After barely a week in full-tilt operation the “Cash for Clunkers” program has been suspended. As recently taken apart in a Mises Daily, this program is a particularly absurd example of the broken-window fallacy. But the suspension of the program has brought even more economic absurdity.
If we look beneath the surface of our public affairs, we can discern one fundamental fact, namely, a great redistribution of power between society and the State. This is the fact that interests the student of civilization. He has only a secondary or derived interest in matters like price fixing, wage fixing, inflation, political banking, “agricultural adjustment,” and similar items of State policy that fill the pages of newspapers and the mouths of publicists and politicians. All these can be run up under one head.
A few years ago a House of Representatives Subcommittee on Publicity and Propaganda in the Executive Departments, under the chairmanship of Representative Forest A. Harness, investigated Federal propaganda operations. On one occasion the Committee had as a witness a government-employed doctor. When asked if his public speeches throughout the country presented both sides of the discussion touching compulsory national health insurance, this witness answered: “I don’t know what you mean by both sides.”
Here are some links based on my “Environmental and Resource Economics” lecture. The audio will be available at Mises.org soon. After the IHS Liberty & Society seminar I taught at in June, we collected links relevant to the discussions we had there. The links are here. For links on resource economics more specifically, here is an excellent EconTalk discussion with Mike Munger on the economics of recycling.
Responsible Europeans would welcome a scheme under which future American investment were determined, not by political priorities, but by considerations of where the capital would bring the highest return.
