UC Berkley economist analyzes “Electric Cars in the United States”

Forget about the grandiose predictions of increased jobs, decreased pollution, health-care savings and diminished dependence on oil imports. Just focus on the headline conclusion from UC Berkley economist Thomas Becker’s newly released study ‘Electric Cars in the United States: A New Model with Forecasts to 2030′ is simple. The cost of electic car batteries are high, therefore separating the ownership of the battery from the rest of the car would lead to a rapid adoption of electric cars by consumers.

The proposal is that of a leasing arrangement with a battery company:

The business model that Berkeley advocates is essentially what the company Better Place is pursuing. When consumers purchase an all-electric car covered in the Better Place plan, the company owns the batteries. Consumers get an electric charger at their home and access to battery-swapping stations.

Well, duh. Anybody can tell you that a lease arrangement will increase access to people who can not afford to buy something entirely. In fact, why not just advocate the outright leasing of the entire electric car?!?

Wait a minute, now. Leasing cars already exists. In that light, there really is not much to see here in this Berkley study — unless of course there is the expectation of government subsidization. Crony capitalists, be proud!

From the Better Place website:

Agassi works with government leaders, auto manufacturers, energy companies and others to make his vision—zero-emission vehicles powered by electricity from renewable sources—a reality in countries around the globe.

My type of guy!

Richard Murphy, UK tax crony, fails to respect freedom

Richard Murphy, a UK tax crony, demonstrates a laughable ignorance of economics and a reflexive disrespect of basic freedom:

But I stick to my point: a great deal of what we value most is provided by the state. That is why we care about it. That is why we voluntarily pay for it through tax – and vote to do so. That price is at least as well set as one distorted by the impact of advertising.

Uh…. OK. That is the substance of his argument. According to him, the state provides value because it provides value. The end.

He simply refuses to accept the possibility that the services provided by the state can also be provided by others. Also, he fails to be able to demonstrate that the state provides the most value in the provision of its services. He just says it does.

Oh, well. None of that surprises me from a crony who makes a living thriving on taxation. Without the state, he would actually have to work for a living.

Obama Motors – How Not to Run a Car Company

It looks like General Motor is back on track:

This spring, while seeking upward of $50 billion in federal assistance to shed debt and keep afloat, GM disclosed plans to import a new line of compact cars the size of a Toyota Yaris from China. That sparked an outcry from the UAW and from Congress, which put pressure on the Obama administration to persuade GM to drop the plan and build the cars in the U.S. GM, already deeply indebted to the government, agreed.

Because everyone knows Congress and the Unions know how to run a successful company.

eHealth Ontario — Liberal abuse #3

Hopefully, Ontarians wake up and smell a rat on this whole electronic eHealth database garbage. This is clearly just a make-work program for useless civil servants. I want to submit the most obvious evidence for my claim:

Hudson said he knew Ontario was well behind other provinces on electronic health records and felt a sense of urgency to get things done. “There was pressure from the government to get the deliveries out the door.”

The way I figure is if Ontario was behind other provinces, why not just copy what other provinces are doing?!?? Why do Ontario bureaucrats have to re-invent the wheel? This eHealth waste makes perfect sense if these “deliveries” are simply spending tax money.

Permit me to rant some more.

In the end, it was Dr. Hudson who got the fix. He resigned yesterday as chairman of eHealth Ontario – where he never collected a penny for his nine months of work – after a consulting and spending scandal went viral.

“He was eligible for a $600-a-day per diem, but he never accepted money, he never billed the government for his time,” said Kevin Smith, president and chief executive officer of St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. “That really says it all to me.”

That really says it all to me too: Alan Hudson did nothing and thus, he billed nothing for his nothing. Wow! He is probably not the only Ontarian who can fit that description. The only difference is that he is still involved in this nonsense.

I am not so quick to let Hudson get off so easy. You have to wonder why he took on the “job” if he was too busy. That is certainly not responsible. His previous experience earned him a well-respected reputation in solving these public affairs. The Ontario government needed his illustrious name at the head of their nonsense to give it street credibility. So, as far as I am concerned, Alan Hudson is a civil servant sell-out who played with matches and got burned.

I love McGuinty’s mea culpa:

“Today I want to acknowledge that our government came up short in the matter of eHealth,” Mr. McGuinty said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We should have done more to protect the public.”

Translation: we got caught, we will let you know when we have cleaned up the mess.

Premature praise for Ben Bernanke from a crank

Jim Cramer, a crony capitalist who frantically demands monetary inflation, of CNBC’s Mad Money, offers laughable praise for Ben Bernanke:

I’ll just come right out and say it: Ben Bernanke will go down as the greatest Federal Reserve chairman in history.

which really is not saying much but then he demonstrates either his complete ignorance or disingenuity:

Bernanke then proceeded to eviscerate the laissez-faire economics of the previous administration and its endless faith in the markets that produced the fiasco that was Lehman Brothers.

Jim, who are you trying to kid? or are you really that ignorant?
The previous administration was categorically not fostering laissez-faire economics in the least. Quite the contrary. The previous administration was actively intervening left, right and center. At a bare minimum, the state monopolization of a currency is completely counter any laissez-faire economy.

Jim Cramer The Crony concludes:

The moment of crisis has passed, the parallels to the Great Depression are gone, all because Bernanke learned the lessons of history and refused to let it repeat itself. Bernanke once seemed Lilliputian compared to Greenspan. Now their statures have been reversed.

Oh, no. The crisis has not passed and the parallels will continue into the future: spiralling inflation.

Stimulus Isn’t Working: Obama Decides to Dig Deeper Hole

It seems President Obama isn’t willing to accept that his fiscal stimulus is a colossal failure, in fact, it’s full steam ahead for the rookie president’s Keynesian policies:

The White House acknowledged it has spent only $44 billion, or 5 percent, of the $787 billion stimulus, but that total has always been expected to rise sharply this summer.

“Now we’re in a position to really accelerate,” Obama said.

[...]

The economy has shed 1.6 million jobs since the stimulus measure was signed in February, far overshadowing White House announcements estimating the effort has saved 150,000 jobs. Public opinion of Obama’s handling of the economy has declined along with the jobs data.

For the first time, the administration admitted the economic forecasts it used to sell the stimulus were overly optimistic.

$45,000,000,000.00 / 150,000 jobs “saved” = $300,000.00 spent per job, hardly what I would call sound fiscal policy. Not to mention the stimulus contained a number of “buy American” provisions which will undoubtedly deepen the job losses:

At first glance, “Buy America” floated courtesy of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars ostensibly to revive an economy that would create American jobs, looked like a political winner. Indeed, it may have initially looked like a godsend in what was to be a coming U.S. unemployment rate that would skyrocket to its highest level in a quarter of a century.

[..]

Now many U.S. exporters fear the provisions will backfire, costing American jobs as other countries retaliate. Some municipalities in Canada have already begun organizing boycotts of U.S. products, and EU and Canadian officials say they are reviewing their options.

eHealth Ontario — Liberal abuse #2

Why am I not surprized?

Last week, Caplan defended the $114,000 bonus paid to eHealth CEO Sarah Kramer – even though she’d only been on the job a few months – saying it was what she would have been entitled to if she stayed at Cancer Care Ontario.

However, Cancer Care Ontario said Kramer’s bonus would have been much closer to $40,000 than the $114,000 she negotiated on top of the $380,000 salary she received for moving to eHealth.

Interim Opposition Leader Bob Runciman said he wants to know whether Caplan had direct knowledge about Kramer’s bonus.

“Every day, the trail of bread crumbs on this issue keeps leading closer to the health minister’s office,” said Runciman.

Bob Runciman has it right:

“We expect the Minister to reveal today the exact amount of Ms. Kramer’s compensation package, and whether or not she has been asked to pay back any of her lucrative salary, hefty bonus and extravagant expenses.”

Ms. Kramer will get $317,000 in severance pay, but will forego the bonus and benefits stipulated in her contract. According to Caplan spokesman Steve Irwin, Ms. Kramer will be required to pay back some of that money if she gets another job in the next 10 months.

The socialist in me weeps tears of sorrow. In the same newspaper, I read about untendered contracts, thousands of dollars milked from the tax-payer by a husband and wife team of consultants and then I read this:

Because Abbas lives in Ottawa, and doesn’t have private health insurance, she has to pay $3,250 a month for a single shot of Tysabri, which is given to MS patients with a severe form of the disease.

She began taking the shot on her birthday, May 20, 2008, and has struggled to make the payments ever since. Last month, she had to go without, and just last week she was given her shot but told immediately afterwards her credit card was maxed out.

Abbas has been given until tomorrow to pay the money.

GM bailouts are “regrettable, but necessary” — not!

Harper is making me puke:

“Do we do our share and keep our share of the industry here or do we let it be restructured to the United States?”

Well, if it was put to a vote, I guess I would choose to let the whole industry be restructured to the United States, thank you very much. Oh, well. Like most things in a democracy, you never really get to vote on anything of substance.

UPchuckDATE:

The federal and Ontario governments do not expect General Motors Corp. (GM-N0.75—-%) to repay the bulk of the $9.5-billion (U.S.) in Canadian loans the auto maker is receiving as part of Monday’s bankruptcy filing, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.
—SNIP—
The governments will try to recoup their money by divesting shares over eight years, hoping the stock price is high enough to provide a return. The auto maker doesn’t have to pay back any more than the $1.3-billion loan.

Oh, I get it. This is just an extension of the American Print And Pray strategy to managing economic disparity. Of course “The Canadian governments could not just stand “idly by” and do nothing, Mr. Harper said, after the former Bush administration in the United States decided late last year to rescue the auto sector.”

Seriously, though. This has nothing to do with cars, industry nor the economy for that matter. The purpose of this bailout is just to subsidize the General Motors pension plans.

UPchuckDATEtoo:
We can not forget the parts manufacturers either. We can not let them fail, now, can we?

eHealth Ontario — Liberal public service abuse

Praise goes out to Antonella Artuso of the Sun Media Chain for keeping the public informed about the systemic waste at eHealth Ontario. The latest revelations are horrifyingly shameful. Here is what eHealth CEO Sarah Kramer had to say:

“We did get the results we were looking for — in fact, we got more than we were looking for,” she said.

No doubt they got what they wanted! It would not surprize me if their primary goals were precisely to line the pockets of consultants and friends.

This is what Health Minister David Caplan had to say:

“No rules were broken,” Caplan said of the spending reports. “There are no questionable contracts.”

See, now, this exemplifies the problem with socialism: waste, gluttony and ripping off the taxpayer are perfectly in line with the rules. For the socialist, there is always The Greater Good — however nebulous it may be — which trumps everything. Corruption is just an unfortunate costs of delivering a public service.

This eHealth nonsense is nothing more than a welfare plan for consultants and silly civil servants: the elite class of parasites who abuse the naive good nature of socialists who demand public funding for health care.

Quebec government plays favorites in abortion industry

The Quebec government is instituting more stringent regulations on abortion providers. Various clinics are no longer going to find it worth their while to offer abortions. Yet, there will be making exceptions:

En fin de journée hier, le ministre de la Santé, Yves Bolduc, a par ailleurs indiqué que les centres de santé des femmes, des organismes à but non lucratif où se pratiquent notamment des interruptions volontaires de grossesse, ne seront pas soumis aux règles les contraignant à devenir des cliniques médicales spécialisées.

Too bad. Quebeckers who want abortions are going to have to wait longer.

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