A true liberal should be given to pause by the very idea of consensus, especially in a scientific realm.  He should be given to pause by the preposterous idea of a 97% consensus on just about anything, especially one as complicated and debatable as causes of global climate change.  He should be given to pause that political ideology is a better predictor of one’s position on AGW than any depth of knowledge on the subject.

 The AGW true believer has become the poster child for ideological blindness posing as commitment to truth, justifying intellectual bullying and the demonization of dissent.

 Principles are developed over much study, analysis, and observation. Such principles help the design of functional solutions, much as the principles of physics aid an engineer to design a functional machine or building. Principles of math and science are relentless, unforgiving and do not bend to the will of the practitioner. Principles of economics, while softer in nature than the natural sciences, will often appear to bend to one’s will in select instances or for short periods of time, but they are ultimately revealed, often as harshly as the hard sciences. There are commonly a variety of variables that hide the action of such soft science principles, but they do not extinguish them.

 Like so many government initiatives they want to provide a benefit (in exchange for votes and power) but they do not want to pay for it, so they create some Rube Goldberg economic fantasy to hide the true cost from everyone- especially themselves.  Only an economic fool would believe that some arrogant, all knowing elitist ass can centrally set prices for anything – wages, healthcare, energy, – ANYTHING -without significant consequences: some easily predictable but often not.  It did not work for Stalin, Mao, Nixon, or Carter and it will not work for our current incarnation of the All Knowing Wizard.

 For years I have remained firm on what a disaster this bill is.  The idea that a federal agency could mandate expensive additional coverages, add preexisting conditions to the risk pool, flatten the yield curve (reduce the spread between the highest and lowest rates), add taxes to medical device makers AND still lower premiums without any sacrifice in service or quality could only be swallowed by blind sycophants or the most economically ignorant in the world.  In the investment world we have long learned to be wary of the deals that are just too good to be true.  This is like having Bernie Madoff propose a health care solution.

 

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