Maggie's Farm

7th grade liars. Didn't they say that one of the reasons they were upset about Bibi accepting the House's invitation to speak was because they thought we shouldn't get involved in Israeli elections? But it turns out that an Obummer campaign operative is working to defeat Bibi (http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/01/30/reports-obama-campaign-operatives-working-against-netanyahu-in-israel-n1950319)

Of course, the good news here is that Bibi is surging in his election (http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/30/bibi-surges-in-israeli-polls/).

Re: Greens and Biofuel

They are so entrenched in their belief that the world should work the way they think it should blinds them to any possibilities outside what they "know". One of the things they "know" is that greed is the main information in the price of something so it should either be discounted or used as a reason to beat up the "profiteer".

In the case of biofuels, the evidence that they are a waist of resources took them years to finally come to the conclusion that anybody who looked at the proposition dispassionately knew immediately.

One of the easiest ways to tell if a business makes sense is to look at whose idea it is and whose money will be spent on it. If biofuels (or bullet trains, light rail, solar power, wind power, etc.) were such a great idea, people would use their own money to try to make it work. It would cost the tax payer next to nothing. If it was good, everybody would receive the benefit. If it wasn't, the people who thought it was a good idea and put up the money would lose. And thus the value (price) of an investment contains the information on the soundness of the idea.

Pretty elementary stuff. I have little hope that the Greenies or Lefties will ever learn it.

Re: real middle class economics

One thing John Berlau didn't mention in his column about regulations is that they have a much bigger influence on small than large corporations. Large corporations have the resources to deal with them where smaller companies do not. Corporations that espouse regulations often use them to give themselves an advantage over their competition.

Not only that, large corporations sometimes support regulations with which they are already in compliance and so will cost them less than their competition, or that they expect the regulation will be detrimental to their competition. Even if they don't support the regulation, they could have lawyers, engineers, and other resources that help them comply or evade the regulations, but smaller companies usually don't have those resources.