy with social ownership of the means of production” is a totalitarian state. Democratic socialism merely replaces single party rule with a system of rotating elected dictatorships. Either way, there’s no room for individual rights. Rather than being at the mercy of a “non-democratic” absolute state, your life will be at the mercy of majoritarian absolutism.

Anyone who has a reasonably good understanding of liberty can see through the catch phrases and recognize that democratic socialism is just another manifestation of totalitarianism. A democratic socialist is a totalitarian who sugar-coats his agenda with “democracy,” as if the right to vote is all that freedom is about. Most people wrongly associate democracy with a free society in which the political leaders are elected. But that’s really a constitutionally limited republic. Democracy unconstrained by the principle of individual rights embodied in a proper constitution is a totalitarian state. Without economic freedom, you can’t have political freedom. After all, economics—the field of production and trade—is the field in which people act to transform their values into material form. The freedom to pursue one’s happiness without having control of the productive means to achieve happiness is to leave every individual locked up inside of his own mind, which is precisely the plight of the individual in the totalitarian state. Anyone who controls the means of production, has the individual by the throat.

The Democratic Socialist movement spawned by Sanders’ candidacy reminds me of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which the humans who run the farm are thrown out and replaced with an even worse, brutal animal dictatorship. Animal Farm has been judged to have an anti-capitalist element. This is not surprising, since Orwell was a socialist. His book supposedly depicts the capitalists (the humans) thrown out and replaced by communism, which ends up to be worse than capitalism. My analogy is with the aftermath of the rebellion against the humans.

In Orwell’s saga, the pigs orchestrate a revolution among the animals to overthrow the humans, promising a better life for the formerly enslaved animals after they take control of their farm. After the revolution, it turns out that the pigs have garnered control, to the initial glee of the animals. But the animals soon begin to sense that they are worse off than under the humans, but are too clueless to understand why. Meanwhile, the pigs rewrite history over and over, while all the time blaming the increasing hardship on the humans and their corrupt animal sympathizers. The pigs promise equality, having adopted a 7-part constitution. But in the end, the constitution is eroded and ultimately revoked, and the pigs, led by Napoleon, end up as brutal tyrants who run the farm under the single slogan, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

In their real-life animal farm vision, the Democratic Socialists want to gull we the people with promises of empowerment through more democratic control of the economy, “the means of production.” Similar to the pigs of Animal Farm, the Democratic Socialists promise prosperity for all through a slew of handouts. Like Animal Farm, the Democratic Socialists tempt us with vague promises of economic “equality.” The Democratic Socialists propose to create a socialist democracy for the benefit of the people by convincing us to relinquish by vote the haggard remnants of our individual freedom embedded in the mixed economy. Under the current state of affairs, according to the Democratic Socialists, the economy is run for the benefit of “the 1%”—the Democratic Socialists’ version of Orwell’s humans—at the expense of the people (the Animal Farm inhabitants). Once “the people” gain control of the means of production, wealth will flow freely and more abundantly to the people. Similar to Orwell's farm animal population, we will wake up to realize that we have traded a semi-free mixed economy for a tyranny run by the socialists’ version of the pigs—a bunch of Ivy Starneses. And like the hapless inhabitants of Animal Farm, we will have a vague memory of better times past, without realizing why we once had it better and how we came to our new, decadent state.

That’s why we who value freedom and prosperity must not let people forget what socialism, our current mixed economy, and capitalism really are. Unfortunately, the newly emerging debate is dominated by the Democratic Socialists and defenders of the mixed economy status quo. The voices of capitalism are not engaged, at least not in the campaign arena. That must change, or the Democratic Socialists will surely win by default.

As with other forms of statism, such as fascism, communism, and any mixture of those with freedom, the opposite of Democratic Socialism is capitalism. Fascism, communism, Nazism (a form of fascism), and Democratic Socialism are all variants of socialism. Sanders and his Coffee Party offspring provides a good opportunity for capitalists to contrast their vision with the socialists. Socialism can be contrasted with capitalism on many levels, including the social, political, economic, and moral levels. All of the comparisons favor capitalism.

One way to contrast the two systems is to ask, what would it be like for socialists to live under capitalism, and vice-versa? I’ll give my thoughts on that social question in my next post.

Related Reading:

The Starnes Heirs and the Left’s Tribal View of Wealth

The Starnes Family in Atlas Shrugged—Shmoop

Sanders Campaign Highlights the Need to Distinguish Between Economic and Political Power

Sanders’s Open Socialism Blows the Cover Off of the Left’s Stealth Socialism

China’s Recovery from Socialism vs. Bernie Sanders, The Most Evil Politician in America

Debunking Myths of American History—4

This is Part 4 of a 4-part series, in which I replied to comments made under the op-ed by Frayda Levin, an Americans for Prosperity board member, titled I'm A Proud Koch Brothers Insider. For a deep, integrated history of capitalism, I recommend The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein.

“Fact is, while individual humans are decent, as a group they're aggressive, exploitative, oppressive, violent, selfish, and dangerous.  The evidence is in our history.”—Get Real

My Reply:

This makes no sense. A group is made up of individuals. Some individuals are “aggressive, exploitative, oppressive, violent, selfish [in the conventional sense], and dangerous.” But most are industrious, respectful, benevolent, cooperative, and no threat to others; i.e., rationally selfish [at least to some extent]. Man is not predisposed either way. The evidence is that the freer a country is, the more people achieve and coexist peacefully. Only with the arrival of “big government” did America begin its descent into predatory balkinization, as “progressives” transformed our government from one limited to protecting individual rights to a rights-violating tool of pressure group factions. When government (the power of the gun) is given the power of aggressive force, the bad type of people organize to use that aggressive power. Then others follow, either in self-preservation or for their own predatory purposes. Special interest politics proliferates. When people are forced into tribal conflict, what does one expect? Blame belongs to the collectivist/statist system the progressives built, not human nature, which is only suited to individualism and limited government.

Related Reading:

For the New Intellectual—Ayn Rand

NJ's NJEA: Tops in Special Interest Spending

My article Government Should Not “Determine Everything” about Education; It Should Determine Nothing about It, has been published by The Objective Standard. Here are the opening paragraphs:

New Jersey’s Election Law Enforcement Commission recently released a study on special-interest spending in that state.NJ.com’s Matt Friedman reports that, between 1999 and 2013, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the main teachers’ union in the state, spent more money than any other group, accounting for nearly a fifth of “campaign contributions, independent spending and lobbying [of] lawmakers and the executive branch.”

The union defended its political spending, as Friedman reports:

Ginger Gold Schnitzer—the NJEA’s director of government relations—said it’s no surprise that her union tops the list. . . .

“These lawmakers make really important decision[s] for us. So if our members want to have any influence over these aspects of their personal and professional lives, they

have to care a great deal about who holds these positions, and we have to get them information to make good decisions,” Gold Schnitzer said. “They determine everything from (teachers’) salaries, their health benefits and pensions to how many days a year they work, what kind of hours, and what kind of things they spend their time on when they’re working.”

Read the rest here.

I would add that the teachers union isn’t alone, of course. Friedman cites “a wide array of interests”—including private-sector unions, business groups, professional associations, and “ideological” organizations—among the top 25 spenders. Considering that virtually every industry and so much of our personal lives are subject to some degree of government regulation and control, the proliferation of political special interests makes sense. It’s a simple matter of cause and effect. As long as government exercises control over people’s personal and professional lives, whatever the field, people have incentive to influence the controllers “to make good decisions”—to protect themselves against harmful controls and regulations, seek government favors at others’ expense, or a combination of both.

Related Reading:

Political "Access": A Product of the Mixed Economy

In Defense of Special Interests - and the Constitution

Stamato vs. Zemack on Science, Political "Courage,” and Special Interests

As I noted yesterday, I lauded Rutgers University’s Linda Stamato for her willingness to intellectually engage readers in the New Jersey Star-Ledger’s comments section. Her willingness extends beyond her own article, too. The Star-Ledger Editorial Board’s Building a movement on climate, which was the subject of my 9/21/14 post, also featured comments by Stamato.

In her comments, Stamato directly replied to mine, which were posted under my screen name “Zemack”. Stamato said, in part:

Science told us that smoking was causing cancer and we were--finally--smart enough to promote good health practices including ridding the air we breathe of second hand smoke and curbing advertising including appeals to young people to reduce smoking.  Science tells us a lot and we ignore what it says at our peril.  "Never mind the climate science," Zemack?  Wrong.  Mind it and figure out the best strategies for minimizing climate change . . .

Science doesn't have to tell us what to do about what it tells us; we're supposed to be smart enough to develop the policies and plans that reflect our ingenuity and draws on our political will and courage to do what science has revealed. All too often, it's the special interests, those that profit by continuing practices that science uncovers are harmful, that push back and mislead the public.  

I replied:

I reject the comparison to smoking. Smoking is demonstrably harmful. Fossil fuels are demonstrably and overwhelmingly beneficial, on balance.

The issue is not just practical. It is moral. Special interests? They’re everywhere. We live in a mixed economy. You have a special interest; to use government force to impose your taxes, controls, and subsidies. The IPCC is a special interest. Being funded by politicians, it is the very definition of politicization. It must produce conclusions that satisfy the politicians, who seek ever more power and control. What should not be allowed is for special interests to use government as the hired gun to impose their values on everyone else by force of law, in the name of some collective “we”.

Droughts, rising sea levels, hurricanes, floods, blizzards, heat and cold waves, wildfires; all of these have always been with us. The difference is, we now have the technological capacity to adapt to and protect ourselves from nature’s harmful forces, and plentiful cheap energy is needed to drive that capacity. Reducing that capacity through government policies is the real long-term danger.

I would also dispute that using government force to impose “solutions” to climate change requires “political courage.” Initiating force is not courageous. It is the mark of a cowardly thug. The government’s only proper job is to protect individual rights, which includes objective laws against actual pollution. CO2 is not pollution. It is a gas essential to life on earth. Courage is on the side of those of us who battle against the climate change statists aggressors despite the degrading smears, demonization, and minimization of the statists, most of whom don’t themselves have the courage to engage opposing ideas in open intellectual debate.

Also, my opening reply about smoking should not be interpreted to imply support for government policies that “promote good health practices including ridding the air we breathe of second hand smoke and curbing advertising including appeals to young people to reduce smoking.” Many of those “public health” policies, such as imposing legal bans on smoking inside private establishments, are rights-violating and wrong. I wanted to stay on-topic, and getting into the propriety of government policies on smoking would have detracted from the main subject.

Related Reading:

Big Government vs. Big Business; or, Political Power vs. Economic Power

“Peoples Climate March” is No Friend of Humanity

Climate Change Alarmists Ignore Life-Giving Fossil fuel Contributions

Attack on "Carbon Pollution" an Attack on Human Life