Re: Stop Scaring the Children on the Climate I’m about to turn 60 and I think we have been totally irresponsible in our handling of so many issues and to expect our children to fix it determines what history will say is that we are a me me me generation of narcissists and self-serving people... I’m proud of Greta and all teachers who are speaking up. How about blaming yourself for the situation and they have to speak upon the first place... – Pamela M. Steven Longenecker comment: Pamela, we wouldn’t think of arguing that the government hasn’t been irresponsible. That’s what the government does. But claims that politicians have “stolen my dreams and my childhood,” as Greta Thunberg put it, are a tantrum thrown by a teenager. The world isn’t going to end in 8.5 years... 10 years... or 12 years. And no politician is ever going to fix the climate. But the good news is that just as the world has improved in the past 100 years, the world will continue to improve in the next 100. Thank each new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, and investors for that... not backward-looking governments or activists. Anyone who has actually read enough of the science to qualify as having an informed opinion knows perfectlywell that the alleged “doomsday” dates being bandied about are potential tipping point dates, not end-of-world dates. Some histrionic young millennials may well be confusing the two, but in general, the climate “doomsday” clock is not actually a thing. Calling it a doomsday clock in order
higher taxes destroy economic growth. How was the economy during the Eisenhower administration? In a word Great. There are many examples of strong economies with higher income tax rates than ours at present (including ours). Can tax cuts be a useful boost to the economy? Sometimes yes, especially if you focus the cuts at the low end of the income scale. If poor people get more money, they spend it, because they have to. It’s spending that really boosts the economy, not rich people stuffing their portfolios with tax savings. - Zane P.J. O’Rourke comment: Dear Zane, I doubt you and I are on the same page politically, but we do agree on one thing: Cut taxes on the poor. I’d start with the most regressive taxes, such as the sales tax and the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol that make the few pleasures the poor are able to afford unaffordable. But I think you should realize that “stuffing portfolios” is also a form of spending. What rich people are spending their money on is a pool of resources – “capital” – that will be available for debt and equity investment in the free market and that investment creates both jobs for poorer people and cheaper and more easily available goods and services for those poorer people to buy. The portfolios may be stuffed for selfish reasons, but the stuffing benefits everybody. One reason to keep this money out of the hands of government (by means of lower taxes) is that government has a long, long record of allocating capital much less efficiently than the free market does. When portfolios are badly stuffed (full of government pork-barrel funding), everybody is harmed.
American Consequences
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